A five year old game which was created by an 18 year old has suddenly blown up on the iOS App Store. The Wordle! app suddenly grew from just one to two downloads a day to a whopping 200,000 downloads per week.
iOS App Store Wordle Clones
According to the story by ArsTechnica, they wrote about the legal status of a number of different Wordle clones last week that all briefly clogged the iOS App Store with attempts to make money off of the trendy web game.
The publication has noted how the developer of an app called Wordle! is deciding to donate the proceeds coming from an unexpected windfall that was driven by the unrelated viral hit.
18 Year Old Created Wordle! 5 Years Ago
Here’s how a mobile game I built 5 years ago suddenly got blown up by The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Jimmy Fallon.
— Steven (@StevenCravotta) January 12, 2022
👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼 pic.twitter.com/aun7YM80p4
The developer, Steven Cravotta, wrote about how he initially created a game called Wordle! five years ago at just the age of 18. According to Cravotta, he created the game mostly for fun and to help sharpen his coding skills. He likewise saw the game as a an opportunity to make a "quick buck."
The game works by asking players to build as many words as they can from a certain set of letters under a strict time limit. According to Cravotta's post on Twitter, the game got 100,000 free downloads in just a matter of months before Cravotta decided to stop updating and promoting the app.
Wordle! Grew from One to Two Downloads a Day to 200,000 Downlaods Per Week
Cravotta was said to be surprised when the usual pace of one or even two legacy downloads per day suddenly increased to a whopping 200,000 downloads per week.
This unexpected pike was actually the result of the popularity of the other Wordle game, which is a daily in-browser word-guessing game that was created by Josh Wardle. These two games happen to share the same name, but are actually not related to each other.
Cravotta noted that major publications talking about World have failed to specify that the game is an internet browser game only. Because of this, most people decided to go on the App Store and search for Wordle.
This, in turn, helped boost the downloads of the game he created.
What the Two Developers Plan to do from the Money?
Aside from the press attention, the sudden outbreak of the link-free tweets that were promoting the browser game probably had a lot of people assuming that they were talking about the mobile app.
Carvotta, however, is not really reveling in his good luck and spending all the money. Both Cravotta and Wordle have repeatedly confirmed that the proceeds they get from in-app purchases in the iOS game will be donated to Boost Oakland, a youth-mentoring tutorial partnership.
Cravotta revealed to The Verge that the total windfall now amounts to $2,000, as of press time, and this number could increase by the time they are planning the donation, which is by the end of the month.
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This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by Urian B.
