The NYT is said to have paid a six figure sum for this game. Were they sold a pig in a poke?
There are a number of similar games available with no apparent connection to the newspaper.
I do it every night (early morning actually after midnight) I also do the original Wordle. I am annoyed when out of desperation I find that the answer is FELLA for instance. That would not be called a word in any other word games such as Scrabble.
'Fella' is in the Scrabble dictionary.
A six figure sum is chicken feed to the NYT and it has driven traffic its site.
I do the NYT Wordle daily, too. I've looked at some of the other word games on the site but they only let you progress so far if you don't pay and subscribe.