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For anyone who feels a certain pride in playing Quordle, the five-letter word game best known for being four times more difficult than Wordle, your word search is warranted. Iconic dictionary brand Merriam-Webster bought the popular online puzzle game and announced it on Thursday.
Merriam-Webster, which is owned by Encyclopedia Britannica, quietly picked up the game, which 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 word puzzle in five guesses, Quordle asks you to simultaneously solve four five-word puzzles in nine attempts.
Both provide you with a standard virtual keyboard, and after you enter a five-letter word, letters appear on all four-word boards. The right letters in the right places are green and the right letters in the wrong places are orange. Yes, just like Wordle.
The big difference is that one set of letters directly applies to all four puzzles, which is why Quordle is considered so much more difficult. You solve four puzzles at once in just nine attempts.
News of the acquisition was announced on Twitter by the Quordle account and now Quordle URL https://www.quordle.com decide on one Merriam-Webster URL.
I am pleased to announce that Quordle has been acquired by @MerriamWebster. I can’t think of a better home for this game. Lots of new features and fun are coming, so stay tuned!January 20, 2023
Quordle doesn’t have the same fan base as Wordle (perhaps it’s just too difficult), but Merriam-Webster’s support could change that.
However, what most people didn’t know until Friday is that Merriam-Webster bought Quordle last year.
“The founder was a big fan of us as a home for the product… Me and our editors were big fans. The negotiations went quickly and happily,” Gregory Barlow, president of Merriam-Webster, told me Friday.
Barlow said that following the acquisition for an undisclosed sum, the dictionary website made only subtle changes to Quordle, such as adding the Merriam-Webster logo last month. 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.
Although the URL is different, Quordle fans should not 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 I don’t expect the core game people play every day to change.”
More importantly, Merriam-Webster has no plans to put Quordle behind a paywall. That should please many dedicated players. According to Barlow, 29.7 million users have played Quordle 410 million times in the past six months.
Is there, I asked Barlow, any concerns about The New York Times coming after the now more high-profile Quordle because of its Wordle similarities?
“No. [It’s] absolutely no Wordle copying. We love Quordle because it’s such a different game. Having to do four words introduces such different types of gameplay and tactics.”
And yes, Barlow is a Quordle player and it took Merriam-Webster that long to buy the game.