The site now hosts a message, spotted by Ars Technica, which states: “Sadly, the New York Times has requested that the Wordle Archive be taken down.” “The usage was unauthorised, and we were in touch with them,” a NYT spokesperson said. “We don’t plan to comment beyond that.” In January, NYT bought Wordle from its original creator Josh Wardle for a seven-figure sum, and has since made several changes which have irritated Wordle fans. The puzzle’s move to the NYT website reset the prized play streaks of some players, while the subsequent removal of some rude and obscure words messed with the game’s code, leading to a day where Wordle featured two separate words for different groups of players. The New York Times has said Wordle will “initially” remain free to new and existing players - leading to questions of how it may be monetised. One option would be a playable archive of older puzzles - what Wordle Archive offered - which is how the NYT Mini crossword is monetised via the NYT puzzle app. For now, it’s worth pointing out some other Wordle archive sites still remain available - although it’s perhaps best we don’t link to them, in case NYT also sees…
