The New York Times, which owns the word game Wordle, is suing the developer of the puzzle game Worldle, Kory McDonald. The reason is the names and concepts of the games are too similar.
Wordle — on the left, Worldle — on the right
The New York Times accused McDonald of causing confusion and trying to profit off the popularity of Wordle.
McDonald disagrees with the accusations. In a comment to the BBC, he stated that there is an entire industry of games inspired by Wordle. Such games include, for example, Flaggle, which is about flags, and Headle, which is about music. He believes that, at worst, the lawsuit from The New York Times will result in him having to rename his game.
As a reminder, in Wordle, players have to guess a five-letter word once a day with six attempts. In Worldle, the goal is to guess the name of a country or another territory based on its outline, also in six attempts. According to McDonald, the monthly audience of his game is 100,000 people.