Zach Shakked, the developer who created one of these fake apps on the App Store has apologized on Twitter after facing backlash on the internet. In a Twitter thread, he said that he did realize that he ‘crossed a line’ and that he ‘will never do anything remotely close to this again.’
Here were my calculations: a) Wordle is a ripoff of another gameb) Wordle the word isn’t trademarked and there’s… https://t.co/JBeae1oJRl
— Zach (@zachshakked) 1641963747000
Assuming that Wordle is a ripoff of another game, he did his calculations based on the fact that Wordle – the word isn’t trademarked and there’s a bunch of other unrelated word apps named the same thing.
Now, the original Wordle game is free to play and is available to everyone without any cost. But, Shakked was charging $30 as an annual subscription fee. He defends this point saying “I put subscriptions in every app I do. That’s how you make money on the App Store.”
One thing people don’t realize is I spoke on the phone with the creator of Wordle and for 30 minutes tried to convi… https://t.co/6kLhrftBSc
— Zach (@zachshakked) 1642001372000
In his tweets, Shakked also mentions how he talked to the creator of Wordle – Josh Wardle over the phone for 30 minutes. He tried to convince Wardke for three things- “a) let me pay a huge licensing fee (100k+), b) partner with me to develop the office Wordle app or c) send him a percentage of the proceeds”, as the tweet says.
To his disappointment, Wardle said that he wasn’t interested. To which Shakked told him that he would consider changing the name. He was looking at other options when Apple removed the app.
Wardle can only be played on the website and does not have a mobile app. The only remaining product on the App Store with that title was Wordle!, a time-based game created by Steven Cravotta more than four years ago. Google is yet to remove these clone apps of Wordle.
