Hacker News Reader

Comment by gkoberger | Hacker News Reader

Right now, his is ubiquitous because everyone has the same word. There's an odd network effect, where posting it on Twitter means something because everyone had the same exact puzzle. Nobody wants to see how you did on 6Word or whatever. It's a fun game, but it's not inherently fun (something like Scrabble already uses the same parts of your brain)... the fun comes from everyone having the same word every day.

He may not monetize it by selling it on the app store (honestly, who would buy? I think most people would just fizzle out rather than pay $1), but he'll definitely end up monetizing it in a unique way... the gigantic success of this will set him up for a huge number of opportunities (awesome job offers! promotions! raising money for a company! higher consulting rate!) that will last long after Wordle does.

View on HN

Actually, going viral doesn't guarantee big money, not even a decent job.

It doesn't. But I guess if you manage it correctly it can be a great asset.

"I'm the Wordle guy" looks good on a CV.

As a hiring person I've interviewed great engineers with cool side projects who just weren't a good fit for the particular role I was hiring for. But also famously "I created homebrew" didn't get him a job at google. I've never had to use binary trees at work. :)

https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768?lang=en

https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-logic-behind-Google-rejectin...

I wonder what people would say if mechanics were tested for their understanding of mechanical engineering intead of how to do an oil change. That's what the emphasis on computer science knowledge seems like to me. It has no bearing on whether I can style a button or create an API.

“The author of core-JS is looking for a good job”

He already has reddit employee < 20, but this would seal the deal.

But not monetizing tells about character and motivation certainly.

Certainly – and the Web actually needs more of this, as it its blood and soul.

Didn’t flappy bird make 50k a day

>He may not monetize it by selling it on the app store (honestly, who would buy?

Millions.

>I think most people would just fizzle out rather than pay $1

You'd be surprised. Flappy Bird had no such problem - and tons of other small viral hit apps. The problem for the vast majority of apps is becoming that known and having as many users interested - this one has solved that already.

> Flappy Bird had no such problem

Flappy bird was free on release.

I see that Wordle has around 2.7 million users currently (based on searching "wordle daily users", if anyone has better data, let us know).

If he charges $1, that's $0.70 per user after the app store takes it cut. He could clear just under a million if half of the player base chooses to buy it. Then take off about half for taxes and whatever, and you have somewhere in the neighborhood of $475k.

If he adds a simple banner ad at the bottom, I don't know how that would translate.

And as for opportunities, I'm not sure either. Yes, it's popular. But, at the end of the day, it's Mastermind with letters. Sure, clever, fun, and all that, but you could clone this relatively easy. It doesn't really speak to his ability to write or design software.

why would you assume that half the player base would pay for this? Most free games have an average of closer to 5% paid conversion, to my knowledge. This would make him closer to $100k from one time purchases. Before taxes and expenses.

I don't think he should monetize it in any way. He didn't set out to start a game development business. I'm also really questioning the baseline numbers and averages used in your example.

That was a shot in the dark, to be honest.

For those conversions, is that when there's both a free version and a paid version?

Regardless, even with half of his users, it's a decent chunk of change, but it's not "fuck you" money.

I disagree. Sort of.

I agree on why folks like it. Is a fun shared exercise.

And it is the unique way of sharing that makes it popular with this crowd. This is a game that is fun to share, and does not ask for permission to my accounts to make that share.

I think we agree completely!

Ah! Apologies on my bad read then! :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com