For all those who feel a certain pride in playing Quordle, the five-letter word game known for being four times more difficult than Wordle, your word search is justified. Popular dictionary brand Merriam-Webster has bought the popular online puzzle game and announced it Thursday.
Quietly storming the game, Merriam-Webster, owned by Encyclopedia Britannica, launched shortly after Wordle became an online phenomenon in late 2021.
Quordle has a lot in common with Wordle. Where Wordle asks you to solve a five-letter puzzle in five guesses, Quordle asks you to solve four five-word puzzles at the same time in nine tries.
Both offer you a standard virtual keyboard and after you enter a five-letter guess, the letters appear in all four-word pads. Correct letters in the correct dots are green and correct letters in the wrong dots are orange. Yes, just like Wordle.
The big difference is that one set of letters applies immediately to all four puzzles, which is why Quordle is more difficult. You solve four puzzles at once in just nine tries.
The news of the acquisition was announced on Twitter by the Quordle account and now the Quordle URL https://www.quordle.com turns into the Merriam-Webster URL.
I’m excited to announce that Quordle has been acquired by MerriamWebster and I can’t think of a better home for this game. Lots of new features and fun coming, so stay tuned!January 20, 2023
Quordle doesn’t have the same kind of rabid fanbase as Wordle (it’s just too finicky, maybe), but Merriam-Webster’s support could change that.
However, what most people didn’t know until Friday was that Merriam-Webster bought Quordle last year.
“The founder was a huge fan of us being such a home of the product…my editors and I were huge fans. Negotiations were fast and happy,” Gregory Barlow, president of Merriam-Webster, told me Friday.
After the acquisition for an undisclosed sum, Barlow said, the dictionary site has made minor changes to Quordle, such as adding the Merriam-Webster logo last month. However, it wasn’t until they migrated the entire Quordle platform and URL to Merriam-Webster’s servers on Thursday (January 19) that Quordle creator Freddie Meyer shared the news on Twitter.
While the URL is different, Quordle fans shouldn’t expect any major changes.
“I don’t have any changes planned. We do have some new features and maybe some new game types coming, but the core game that people play every day, I don’t expect it to change.”
Most importantly, Merriam-Webster has no plans to put Quordle behind a paywall. This should please a lot of loyal players. According to Barlow, 29.7 million users have played Quordle 410 million times over the past six months.
Are there any concerns that The New York Times might come after the now-most popular newspaper, Quordle, because of its similarity to Wordle? I asked Barlow.
“number. [It’s] Certainly does not copy Wordle. We like Quordle a lot because it’s a different game. Having to do four words introduces such different kinds of play styles and tactics.”
And yes, Barlow is a Quordle player, and it was a long time before Merriam-Webster bought the game.