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Programming Apple

Wordle Rip-offs Are Running Rampant on the App Store Again (theverge.com) 50

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
The Wordle clones are back on the App Store, just a few weeks after Apple wiped out nearly all the copycat games in January. From a report: A quick glance at the top free apps on the App Store reveals at least two prominently placed Wordle-alikes, while diving into Apple's more specific word games category (or simply searching "Wordle") surfaces plenty of other copycats, many of which appear to have been part of Apple's first wave of takedowns a few months ago. None of the new games are actively passing themselves off as Wordle -- at least, not in name. Instead, the clones have creatively rebranded to "Wordus," "Word Guess," "Wordl," and other thinly veiled references to the original game. But all of them offer some variant on Wordle's gameplay, down to the same gameplay, UI, design, and color scheme.
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Wordle Rip-offs Are Running Rampant on the App Store Again More

Wordle Rip-offs Are Running Rampant on the App Store Again

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  • "There is no such thing as a new idea." Mark Twain (Score:5, Interesting)

    by spikenerd ( 642677 ) on Thursday March 03, 2022 @10:47AM (#62322129)
    Wordle is a ripoff of the television game show Lingo, which was a ripoff of the 1955 pen-and-paper game Jottle.

    • And it's also boring AF.
      I gave Wordle up after 26 correct guesses in a row, after which cleaning up some cookies reset everything - without a proper login and ability to track my progress, I abandoned it.

      • The challenge is getting it in 3 not 6. I don't really expect to fail to get it in 6 unless my brain somehow disconnects.

        • Sometimes you can, sometimes you can't, for example you can get "chu*k" and then it could be "chuck" or "chunk". Most times I was at 4 out of 6, but I also got several threes and a couple 5s, even one 6 but that's because I was slightly inebriated and made stupid mistakes.

          • Indeed, sometimes it's ambiguous, which is for me where the choice of second and third words is fun. Specifically, I usually try to have l and n eliminated by go two, but not always easy. "tares" is my first choice, then the game starts on round two.

            Then again sometimes you get "vivid" and that took me 5 goes to get, because two v's and the crappest of all vowels? What the hell.

            Anyway just my 2 cents. It's a personal choice, I can't logic you into finding it fun.

            • I start with: Troad, Wince, Mushy; to get all vowels out of the way.

              Specially for the multi-board variants Dordle and Quordle, where you actually have to rack your brains when there are only some weird letters left.

              • After "tares", if I get no letters, then I go for "pound", two more vowels and the n. If I get yellows in the first go then I usually try to rearrange them.

                I'm gonna check out the multi variants.

      • And it's also boring AF.
        I gave Wordle up after 26 correct guesses in a row, after which cleaning up some cookies reset everything - without a proper login and ability to track my progress, I abandoned it.

        Did you try it in hard mode?

        If they made you create an account before being able to play then you'd probably just complain about that, too.

        PS: If you don't want tracking cookies then just browse in private mode.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        , after which cleaning up some cookies reset everything - without a proper login and ability to track my progress, I abandoned it.

        The whole reason it took off was because it ran completely locally - you didn't need to register for anything or provide any personal details. It just saved your progress without registration bullsh*t. In complete contrast to other websites where you practically have to give up your first board just to even look at a webpage, wordle let you play it and tracked your progress with

    • Wordle is a less-violent ripoff of hangman

  • ... if you make a game simple enough anyone can clone it, do you really deserve success? Really wordle is just casual shovelware that got popular.

    • Loose relationship between "simple" and difficulty of cloning. Even looser between that and "success".

      • Loose relationship between "simple" and difficulty of cloning. Even looser between that and "success".

        Still cloning happens to all popular games, league of legends was cloned and Riot tried to sue the cloners. Didn't work out too well. Cloing has been a thing since the beginning of gaming, complaining about it 22 years later is some kind of bullshit. We had the "doom clone" wars of the 90's after doom was released. Then we had the "real time strategy game" clones after dune, warcraft 1 and command and conquer.

        So cloning has been there since the beginning.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by vux984 ( 928602 )

          You are conflating the genesis of a genre with a clone.

          None of the doom clones were trying to confuse buyers into thinking they were the doom "everyone had been talking about". They were marketed to doom players who wanted more doom.

          While many of them were pretty derivative and didn't push the envelope in new directions, they all featured something novel - new sprites, new weapons, new maps, new enemies, new bosses.

          Ditto for the other genre spawning titles you mentioned.

          These wordle clones are nearly pixel

        • Don't forget the bazillion or so Pong "TV GAME"s throughout the 1970s

  • down to the same gameplay, UI, design, and color scheme.

    Are those ... copyright-able?

  • So What? (Score:3)

    by Comboman ( 895500 ) on Thursday March 03, 2022 @10:56AM (#62322161)

    None of the new games are actively passing themselves off as Wordle -- at least, not in name. Instead, the clones have creatively rebranded to "Wordus," "Word Guess," "Wordl," and other thinly veiled references to the original game. But all of them offer some variant on Wordle's gameplay, down to the same gameplay, UI, design, and color scheme.

    1) Game mechanics cannot be copyrighted. The app stores are full of Scrabble "rip-offs", Tetris "rip-offs", etc. None of it is breaking the law as long as they don't use a trademarked name which these clone games do not.

    2) The original outcry over the Wordle "rip-offs" on the app store was not because they were illegal, but because people were trying to profit off a game the developer released to world for free. Now that he has sold it to the New York Times, that good will is gone and the gentleman's agreement is over. Send in the clones.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nagora ( 177841 )

      As you said in your second point, being a rip-off of someone else's idea has no relation to the law. Some rip-offs are illegal, some are not.

    • On point 2, they also copied the copyrighted word list. So that their clone of the algorithm can pick the same random word each day. Chances are good they ripped and translated the code directly for the algorithm so that's infringement #2. NYT changed the word list file recently, but the order of both sets of words is copyrightable.

      The game mechanics can't be copyrighted, but the style can be trademarked. Nobody else can make sticky notes with the exact same color canary yellow as Post-It. 3M even sued

      • A list of facts is not copy-writable. I could make a book listing all the phone numbers, but I couldn't call it Yellow Pages.

        • It's not facts, though. It's the specific order. Having the same curated word list is not a breach but copying it in the same order is. It's not a dry alphabetized list of all possible 5 letter words.

          If I have a Yellow Pages book and put in a fake listing and you copy it for your book, I can go after you.

          • IIRC, they tried that, and failed, but I am having trouble finding the court case.
            But it being a specific list with a specific order is a thing thou. I agree with you there. I thought it just put up some random 5 letter word.

            • It uses the current (local) date as the random number seed to pull the day's word out of the word list. Everyone playing gets the same word and when it hits midnight local time, the puzzle switches to a blank with the new day's word. The thing that made it a global phenomenon is the fact that everyone gets the same word and that they came up with a no-spoiler share mechanism.

        • A list of facts is not copy-writable

          I bet I could write down a copy of it. Just give me a pencil and paper.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • The original outcry over the Wordle "rip-offs" on the app store was not because they were illegal, but because people were trying to profit off a game the developer released to world for free

      What? The original outcry, and the reason the clones were taken down, is that they were a mix of PIIware and fraud. The most popular of them for example was sold as "The Wordle App". Not a Wordle app, but the. That implies that it's official. The copyright infringement of the word list was also surely a factor. It had literally nothing to do with people profiting off copies of an app which is a copy of a game which is a copy of another game.

  • Cause it isn't filled with spam and malware. We promise!
    -Apple

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by esev ( 77914 )

      Besides gaming apps, what technical reason is there for apps to exist? To annoy you with notifications? To have a persistent ID on your device? To ask if you'll share location in return for auto-populating the nearest store? To collect your phone number?

      Companies advertise their apps a lot. But people should be pushing back on them. Apps have more privileges than a web page. And with all the spam and malware it'd be good if folks just got in the habit of adding home screen icons for mobile-optimized web sit

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by hazem ( 472289 )

        Besides gaming apps, what technical reason is there for apps to exist?

        Because not every app is just a "website in a bottle". For example I have an audiobook player that plays the audiobooks on my phone, an app that allows me to ssh into other computers, another one that syncs folders to the nas on my network (and to another phone), one that records gps tracks, etc.

        There are quite a few things that either can't be done as a website, or simply work better when run locally on the device.

      • Browser for looking up porn and memes
        DAVx5 for syncing my calendar The music and podcast apps
        The eReader app for when I forget to pack it.
        The app that syncs the saved meme to my NextCloud box.
        Car Insurance app. Cant hurt to have a second copy of info. It has saved me a ticket since it was right in my phone and I had forgot to replace the one in the wallet.
        And the FM Radio app for when I am tired of my music and podcasts and do know where my headphones are.

  • ....Wordle versions that were bought by a vast media corporate immediately laced with tracking cookies as "ripoffs"?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by splutty ( 43475 )

      Versions? It's *the* Wordle. And the tracking cookies aren't specifically put in, they're just what the "vast media corporate" uses, and you'll be hit with those whenever you visit their "vast media corporate website" regardless of if you're playing Wordle or not.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • or just play the non-commercial version (Score:3)

    by mad7777 ( 946676 ) on Thursday March 03, 2022 @12:53PM (#62322569)
    here: https://madc0w.github.io/wordle/ [github.io]
    sorry phone pokers, it's desktop only.

    • Am I missing something? How is the official website not free to play? It doesn't even have adverts.

  • Wish I had the idea (Score:3)

    by atomicalgebra ( 4566883 ) on Thursday March 03, 2022 @01:45PM (#62322735)
    Wordle is a great game that is actually simple to implement.
  • an obvious ripoff of Scrabble.
  • They bought Wordle recently. Perhaps they should create an app. Are they incapable?

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