WhileWordleis a fun enough game in a vacuum, there’s no denying that competition is a significant part of what propelled it to viral success. Sharing their scores over social media is a major draw for many players. However, that only works as intended if every player isguessing at the same word.
Unfortunately, that’s not always the case right now.Wordle’srecent handover to the New York Times appears to have resulted in players getting different words depending on the version they are using, so be aware of spoilers ahead for today’sWordlepuzzle.
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The New York Times acquired Wordle in January for an undisclosed amount “in the low seven figures,” according to the Times. The handover officially took place on the 11th, which caused a few minor hiccups, asNBA player Karl-Anthony Towns recently discovered. Another unintended side effect is that there are two different versions of the game depending on whether someone plays it from the NYT’s website or the original powerlanguage.co.uk.
This stems from the changes The New York Times made toWordle’sword list. Before the NYT acquisition,Wordle’sdictionary included most five-letter English words. This included several terms that wouldn’t be welcome in casual conversation, such as slurs and swear words.The New York Times censored these words, removing them from the game’s database.
The NYT also deleted several other termsfor less clear reasons. This included seemingly innocuous words like “pupal” and “agora.” The latter of which is the term for the public square in an ancient Greek city and was today’s word on the original version of the game. However, those playing it on the Time’s website instead got the word “aroma.” The original site should redirect the user to the game’s new location, preventing this issue. However, the original version is both still online and still accessible for some users. Fortunately, players can simply refresh the page, and it will take them to the new location.
Of course, that’s assuming everyone wants to jump right into the New York Times version. While players can still accessWordlefor free, there’s no guarantee that will always be the case. The Times obviously hopes to turn a profit from the game and said as much during the January 31st NYT article announcing the purchase. After all, the company has already changed the game once, and there’s no guarantee the newspaper won’t do it again.
