Wordle is the most popular puzzle game on the internet right now and was recently acquired by The New York Times for an undisclosed amount in the seven-figure price range.
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However, it's a web-only game, so when 50,000 people downloaded "Wordle!" over five days, developer Steven Cravotta was shocked and surprised. He realized that the app he made years ago was getting confused with the viral online game created by Josh Wardle.
Cravotta became aware of his app's success when he was home for Christmas in Atlanta with family members. Then, his app averaged just two or three downloads per day.
"I had no reason to build this app other than I enjoyed doing this," Cravotta told The Washington Post via Zoom. "It was my passion. And you know, I didn’t think anything was going to come of it, I just thought it would be cool to have my friends play a game that I put on the App Store."
Cravotta's "Wordle!" has a handful of different games where players are either guessing or spelling words with a limited number of attempts. Wardle's "Wordle" is just one game that gives users six chances to guess a daily word of five letters. Cravotta checked the download numbers while he was home for the holidays, and was blown away by the half a million downloads out of nowhere.
"I thought someone had sent robot downloads to my app, or whatever," Cravotta said. "But I did a quick Google search, and obviously, Josh Wardle's game came up — 'Wordle.'"
"I freaked out," Cravotta said. "I was like, 'This is insane. This guy made this great game, and people are confusing it for mine.'"
Cravotta then messaged Wardle about the confusion people had with their games, and added that he never considered taking legal action over the name or the games' similarities.
"Absolutely never ever crossed my mind," Cravotta said. "Josh and I teamed up instead to make a positive impact on the world. We uplifted each other."
Cravotta's app may be free to download, but he's profited off in-app purchases and in-app advertising. "Wordle!" is only available on Apple's App Store and has a total of 8 million downloads so far.
"I read how [Wardle initially] didn’t want to put ads on it or make any revenue off of his game — and I respected that," Cravotta said.
After talking to Wardle, Cravotta donated $50,000 of his app's revenue to Boost! West Oakland, which provides free tutoring and mentorship for children in the area. It was the perfect organization to donate to, as Wardle used to be based in Oakland. Cravotta also felt like an educational group was the perfect fit with their word puzzle games.
"It's almost fate that Josh and I were connected," Cravotta said. "What's great about our generation is we are not here to go after each other, but uplift each other’s ideas and make the world a better place while doing it." Cravotta told the paper that he developed the game when he was 18, and the now-24-year-old is still in shock his game became popular, even if it was by accident.
"It's crazy to think back during that time when I was building ('Wordle!'), because I was literally reading through a dictionary on the Internet and putting words into the game manually," Cravotta said. "I just had no idea it was going to blow up like this down the road."
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