New York Times Games
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How the New York Times is building a games platform around Wordle

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 11 min

Wordle was a delightful hit word game that took the puzzle gaming world by storm in October 2021. Made by a lone developer named James Wardle, Wordle was a rare sensation of gaming as millions of people played it and shared their scores globally on social media.

Then the New York Times Games bought it for “seven figures” from Wardle and turned it into a flagship game alongside crossword puzzles and other educational titles. Now the steward of Wordle and the New York Times Games business is Jonathan Knight, who has had a long career in games.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.