Yeah. And along the way on the arbitrage, did you try to buy other games? Because we're winding up to this Wordle impact for us. What between the first two games and the Wordle story happened? Yeah. So, you know, uh, throughout the 2010s, I'm Joseph Rutder, and I'm here with my co-hosts, Aaron Cardell and Nate Cadillac, where we typically speak with game creators and experts about their stories. Today, we turn the lens on our co-founder Aaron and games and his adventures in games. We're about 20 episodes into our podcast and one of the games that continues to come up over and over and over is Wordle. We could be talking about music, AI, kids in gaming, how it impacts our brains, and this game continues to weave itself into our conversations. And it turns out we have our own Wordle story. So, a little bit about Wordle. If you haven't heard of this thing, Wordle is a web-based daily game about one single word. It's created and developed by a Welsh software engineer, Josh Wardle. Players have six attempts to guess what is this fiveletter word, and feedback is given on each of the tiles in a colored format that indicates whether or not you're right or not about those letters in that position. Wordle has just one solution each day and the players for that day attempt the same word. So during 2023, Wordle has been played 4.8 billion times on our estimates estimates on our estimates. It's become a cultural touch point. It's written into TV episodes and it's referenced continually not only on our podcast. So Aaron, before we get into the whle side of things, you were maybe the first of all of us to build a game. What drew you down that path? Yeah. Yeah. So the the first game that I built commercially anyway uh was not originally intended to be commercialized. So, uh, one of the the Hey, good game properties, uh, kakuroconquest, uh,.com, uh, is, uh, right now the most popular website out there for playing Kakuro. Um, and really what inspired that, um, you go back to the mid 2000s, there was pretty big Suduku craze. Uh, everybody was playing Suduku. Um, and this was a time where uh people would actually go to bookstores and hang out and uh near near my house uh could walk to a a Borders bookstore, if anybody remembers what that actually was. And uh uh along with the stack of books of all of these Suduku puzzles, there was uh you know just some other offshoot puzzles and uh Kakuro was one of them. And I had really taken to Suduku. Uh, one of the sites at the time uh, that had kind of popularized that was, uh, web suduku.com. And as I'm looking at at these Borders books and some of these other games, I was like, well, you know, I bet I could make a online version of Kakuro. This looks like a fun game. Um, and it just kind of hit at a time for me where I had just invested like 5 years in a prior startup. Um, and I just wanted to do something fun. I wanted to build something fun. And so I I made my online version of Kakuro. Um, no intent to monetize initially. I just wanted to see if I could do it. And uh, um, that's that's what got me started down that path. Super fascinating to think about Suduku driving. That was a craze. I had books, little pen. You know, when I graduated from the pencil to the pen, I knew I was I was getting better at seeing the patterns, right? How how once you put Kakuro up, how'd it go? Yeah, I mean, it was, you know, I I just put it up on a a web host. Uh didn't really think much of it. Um, you know, there were really two aspects of that. I I made a puzzle generator that would actually generate the puzzles and then I made the puzzle player which was the online player and um really just kind of got it up and uh you know that was 2006 2007 that the first iteration of that was up. I would say over the next twoish years or so, it kind of quickly shot up to, you know, a consistent like number two in the Google search results, uh, if you're searching for Kakuro. And so kind of got a steady following. And um like I said, I I never in initially intended to monetize, but what kind of altered my thinking on that was um later in 2007, I actually built another game uh which couldn't get off the Conquest theme. Uh called that one World Conquest. Uh and what World Conquest was was uh basically a a slight knockoff of the Risk Board game. um but on Facebook. Uh and so you could play on Facebook against your friends risk. Um and I I immediately put on ads on that cuz that attracted quite a following pretty quickly. Um actually ended up selling that 4 months after I built it to SGN. Um but it was sort of out of that experience like oh you know there I guess there is some money to be made on on ads and it was only after kind of going through that experience selling it that I later came back to uh putting some ads on on Kakuro Conquest. Um but yeah it was just a a slow and steady build over time. I've always wondered about the Conquest theme. Was that chosen just because it was an available domain domain name? Like what how did that come about? Uh, good question. I have no idea. World Conquest as a Risk knockoff makes way more sense than Kakuro Conquest. Um, I think uh probably had a thesaurus out someday and was just like, what are things that could go after Kakuro and still be a a do but uh it stuck. I'm curious like how how that would advertising in the late 2000s is different from from today and uh what what did you learn from that experience? Well, I think there were things to learn both on um buying ad traffic or or you know buying traffic through ads and uh having traffic on your site. So, um, back to the other game for a minute. Like, one of the ways that I quickly grew the audience for the World Conquest game on Facebook was actually buying Facebook ads. And it's insane to think about this today, but back then, like you could like for anywhere from 1 to 10 cents a click, get people to your Facebook game. and let so like there was this arbitrage like you could literally get people to your game cheaper than you were monetizing them on on the other side. While it's theoretically possible to do that today, we're just in a very different environment. It's very competitive. It's super hard. Um there's so many data scientists today. Like the idea of buying traffic to have a positive arbitrage on a game today is just it's night and day different. Um, the other thing is, uh, you know, I think back then for most games, uh, or or at least most people in my position, it was really like you had one option. It was AdSense and like, uh, bulk of the AdSense traffic was really like text ads. you would maybe see occasionally like a a display ad come in, but it was so much uh um you know, here are your three text links uh right alongside your game. Um and that was kind of the bread and butter of what uh Google was doing at the time. Um, and it it just kind of evolved over time from there to have, you know, these days like we get emailed all the time by ad providers wanting to work with us on our ad strategy and uh, you know, just a lot of other options that are kind of more open to, you know, small to midsize game creators that that weren't available then. So, you're making games. Somewhere along the line, you put in like a contact us form, right? And people started whipping emails at you. You're like, "Oh, take the form down." Like, what keeps you engaged in games? Outside of like the puzzle I heard at the beginning, the I wonder if I could do this. Oh, I can do this. I wonder if I can do this again. Oh, I can buy traffic and make money. like what what's the step after that that keeps the flywheel going here in your brain? Yeah, I think it's multiaceted. I think it's it's just it's fun. It's relatable. It's fun to build something that you and um your family and friends and and others can play. And so, you know, like uh there was a whole lot of family risk games back in the day uh when I when I had built that game. Um, I think just the communal element to um, you know, building something that others can play like it's it's a lot more fun than some of the other B2B uh, style endeavors that that I've been on. But I think there's also a side to it where um, it's just interesting from a a business perspective. And I think we we kind of have heard some of this from some of the guests that we've had too. um probably know most notably like Richard man with Nerdle. Um there's a guy who's been part of many like B2B things uh over the years. He's like this is so much different. Like the dynamic with the player is very different. They're getting a free product. you know, they might complain from time to time, but like it's just you sort of uh can take more of a mentality of like I'm going to prioritize what's important to me. And also uh the fact like Holar said on a early uh podcast like I just get a deposit every month because people came and played my game and uh it's it's such a different dynamic than uh you know I think anything else I've been involved in in business that uh you know it's it's compelling both from the making something that you resonate with personally And also just from a business model perspective, it's it's pretty intriguing. Yeah. And along the way on the arbitrage, did you try to buy other games? Cuz we're winding up to this Wordle impact for us. Yeah. What between the first two games and and the and the Wordle story happened? Yeah. So, you know, uh throughout the 2010s, uh you know, I had another startup I built, had nothing to do with games. Um first three years of that startup, um I didn't take a salary. Um and so I was supplementing that with other income on the side, sometimes consulting, a little bit of this game revenue. And I think what became clear to me by like uh 2012 is um I didn't it it wasn't a full salary replacement the the curo income but it was steady income and it was reliable income and it um actually helped me personally fund a lot of that other startup experience over time. And so that that was when I began to build up a little bit of a thesis of boy, it'd be nice to just own some more of these properties. And so, um, that's really kind of when I started down this journey of like I I'd really like to buy more of these games. Um, uh, you know, as a developer, a creator myself, there's always like, oh, I could build more, but kind of had a a core focus on on my primary startup. So, I I didn't feel like I could invest a ton of time in just thinking up the next game. So, I I really started thinking about, well, what what games could I go acquire? And so, I've had quite a few outreaches over the last uh 12 years or so. Um, but uh, like one of the first ones I I went back to was because I had so much respect for websooku.com, you know, just trying to reach out to um, Gideon over there um, to um, in investigate a potential sale of of that property. Um, you know, I think he was pretty happy with how it was going and uh, um, you know, we had we exchanged a few back and forth pleasantries over time, but just never quite went anywhere. And uh yeah, so fast forward to, you know, uh January of 22, that's uh really when um you know, I I saw Wordle taking off in a big way and um immediately knew like I I have to make a run at this. Um and coincidentally, it was just sort of perfect storm of timing. Um I had sold kind of my my primary startup that I had been working on in uh um mid21. So while I was still kind of uh a little bit occupied like post sale with some of it like I had a little bit more capacity, I had a little bit more cash and so there was more of a like I should really take a run at seeing if if I can buy Wordle. So to give context, Josh Wardle launches Wordle in October of 2021. it really takes off in popularity in November and I think even early December when he kind of adds in the social sharing aspect. And so between the 3 months like that game takes off and when do you send what are you thinking like in that time like that that that moment where you want to reach out to Josh to see if there's like some opportunity here. What what's kind of what's going on in your head in this in this space and time? Yeah, I think there there was probably a moment in late December around the holidays, maybe, you know, very first part of January 22 where um you know, I've been a pretty active Twitter user for a long time, maybe a little less these days, but um you know uh you just started to notice like on Twitter on the moments I was on Facebook like all of these shares of people sharing ing their scores and you could just see something taking off. Um, and then you know me playing the game there was just kind of a a delightful experience of this is a really well thoughtout game and it seems like there's something really unique here. So, it it was kind of noticing those things. Um, and then having, you know, I think I had spent a little bit of the prior summer building up a database of like, uh, hundreds and, you know, now in the thousands of games that I might want to potentially go buy. Um, you know, I had built up some techniques about looking at traffic on similar web and and just some different things. So, you know, I kind of immediately like go look at, well, how's it how's this game really doing? And you start to see like, oh my goodness, this is just like taken off in a huge way. Unheard of numbers like on on anything that I had seen before. Um, and so it was uh I dug up a bunch of records before we recorded this. um was uh Saturday, January 8th, that um I I had two bits of outreach that day. Um first was I I called a domain broker um who owned or represented the owner of WLE.com, the domain name, and the the second outreach was directly to Josh Wardle. Um, and if you're wondering why I did both of those on the same day, it was really, um, so a lot of people may not remember this at this point cuz it's now at New York Times.com, but Wordle at the time was hosted on Josh's personal website, which was like powerlanguage.co.uk. Um, and I just, you know, I knew that was probably like a personal domain name he probably wouldn't want to part with. I also just didn't think it was a really great long-term home for the game. So, I was already like trying to think a few steps ahead. Like, if Josh is actually willing to sell me this, I'm going to need a different place to host this. And I'm going to frontr run this and get in front of like buying Wordle.com as the new home for this. So, I want to already have that worked out if Josh is really willing to sell to me. Um, so that that was kind of what what kicked it all off. And you have to think in Josh's mind when he you know, he launched this game in October the year before, like, you know, sitting on his personal website, not expecting anything. And so it's it's kind of a fascinating time because it exploded so quickly in those three months and you're already thinking about and uh potentially giving him an offer. So what happens next after that? You send out you send out an email to to Josh and then you send out an email to the broker. Um what like what do you send to you send to the broker first? It sounds like um did you did you make an offer on the.com at that point? So, I've got some email records. A lot of it was in phone conversation, but uh you know, I think what the domain broker came back with was uh I I probably came in with what what I would have considered a low ball offer for the domain name, which was probably low five figures. Um and I think he kind of came back over the phone, well, the seller of the domain name is thinking uh low six figures um for for the domain name. And so I I kind of was slow playing the domain acquisition because along the way like I I actually had zero intent. There were a lot of word knockoffs happening around this time, but I just it it didn't seem right to me. Like it would have been very easy for me as a developer to create a Wordle knockoff to buy Wordle.com and to host my own Wordle game there. Um, but there was just something about that where that that that felt like stealing to me. Like I I didn't think that was right. And so the the play was always like I needed these to happen together in sequence. So I was slow playing the domain acquisition, but I did go back at one point and I offered uh 60k. Um, and it it sounded like we were getting clo close to a a point of maybe being able to settle on a uh number for the domain name. Um, but also looking back at this, like I I had um several outreaches to Josh um some by email, some by Twitter DM um uh over a multi-week period here. And and unfortunately, I just never got a response from Josh. Um, and if you fast forward the clock, um, knowing what I know now, like it was announced on January 31st that he sold it. We pride ourselves at Hey, good game on like we want to be able to close fast on acquisitions and, you know, we can sometimes often pull these together in uh, 2 to 3 weeks. Um, but with any big company like that, I got to assume like he was probably already under a letter of intent. He was probably like had a no shop clause that he wouldn't have been allowed to like engage with me in a conversation, quite frankly. So Josh, if you ever listen to this, I'm I'm a little less offended now that he didn't reply to me. Um, but but I was really ramping it. Like I was just trying to get like him to bite on anything. And so some of the techniques that I I tried like I I found a a charity that he was really compelled with and interested in and I um donated a a non-trivial amount of money to that charity and send him a note and said like hey like you inspired me and I I donated to this charity that you like and by the way like if we work something out I I could probably donate 20% of the any future profits to that charity or or another one. pick another one. Like we'll we'll figure it out together. Um and uh you know um on on January 16th I I did um uh this is probably the biggest thing I regret in all this, but again he was probably under a letter of intent. Like I had no information and I just sent him basically uh hey just so you know I'm serious. Like I'll offer you 300k for this. um which in in retrospect like feels laughable, right? Um you know the um it was published later that the New York Times uh paid low seven figures for it. Um, you know, the the reality is uh I I could have gotten to a low seven figures number uh on this uh if there had been a little bit of open dialogue with Josh to um you know, actually have some insight into the analytics. Um but you know, I just I wanted him to know I was serious. wanted him to uh you know know there was something attached and and it was hard like um at the time I had a bunch of texts with uh Joseph like I was I was just trying to figure out like is this is this a fad? Is this going away or or or is this the bit like, you know, how how high should I be going on this offer? And like really trying to figure out like does this have staying power? And that's that's kind of one of the things that uh it's really easy to regret like not offering more at this point. Uh but that that was really the big thing at the time, like uh is this going to stick around? And I I just was really wrestling with that. Yeah. In all the exchanges, Jimmy Fallon plays Wordle on his TV show and it just keeps amping, right? Yeah. That was looking back at it, that was January 13th that uh it was on the Tonight Show and so um I'll always be able to say like Josh, I reached out to you five days before that happened. Like I knew this was a big deal. Um but well Jimmy and his producers probably reached out two weeks before that. It's like, yeah, totally. And then, do we have record here that on February and February 24th, you you sent some other email that said, "Well, I you're not interested." I finally I finally closed the loop with the uh domain broker at that point that uh Okay. I I wasn't going to buy Wordle.com. The just the domain name. What's curious is on January 31st is when the New York Times announced that they've acquired Wordle. You get an email back from the broker and I'm cur like you know if if they found out I'm curious they're probably like hey do you want to buy this? Probably even more now. Um but you didn't respond until a month later. I'm curious like what I don't know do you you really had those two things as as a complete kind of unit? Um, were you at all thinking like maybe this might still be a interesting opportunity to just get the.com? Anyways, I I briefly entertained it and and you know, certainly at that point it wasn't about um like, oh, I'll I'll put my own game up at worldle.com. I was I did have a moment of boy, I wonder if I bought that for 60k if I could get the New York Times to pay 250K just for the domain name later. But um I don't know like I I could just assume like thinking down the road like I'm pretty small in the scheme of things and the New York Times has probably a pretty robust legal team and uh you know I'm not going to chance it on a you know 50 to 100k domain purchase uh in hopes that like the New York Times isn't going to sue me and it's just going to pay me for the domain name later. Um, so it wasn't ever like seriously entertained, but I I did think about it for a little bit. That's just a war of retainer versus hourly, right? You're just setting yourself up for Do you think the Times because they acquired WLE, do you think they've been a good caretaker of the game? Do you think maybe he in another reality he doesn't sell? Do you think the game maintains its popularity, goes down? Like h how has this played out in your mind? Uh, well, that's a loaded question. In in some regards, I I would have taken it a few different directions. Um, but ultimately, I think there's a lot of similarities, too. Um, uh, I I probably, you know, if you look at like the trajectory that some of the other more direct offshoots like Quirtle and Octole and and some of those other games have taken, you know, I think this notion of um like a practice mode or like you can kind of play more than once a day. I probably, you know, um would have introduced a a concept like that. But I think what the and and in some respects like the fact that there's there's predominantly the daily on the on Wordle today um and and not sort of that practice mode. It's it's probably more in line with like uh Josh's original intent and and probably also just kind of has more of a staying power that way too. I I would imagine I I think what the New York Times has done just a remarkable job that I don't think would have been as easily predicted uh back in 2022 when they bought this was just the other games that they've spun up that they've really built an ecosystem of just really awesome games that uh people go back to daily. Um, and you know, starting with Spelling B and then, you know, uh, going into Connections and now Strands and some of these others like, um, I think they've they've done an incredible job in that way. Um, and I think that, you know, aligns with a lot of what we're trying to do today at Hey, Good Game. We want to have a a portfolio of fun brainy games that uh you know like any one of the games is individually fun and interesting but um you know we've hopefully got a good collection there together and so I think there are some similarities there too. Yeah, newspapers have had the crossword for I don't know haven't looked into that history. Maybe we should talk to some newspaper historian about the impact of crossword on subscription, right? Something like that is being drawn forward to the days that we're living now. Looking back and uh knowing what you know now, what's the offer you give Josh? What's uh you would know the New York the the New York Times got a steal. um we we can just assume based on what's been published uh 1 to 3 million there there's a difference of capacity like what I what I could pay uh reasonably and uh what I what I would pay um you know I uh without sharing too much about my personal situation like it it would have been a stretch offer for me to get to 5 million back then um but uh unequivocally I would do that all day long. Um and uh like I think uh um this is a property that's that's easily worth eight figures. Um and uh especially in the New York Times hands. Well, that's the question is how much is it worth not in their hands, right? How much of the value of this is riding the platform it's on? Yeah, it's uh uh hard to speak in alternate realities of uh you know uh how big would this game be today if if I had been fortunate enough to to buy it. Um you know what what might have I messed up along the way or whatever. And obviously don't have the New York Times uh distribution um behind me. Um, yeah, it's so hard to say, but uh game is uh without a doubt uh bigger today under New York Times ownership than it would be under my ownership. And I like I'd be uh posturing or full of bluster to to think otherwise. But um but I do think that the game has so much uh staying power itself that uh um you know it it's always going to feel like a missed opportunity for sure. I think Joseph mentioned this earlier. It's it's like nine out of 10 people we interview are bringing up Wordle as some inspiration. It's kind of like, you know, Bitcoin, you know, and all the NFT derivative derivatives or or it's like Nintendo in the 80s that revive an industry and and create a bunch of, you know, derivative properties around it. But it's such a such a unique game. I think this is more of like a love letter, you know, episode to to Wordle. um and you know really inspiring a number of game creators to to create their own um Wordle inspired games uh which has been really fun to see. What's your takeaway from all this Aaron? Well I I think yeah I think it's a huge inspiration to all game creators no matter how you look at it. I think it's kind of caused a little bit of a resurgence in daily games, in uh brainy games, and in web games. And and in each of those three areas, like I think everybody kind of assumed uh more or less I think like if I'm on a on my iPhone, I'm downloading an app to play a game. and and like I think there are a lot more web- based games today uh of popular note uh than there were pre21 especially on mobile you know anytime I hope this is okay Josh uh but anytime I uh am asked about hey good game and what we're up to like I kind of start talk well you know we do like daily Brady games like oh you know Wordle it's not like we don't have a Wordle clone like I've always been emphatic about that, but it's just it's been a genre definer and it's it's in the lingo now in a way that uh you know people can talk about it and have an affinity towards. So, um although I'll I'll always feel like um this got away like I'm uh always going to be grateful to to Josh for kind of how he opened up the the category really in in a way that I think has been uh something that's uh risen tides for everybody. So, um that that's been pretty cool to see. I think that's so true. It's the tide has risen on games and Word will played a giant role in that. It continues and I anticipate it coming up over and over and over again as we continue to chat with uh game developers like uh those that had made their first game as a result of seeing Wordle or those that had games in play and have used the the increase of activity and interest in in daily brainy games as um some kind of a provocation to make their games better or different or change or you name it. And to the extent that games help all of us kind of jump out of yourself and play a game and allow yourself some time or some respit or the opportunity to see your own thinking happen, uh we're all better for it. So, thank you Josh. Thank you, Aaron. And uh sorry I didn't get the game, man. Maybe he'll get maybe he'll get a call now or a reply. Josh, if you if you're listening, I' I'd love to chat. It'd be great on the record, but off the record would be good, too. But there's some NDA that's got an expiration at hey. GG AY.gg. DM me on Twitter. I'm here for you, buddy. Maybe you cannot reply this time. Okay, thanks for sharing, Aaron. All right, thanks guys. That's Bud.