Wordle rip-offs are running rampant on the App Store again

The Wordle clones are back on the App Store, just a few weeks after Apple wiped out nearly all the copycat games.

A quick glance at the top free apps on the App Store reveals at least two prominently placed Wordle-alikes, while diving into Apple's more specific word games category.

The new games are not passing themselves off as Wordle. The clones have renamed themselves to Wordus, Word Guess, Wordl, and other allusions to the original game. All of them have the same design, color scheme, and layout.

Apple encourages developers not to copy other games. In section 4.1 of its App Store Guidelines, the company advises developers to come up with their own ideas and not to copy the latest popular app on the App Store.

Wordle isn't actually on the App Store, it was first released by Josh Wardle and hosted on his website before it was bought by The New York Times. Wordle has not been added to the official crossword app of The Times.

It's almost irrelevant if the Wordle clones technically do or don't violate the App Store Guidelines. Over the past decade, the App Store has made it clear that the company has the power to take down any app. Apple is the sole arbiter of what is and isn't allowed on the App Store, subject to guidelines that it writes and enforces on its own.

The question is whether Apple can remove Wordle clones again.

The situation around Wordle copycats has changed a lot in the last few years. Wordle was a cute game that a lone creator released on his own as a gift for his partner, something that was explicitly not being monetized.

A lot of the outrage over Wordle copycats seemed to stem from that narrative: greedy developers trying to make a quick buck off this rare, pure thing on the internet.

Wordle isn't simply a game that is fun anymore. It was sold to The New York Times in a seven-figure deal.

Is Apple responsible for defending a multi-billion dollar corporation from copycats? Should Apple have taken action when it was a single developer who wasn't interested in making money from his work?

It is not clear what will happen next. The New York Times declined to comment on the Wordle clone story. Apple didn't respond to a request for comment.