Wordle owner New York Times suing one-man country-guessing game Worldle

The New York Times, owner of Wordle, is suing a one-man geography-guessing alternative project named Worldle.

Hit puzzle game Wordle was the work of British designer Josh Wardle, until it was bought by The New York Times in 2022 for a seven-figure sum. It’s now operated as part of The New York Times’ growing games portfolio and is played by millions daily.

The browser-based Worldlemeanwhile, was built and is still run by one man – Seattle-based Kory McDonald, and has around 100,000 players each month.

In a legal filing seen by the BBCThe New York Times accuses McDonald of “creating confusion” and taking advantage of “the enormous goodwill” of Wordle for his own project.

McDonald, speaking with the BBC, said in response that there was “a whole industry” of games with similar names.

“I’m just a one-man operation here, so I was kinda surprised,” he said. “Worst-case scenario, we’ll change the name, but I think we’ll be okay.”

Other games similar to Wordle include Flaggle for flags, Lewdle for rude words, Headle for music and Murdle for a mix of Wordle and hangman. But there are hundreds of others.

In March, The New York Times issued a takedown notice to Reactle, a Wordle clone and code repository, which meant around 1900 other versions of the game were also taken down.

Last year, the newspaper shook off claims its Connections game bore a close resemblance to BBC Quiz show Only Connect.