{"id":34677,"date":"2022-01-12T16:59:00","date_gmt":"2022-01-12T21:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=34677"},"modified":"2022-03-07T16:48:43","modified_gmt":"2022-03-07T21:48:43","slug":"wordle-clones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2022\/01\/12\/wordle-clones\/","title":{"rendered":"Wordle Clones"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/daringfireball.net\/2022\/01\/apple_app_store_world_ripoffs\">John Gruber<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/daringfireball.net\/2022\/01\/apple_app_store_world_ripoffs\">\n<p>Apple&rsquo;s App Store is lousy with Wordle rip-offs. I mean not just the concept&#x2009;&mdash;&#x2009;there&rsquo;s a long history of &ldquo;guess the word&rdquo; games, including a defunct game show called &ldquo;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Lingo_(American_game_show)\">Lingo<\/a>&rdquo; that was clearly an inspiration for Wordle&#x2009;&mdash;&#x2009;but literally the <em>name<\/em> &ldquo;Wordle&rdquo; and its design. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/gregkarber\/status\/1481001103328088065\">As observed by Greg Karber<\/a>, as I write this, the #3, #7, #14, and #15 word games in the iOS App Store are shameless Wordle clones <em>stealing the name &ldquo;Wordle&rdquo;<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>And then we get to the real gem of the bunch. &ldquo;<a href=\"https:\/\/apps.apple.com\/us\/app\/wordle-the-app\/id1604016922\">Wordle - The App<\/a>&rdquo;, by Zach Shakked, a free-to-download app with a 30-fucking-dollar-per-year &ldquo;Pro&rdquo; unlock. Shakked&rsquo;s rip-off doesn&rsquo;t just steal Wordle&rsquo;s name, design, and mechanics, its &ldquo;The App&rdquo; suffix clearly was chosen to make it look like the official App Store version of Wardle&rsquo;s original.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Apple removed the ones using the &ldquo;Wordle&rdquo; name last night.<\/p>\n\n<p>Previously:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2022\/01\/11\/ampme\/\">AmpMe<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2022\/01\/05\/wordle\/\">Wordle<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2014\/03\/28\/the-making-of-threes\/\">The Making of Threes<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<p id=\"wordle-clones-update-2022-01-24\">Update (2022-01-24): <a href=\"https:\/\/daringfireball.net\/2022\/01\/five_letter_word_for_ripoff\">John Gruber<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/daringfireball.net\/2022\/01\/five_letter_word_for_ripoff\">\n<p>Some good rules of thumb, if you&rsquo;re weighing whether a derivative new work crosses the threshold into ripping off the original: If the derivative steals the original&rsquo;s title or name, that&rsquo;s a rip-off. If the derivative is designed to confuse people into thinking it <em>is<\/em> the original&#x2009;&mdash;&#x2009;as Shakked&rsquo;s Wordle clone clearly did&#x2009;&mdash;&#x2009;that&rsquo;s a rip-off. If the derivative is indistinguishable from the original or brings nothing new to the table, it&rsquo;s probably a rip-off.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>When last week&rsquo;s controversy erupted, I watched some footage of Lingo, and rolled my eyes at the &ldquo;Wordle is just a rip-off of Lingo&rdquo; allegations. Yes, both games are about guessing five-letter words. But a game show where you compete against other contestants and against a clock &ldquo;smells&rdquo; quite different from Wordle&rsquo;s solo gameplay and leisurely &ldquo;<em>take as much time as you want<\/em>&rdquo; pace.<\/p>\n<p>Turns out Lingo isn&rsquo;t just a TV game show, though. It&rsquo;s an officially-licensed video game&#x2009;&mdash;&#x2009;<a href=\"https:\/\/apps.apple.com\/us\/app\/lingo-official-mobile-game\/id1564413692\">in both the App Store<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/play.google.com\/store\/apps\/details?id=uk.co.twowaymedia.lingo\">Play Store<\/a>. David Barnard was the first person I saw who pointed to the official Lingo game, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/drbarnard\/status\/1481115822575824898\">tweeting thus<\/a>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p id=\"wordle-clones-update-2022-03-07\">Update (2022-03-07): <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/3\/2\/22958907\/wordle-rip-offs-app-store-apple-new-york-times-word-game-moderation\">Chaim Gartenberg<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/3\/2\/22958907\/wordle-rip-offs-app-store-apple-new-york-times-word-game-moderation\">\n<p>The Wordle clones are back on the App Store, just a few weeks after Apple wiped out nearly all the copycat games in January.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>None of the new games are actively passing themselves off as Wordle &mdash; at least, not in name. Instead, the clones have creatively rebranded to &ldquo;Wordus,&rdquo; &ldquo;Word Guess,&rdquo; &ldquo;Wordl,&rdquo; and other thinly veiled references to the original game. But all of them offer some variant on Wordle&rsquo;s gameplay, down to the same gameplay, UI, design, and color scheme.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>John Gruber: Apple&rsquo;s App Store is lousy with Wordle rip-offs. I mean not just the concept&#x2009;&mdash;&#x2009;there&rsquo;s a long history of &ldquo;guess the word&rdquo; games, including a defunct game show called &ldquo;Lingo&rdquo; that was clearly an inspiration for Wordle&#x2009;&mdash;&#x2009;but literally the name &ldquo;Wordle&rdquo; and its design. As observed by Greg Karber, as I write this, the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2022-01-12T21:59:04Z","apple_news_api_id":"f3766baf-3ffb-4746-b82f-2af2c617590d","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2022-03-07T21:48:46Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAg==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A83Zrrz_7R0a4LyryxhdZDQ","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[91,418,31,2078,26,1365,2155],"class_list":["post-34677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-appstore","tag-game","tag-ios","tag-ios-15","tag-iosapp","tag-trademark","tag-wordle"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34677"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35199,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34677\/revisions\/35199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}