The days of precariously storing your Wordle history in your browser's cache are over: You now need a free New York Times account to see your stats.
I know this because I am one of the holdouts who never connected their Wordle history to an account. Since the start, my Wordle record has been tied to the Chrome profile I use for work. (Please don't make me explain why it's my work profile.)
However, when I finished today's Wordle—the 1,000th Wordle puzzle—the bar graph of my guess distribution that I've been seeing for years was absent. In its place was an invitation to see my stats by making a free New York Times account. NYT purchased Wordle from creator Josh Wardle in 2022. (Yes, the Wordle guy is named Wardle.)
In a 2022 GDC talk, Wardle attributed Wordle's success in part to players sharing results on social media, and said that he didn't actually invent the idea: he turned the emoji block recaps into an automated feature after he saw a player doing it manually. That sharability, along with it being free and requiring no account creation, led to Wordle's viral spread. (Fun fact: The first place it blew up was New Zealand.)
Wordle can still be played without an account, but if you want a readout of your stats, making a New York Times account is now mandatory—I couldn't find a way around it, and other players on social media are reporting the same thing.
The New York Times is perhaps getting more serious about converting Wordle's enduring popularity into income—the paper recently targeted nearly 2,000 Wordle-like games with DMCA notices.
The Big Catch: Tacklebox is the hardest 3D platformer I've ever played, 8+ hours long, and a free to play 'prologue' to a bigger, better game on the way
Disney Dreamlight Valley's next free update, Jungle Getaway, will introduce two new characters
I'm terrified for my free time after a few hours with the Dead Cells developer's new frantic co-op roguelike out this month
A Valve engineer used ChatGPT to find a new matchmaking algorithm for Deadlock, and now it's in the game
Депутат Свищев: «Овечкин очень нужен в России, ждем, когда в Москве откроется его академия. Саша принесет огромную пользу нашему и мировому хоккею»
Абрамович продаёт "Гараж": Либеральный олигарх признал поражение в культурной борьбе против России?
В Петербурге прошёл национальный форум «Кадры решают всё
ПРИБОРЫ ЗЕМЛИ ИЗОБРАЗИЛИ НА КАРТЕ МИРА КОШКУ, ПОПУГАЯ, ДИНОЗАВРА, ЛЬВА? Россия, США, Европа могут улучшить отношения?! Очень полезные советы Высшего Всенародного Президента Вселенной активной.