Welsh creator of Wordle says he sold the game due to ‘deeply unpleasant’ rip off copies

The Welsh creator of the smash hit game  Wordle has admitted felt he had to sell the game to the New York Times due to stress from number of copycats versions which sprang up following the original’s success.

Josh Wardle, who lives in Brooklyn, but grew up in Llanddewi Rhydderch, near Abergavenny, sold the game in January for a figure “in the low seven figures”, admitting the success of Wordle had become “a little overwhelming”.

Speaking at a recent Game Developers Conference, Wardle confessed he found it difficult to cope with the word games’ phenomenal online success and in particular was unhappy at the number of rip off versions that were launched to make money off the back of Wardle’s free game.

Deeply unpleasant

“That isn’t money that I would have made, because I said I don’t want to make money, but something about [the copies] felt really deeply unpleasant for me,” he said.

The situation “felt like it was all going to get really, really complicated in a way that just [made me] pretty stressed out, truthfully.”

“It was clear that this [copying] was going to happen, regardless of whether I wanted it to happen or not. The business side of running a game doesn’t interest me at all” said Wardle.

“So other people monetising wasn’t the reason that I sold to The New York Times, but if I find myself thinking about the what-ifs now… I have to remind myself of how I felt around that time, and I felt miserable.”

Wardle went attended King Henry VIII School in Abergavenny, before going on to study Media Arts, at Royal Holloway, University of London.

He has worked for the likes of tech giants Reddit, and Pinterest and said he and his partner originally played the game for fun on their sofa.

“It going viral doesn’t feel great to be honest. I feel a sense of responsibility for the players. I feel I really owe it to them to keep things running and make sure everything’s working correctly,” he told the Guardian in January.