Wordle is arguably one of the most popular daily digital puzzle games you can play right now. It became so popular when it launched a few years ago that it spawned numerous clones and blatant ripoffs. Eventually, its popularity saw it get acquired by the New York Times, which added its own touch to it.
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The game has been going strong with the New York Times over the past couple of years, putting out new puzzles daily. However, it now appears that the NYT tech team does not want you to play the game, along with any others owned by the publication. The staff has gone on strike over unfair labour practices and has urged readers not to play the game in solidarity.
Don’t Cross The Digital Picket Line
As reported by Eurogamer, the strike has been organised by The Times Tech Guild, a union that covers around 600 employees that overlook the website and games department of the New York Times. The strike reportedly kicked off after NYT management did not come to an agreement with the union after “multiple rounds of intense bargaining”.
“While NYTGuildTech is out on this ULP strike, we want [New York Times] subscribers to not play any of the Times games like Wordle or Connections or use the Cooking App because doing so would cross the digital picket line,” says one of the tweets by the union.
Among the items reportedly discussed during these rounds of bargaining were work from home/office mandates, pay equality, and subcontracting limits. The NYT management has been accused of unfair “numerous labour law violations” and even intimidating the staff via interrogations of their strike intentions.
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“Our union members and bargaining committee have done everything possible to avoid this ULP strike,” said senior analytics manager and Times Tech Guild unit chair Kathy Zhang in a statement. “But management is more willing to risk our election coverage than they are to agree to a fair deal with its workers. They have left us no choice but to demonstrate the power of our labor on the picket line. Nevertheless, we stand ready to bargain and get this contract across the finish line.”
Wordle has consistently been one of the most played daily puzzle games on the market. This strike may mean that we may not get daily Wordles if the strike goes on for too long and NYT runs out of its banked puzzles.
A daily word puzzle game that took the world by storm in 2022, Wordle gives you six chances to guess a five-letter word, revealing how close you are to the answer on each guess through color-coded squares. Created by a software engineer by the name of Josh Wardle, it was purchased by the New York Times in 2022.