New York Times Buys Wordle for More Than $1M – A Big Lesson if You Want To Make Money as a Content Creator
Money should not be your main driver, but rather a positive consequence of something more important.
Even if you're not a fan of online games, you might have heard about Wordle at the beginning of 2022. An online word game created by a developer for his wife initially, which has been a huge success since early January. Wordle appeared online in October 2021 as a simple site without any advertising. As of November 1st, Wordle had at most 90 users.
And then, the game developer, Josh Wardle, integrated a feature to share the results obtained by players. The buzz then took over the Internet, and the game surpassed 300,000 users in the middle of January 2022. Today, several million players play Wordle every day.
The principle of Wordle is very simple: each day you have a new word to find. A word of 5 letters to find in a maximum of 6 tries. At each attempt, the game gives you clues with the letters well placed, those present in the word but badly placed, and those absent.
As Wordle's success took hold of the Internet, thousands of copies were published on the Apple and Google app stores. The phenomenon became such that these two web giants had to delete a very large number of them.
Wordle's runaway success convinced The New York Times to buy the game for a 7-figure sum
The Wordle phenomenon convinced the New York Times to buy the game from its developer for a 7-figure sum, but less than 5 million dollars. No more details have filtered on the amount of this deal which confirms the strategy in which the New York Times has been involved since the implementation of its paywall in 2011.
The goal of the Times is to convince users and readers to subscribe to its online content, in a web world where the business model is mainly oriented on free with advertising. The strategy of the New York Times is working since the group announced in its results in November 2021 to count 8.4 million subscribers to its services.
These subscribers want to read content, but also have fun. And it is in this logic that the purchase of Wordle is part of the New York Times, which wants to reach 10 million subscribers to its paid offer by 2025. Once the purchase was made public, Josh Wardle took the opportunity to put forward a story that is in line with the Times' strategy:
“New York Times Games play a big part in its origins, and so this step feels very natural to me.”
Indeed, Josh Wardle would have had the idea of his game while playing the Times crosswords every day with his wife during the COVID-19 pandemic. Here is a story that will add to the legend of this success story. The Times has just announced that Wordle will remain free for all users, and above all without any advertising.
Wordle's success is an essential lesson for anyone who wants to make money as a content creator
And that's where a big lesson for anyone who wants to make money as a content creator comes in.
Josh Wardle designed his Wordle game with one goal in mind: to make it as enjoyable as possible for users. He also wanted to make it addictive by adding an obvious limit: scarcity. You have access to only one word to find each day. If you still want to play and improve your scores, you'll have to come back and play tomorrow.
In a world where abundance is king, but where people get bored of new things faster than ever, Wordle has the ingredient to make it last over time.
Josh Wardle focused on the player. To do so, he made the daring choice of not including any advertising in his game, and of making it free for everyone. Imagine the gamble that represents. Josh Wardle spent hours creating this game, but he didn't have in mind to generate money with it. At least not at first.
A free game without any advertising is a rarity these days. And yet, this is what allowed Josh Wardle to become a millionaire thanks to his work as a content creator. Users no longer want paid games or content, but rather value. The free model financed by a lot of ads, each one more intrusive than the other, has also become tiresome.
Your priority should be to bring maximum value to others. Money will only come later as a positive consequence
As a content creator, your main goal should be to bring maximum value to users. These users can be gamers, readers, or people watching your videos. But either way, the approach is the same if you want to make money online these days: you need to make the value you bring to others a priority.
Once you maximize that value, then your work will pay off for you. Wordle's users multiplied because the game was addictive and gave them something to do every day: a challenge. They didn't leave the game quickly, because Josh Wardle's one word per day model avoided saturation. He found the perfect compromise to make Wordle a lasting success.
The result is this 7-figure buyout by the New York Times.
If you want to make money online, you now know what your priority should be: the value you bring to others. The quality of your work and patience will then do the rest.
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