Over the last few weeks, Wordle has become massively popular on social media, and the game’s popularity has already inspired copycats. Named after creator Josh Wardle, the game is completely free and features no advertising. It’s also playable through your browser, requiring no app download. Some decided to take advantage of that fact, most notably Zach Shakked. On January 10th, Shakked released Wordle- The App on the App Store, using the exact same name, as Wardle hadn’t trademarked it. Shakked received a lot of hate on Twitter over the move, and the App Store has now removed the game. The Verge reports the same has happened to other Wordle wannabes, as well.
I don’t think people realize, I don’t need the app to be called Wordle for it to be successful. I can simply buy the Apple Search Ads slot for ‘wordle’ keyword and get cheap downloads and eventually the app, even with a diff name, would rank for Wordle since there is no app.
