Another 'Wordle' App Mixup Occurs, Only This Time Recipient Of Undue Rewards Builds Good Will
Furnished content.
This post was written before the news today that the NY Times was buying Wordle. It will be interesting to see if suddenly "IP issues" start becoming a bigger deal to the NY Times than they were to the original developer...Just a week or so back, we discussed how one man ripped off Wordle, a browser-based Mastermind style game who's creator insists be free and unmonetized. In that instance, Zach Shakked copied the game with only a few minor additional features and released it as an app going by the same name, Wordle, only to find that the entire internet decided this was a dick move and helped get the app delisted from Apple and Google stores. That was a story about how one bad actor got dealt with without anyone having to go down intellectual property or legal routes.Well, here we are again with yet another unaffiliated Wordle app syphoning off money from people who think they're getting the browser game in an app... only this time the recipient of that undue income is building up a ton of goodwill by not being a jerk about it.
As spotted by GR+, Josh Wardle’s Wordle has led to squillions of confused players (hello!) accidentally downloading a five-year-old app with the same name to their mobile devices. The result being, creator of the other Wordle ended up receiving close to 200,000 downloads in a couple of days. More than it had received in total in the previous five years. And in turn, generating him a whole bunch of advertising revenue.Steven Cravotta created that app five years ago as a teenager almost strictly to practice his coding skills. When he woke up the other day to suddenly find advertising revenue pouring in from the since-forgotten app, he didn't simply sit back and start counting all the dollar signs floating before his eyes. Instead, he started tweeting about how weird this all was and how much he wishes that the media did a better job of differentiating between Wordle the browser game and any Wordle mobile app.
Here’s how a mobile game I built 5 years ago suddenly got blown up by The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Jimmy Fallon. pic.twitter.com/aun7YM80p4— Steven (@StevenCravotta) January 12, 2022
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