Episode #111: 3 Ways Wordle Taught Us That Play Could Go Viral
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Whether or not you’re completely addicted to Wordle, the simple online word game that recently got bought by the NYTimes for 7 figures, you’ve probably heard of it. Even if you haven’t heard of it, you’ve probably seen people posting cryptic social media statuses about it with green, grey, and yellow squares. It’s the latest viral fad that everyone is talking about. But, this isn’t the first time a toy or game has had it’s moment in the sun or 15 minutes of fame.
In today’s episode, I examine 3 toys and games that went “viral” Wordle, Pokemon Go, and Silly Bandz. In just 2 months, Wordle had 300,000 players. Pokemon Go saw even more exponential growth with over 100 million users the month after it launched. Shortly after they launched, Silly Bandz were so popular that they got banned from many schools because kids played with them too much. Besides getting a little jolt of nostalgia for the fads of the past, in this episode you’ll learn about 3 of the toyetic principles that helped these products succeed with such a big burst of energy. Even though these products are very different on the surface, they actually have a lot in common.
EPISODE CLIFF NOTES
Find out the history of Wordle, who made it, when, and why.
Learn how bringing a scarcity element to a toy or game can help with success.
Find out the “joke” commercial that went on to become a game that earned over $1.2 billion in revenue.
Find out the 3 toyetic traits that Wordle, Pokemon Go, and Silly Bandz share, they’re similar to our toyetic principles!
Learn how building authority and community can play into the longevity of a toy or game.
Find out what other than timing contributed to the success of these three products.
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This episode is brought to you by www.thetoycoach.com
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Sources Referenced In The Creation Of This Episode:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon_Go
www.nytimes.com/2022/01/03/technology/wordle-word-game-creator.html
www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/pokemon-go-million-dollar-monthly-active-users/
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[00:00:00] Azhelle Wade: You are listening to making it in the toy industry episode number 111.
[00:00:05] Hey there toy people, Azhelle Wade here and welcome back to another episode of the toy coach podcast, making it in that toy industry. This is a weekly podcast brought to you by thetoycoach.com. On February 1st, 2020, it was announced that the New York times paid in the low seven figures to acquire the website based game Wordle. If you don't know what Wordle is, it's this web-based game that releases a new five letter word puzzle every day. You have six guesses to figure out the Wordle of the day. And you're given color-coded cues with every guest that lets, you know, if you guessed an entirely wrong letter, the right letter in the wrong space or the ultimate goal, the right letter in the right space.
[00:01:11] But this is not a podcast episode, all about Wordle. Rather, this is a podcast episode about the phenomenon that games and toys like Wordle create and what we can learn from this game in particular and other hits from the past, and most importantly, how we can apply those lessons to the toy industry. For today's podcast episode, we are going to look at the rise and sale of Wordle. And we're also going to dive into the history and popularity of two other digital and physical toy and entertainment, phenomena, silly bands number one, and number two Pokemon go. We are going to find commonalities in these products. And by the end of this episode, my goal is that you will have a fresh perspective on what Secret ingredients there are to create a viral play product and hopefully be inspired to create the next viral, physical, or digital toy or game product. Okay. Let's dive in.
[00:02:16] To kick this episode off. I want to give a brief overview of the three products we're going to compare and contrast today. Let's talk about when, why and how these play products were created, and get into what seemingly caused their virality. First, let's start with our most recent one the game Wordle. Created by Josh Wardle, a software engineer and at Brooklyn NYC, he created this game. Yup. A play off of his own name as a fun guessing game for he and his partner to play. Now eventually Josh has larger family got in on the fund and the game pretty quickly it became an obsession in his family's WhatsApp group. On October 1st, 2021, Josh released Wordle to the public and he had about 90 players in November. Two months later, more than 300,000 people were playing the game. Now some have credited his fresh, clean ad-free website for building such loyalty with players.
[00:03:27] But according to an article on the New York times, website Wardle said, quote, I think people kind of appreciate that there's this thing online. That's just fun. And it's not trying to do anything shady with your data or your eyeballs. It's just a game that's fun, and quote. Since Wordle limits players to one word per day, it creates this sense of scarcity and increases a desire for more, without needing to beg users to come back like most games or apps do with phone notifications. Furthermore, every player has to play the same word on the same day, building a sense of community, but we'll get into how that helped the games of morality a bit later in this episode. If you want to read more about the source, I mentioned head over to thetoycoach.com/111 for the links.
[00:04:22] Let's move on to the next product we're going to give a brief overview to Pokemon go, an AR game developed by Niantic labs released in July, 2016. The game received 500 million downloads in that year alone, according to an article on Wikipedia. But I wonder if you know where the idea of Pokemon go actually first popped up. Well, about seven years ago, Google posted this video as an April fool's joke, right? Announcing a quote unquote fictional product that involves catching Pokemon using Google maps. Now the video looks like a really high, intense sport, you know, action. People are climbing up mountains. It's dramatic and hilarious, but this April fool's video garnered some serious interest from fans and their comments may have likely encourage the company to move forward with their plans to develop the app. If that wasn't their plan all along.
[00:05:28] You've got to watch this video. I'm going to embed it in the show notes for this podcast episode on thetoycoach.com/ 111. So check it out. But some of the comments were like one user named Jiro said, I know this is a joke and all, but someone needs to frickin make an actual augmented reality Pokemon game on your phone like this. Preferably for windows phone users to, smiley face emoji. Another user or a marsh said, man, I wish this wasn't a joke because it looks really cool. Another user master Jedi 3, 4, 3 said, this is a really good idea. If Nintendo and Google teamed and made this a real app, it would be amazing. So little did we know this video would turn to reality and Pokemon Go would become a real thing, but the popularity of the app, getting people out into the physical world soon became pretty problematic. There were sites like verywellfit.com that released articles, noting the inherent dangers of distracted walking and cycling.
[00:06:34] There were stories of players getting injured, stumbling into trouble having car accidents or having the police called on them to investigate suspicious behavior while they were playing a game walking around or unfortunately driving around to catch pokemon. There were many issues of trespassing on private property or just people trying to play while driving. This game allowed you to travel in the physical world to discover virtual Pokemon and catch them. The world also included pokey stops, which could be equipped with different items that would help game play. And the pokey stops became hotspots with users, flocking to them, trying to find certain Pokemon or trying to find certain items called lore modules. Now the Pokemon go app reached its peak only about a month after its release. And that was in August, 2016, where they had 100 plus million users. But by 2017, that number was down to 65 million users. But still this company at that point made $1.2 billion in revenue.
[00:07:51] Okay, we've got one more product overview to look at before we try to break them all down and figure out what the heck causes this kind of hit craze, play product. Next step, the most applicable to us toy people, the silly band craze. Silly bands were first sold in 2008 by BCP imports, LLC. This was a small company based in Ohio, Robert Croak, who was the president of the company in 2010, shared with time.com that he was inspired to create the line after attending a product show in China, where a Japanese artists had devise a rubber band cute enough to escape the trash bin. Head over to thetoycoach.com/111 if you want to read that full article. So at the time the us was recovering from a recession. So this low cost trinket just created a community with kids. This share-ability that edged on surprise. These multi-colored rubber bands came in a variety of silhouettes, including animals, letters, and other objects.
[00:09:04] Kids wore them as bracelets, filling their forearms with them, trading for them and sharing them at home and to a distracting degree in the classroom. If you are new to the toy industry or new ish, you may not know that SillyBandz was one of those breakthrough items that started at specialty toy stores. That's right. It started at those mom and pop stores that are not mass chains. There's only one or two maybe of them and the craze caught on and it became a phenomena. And because this toy started out in the specialty market. This is the perfect time for me to just stop and tell you all about Astra, the American specialty toy retailing association, 'cause they have a best toys for kids award that they give out every year and nominations are open right now. So I want you to go to besttoys.astra.org/home you can actually apply for this award this year via text. If you want to get that text info, you can go to thetoycoach.com/111. I'm going to let you know there, how you can get that info and apply. But if you win a best choice for kids award, your product will be elevated into the eyes of specialty toy retailers. And we see the power of these specialty toy retailers in Silly Bandz.
[00:10:31] Back to the episode. Now, soon the popularity of silly bands got them banned from schools, urging kids to write into the company, offering clever workarounds like, quote, we've got an idea, clear, silly bandz that teachers can't see, and they only glow in the dark and quote. And just as quickly as the phenomena set in six months later, it vanished. Now that we are all on the same page as to what we are going to decode in today's episode, let's get to the decoding of it all. What does Wordle silly bands and Pokemon go all have in common? What traits made these play products build such consumer loyalty and generate such organic virality. I have identified three toyetic traits of these play products that may give us a clue as to what played such a huge part in the sudden popularity and virality of these toy and game products. If you know about the toyetic principles, you will hear some similar themes here. And if you don't know what those are, head over to thetoycoach.com/2 and give that episode a listen that will teach you all about the toyetic principles.
[00:11:51] So toyetic trade number one, that I recognized all three of these have in common is discoverability. Discoverability is the hunt and the surprise aspect that all of these products execute just beautifully. Wordles discoverability trait happens when you put in your word guests for the day, the speed and manner in which those tiles flip over after you hit enter, gives the user this rush of excitement, and I get it right today, did I get it wrong. And then the colors, yellow and gold identifying whether you guess correctly or not triggers varying levels of excitement attached to this social understanding. Green means go AKA full speed ahead. And yellow means slow down there, buddy close, but not quite. The fact that you only have six chances to feel the ultimate rush of all six letters, flipping to green, heightens the stakes and thus heightens the emotional response that a player has when they actually get a letter correctly hand in the correct spot.
[00:12:59] That coupled with the fact that there's only one wordle a day and it's the same Wordle that everyone in the world is trying to figure out. Also increases that excitement in the discoverability fase. For Pokemon go discoverability is the action of walking your real world to discover Pokemon in a virtual world, this physical world that you thought you knew everything about suddenly had a new layer to it. And the infinite new layer. And completely at the opposite end of the spectrum. Unlike Wordle, you could play 24 hours a day if you want, travel across the globe if you want and continue to discover and catch different Pokemon. Here, the rush comes from finding rare Pokemon and locations that others might not think to travel or might not want to travel to. For silly bandz the discoverability is in the shape of the bands. Once on your wrist, the true shape of your silly bandz is imperceptible, but you, the user can hold the sole knowledge of what animal object or fantasy creature that each band on your wrist truly is.
[00:14:17] And through sharing and trading with your friends, you get to discover what silly bandz shapes your classmates hold and which ones exist that you may have never seen before. Now, this feature or this trade of discoverability totally messes with your dopamine levels. I mean, there is this rush that we feel discovering something new, something that we didn't know he wanted, or we didn't know we needed having it revealed to us and just given to us. Whether it's a green letter E and the third wordle spot or pink unicorn silly band, the process of unknown to known and needed is instant in these products. And definitely kicks our happy hormone into overdrive. It's also important that we note the timing that these products became popular. For Wordle it's 2021 at the tail end of a global pandemic and the start of what some will say will be a global mental health crisis. More people are looking for healthier solutions for that dopamine hit and healthier ways to exercise their mind and connect with others.
[00:15:28] And in 2016, everybody was on their phones, physical activities at a low video games apps, or at a high obesity rates were rising and jokes about cell phone zombies were all the rage. So the well-timed release of Pokemon go nostalgia of a time before phones mixed with what at the time was just this new immersive AR game play, that integrated physical activity and the virtual world. I mean, it exploded, it was everything we needed. Right? And silly bands, popularity likely encourage by the depression that our economy in the U S was dealing with in 2008. Parents seeing a simple novelty item, super cheap that could make their kids light up would buy more and more of this low cost collectible feeding their own happy hormone and fueling their child's silly Bandz trades. Now let's move on to toyetic trait number two and that is visibility. Visibility refers to the ability that these products have to create a micro-community of their users and aid those users in social climbing, or increasing their own authority within other people that are aware of, or a part of that community.
[00:16:51] Now, I almost called this one Influenceability, which is just like a pretty fun word to say, but we're going to say visibility aka Influenceability. To understand how being able to generate visibility for your user can lead you to virality. You have got to ask yourself this, why does everyone jump on a new platform when it's just starting out? Why did we all jump on clubhouse? Tik Tok? Why? Why are people eager to purchase a stock when it just comes out on the market? Why is it the newest, hottest toy that the kid has got to have? Because a new platform, a new stock, a new VR game, anything a new brand can create this community within our existing larger society. Within that micro community users, the new users have, they know they have this higher chance of holding the highest authority because there's less competition. It's a new micro community. They have the chance to climb that ladder in that space versus trying to climb the ladder in our larger society.
[00:17:58] These play products, allow users in their community to focus on one thing, to be the best, the very best. Catching Pokemon, having the best vocabulary or having the most colorful and surprising, silly bandz. But what's really clever is the way that these brands create visibility and strengthen their community. Through creating an ease of toyetic trait, number three, share-ability. Every single one of these play products had built in features or were inherently designed to be easy to share or where the product with friends. The absolute best in my opinion, it had a built-in share feature that tells all your friends how smart you were by sharing how many guesses it took for you to guess today's word incorrectly without ruining what the word was. That's how Wordle was introduced into my household. I noticed a few podcasts listeners that I'm friends with posting it on their Facebook page. Then I noticed one of my salsa friends posting it, but I had no idea what those little green and gray squares meant. Not until my fiance's cousin shared the game with him and he showed it to me.
[00:19:18] Ah, those little social shares where my friends climbing the ladder of authority in a world I knew nothing about, the wordle world. Now Pokemon users would take photos of the Pokemon they caught and organically shared them with friends and family on and off social media. Prompting friends and family to want to go to those same locations and catch those Pokemon. I remember my friends talking about the best places to catch a rare Pokemon and playing it and planning Hangouts around it. Now, silly bands they're share-ability is because they are easy to put on your wrist and take anywhere and everywhere kids could carry and trade dozens of bands at a time they could take it to school, they could bring it home to their friend's house and all they had to do to trade it was take it off their wrist, look at the shape, make a handshake deal and swap bracelets. The easier is to share that feeling of a win with the product, the faster the users of that product seem to climb in these micro communities. Before we tie up today's lesson and summarize it all up in a pretty bow.
[00:20:30] I'd like to take a quick break and give a shout out to Rani my media manager, who helps tremendously with this podcast. If you are a student of toy creator's academy, or if you've been a guest on my podcast, likely you have interacted with Rani. She is a delight, whom we all have to thank for her support and making sure this podcast gets out to each of you and every week, no matter how late I deliver her the audio. So Rani, thank you so much for all of your wonderful work. And now you know why I texted you asking if I was saying your name, right. Okay. Let's wrap up what we learned today. We've got a good conclusion for you today. What we always know is we need the right product at the right time. We always know that's part of the game. Right? We talked about this in the last episode. So we always know it has to be the right product at the right time to make a hit, whether it's a dopamine inducing word game during a mental health crisis or a low cost novelty toy during a recession. But aside from timing, what else does a viral product have?
[00:21:38] So here is what I believe that a viral product has built in toyetic traits of discoverability and the play pattern, visibility for the consumer and share-ability of the consumers achievements. All three of those things are fueled by visual rewards that elicit an emotional response from the user. The products that we reviewed today, all had these micro-communities. They built up the desire to socially climb, even if they weren't intending to and their game or their toy facilitated the process of that climbing by making it easy to share. Let's get into your action item to do for next week. I have a feeling that this episode might've sparked some ideas for you. So I want you to do one of two things. Number one, you can join me for a free toy ideas challenge. Head over to challengethetoycoach.com get yourself all signed up. It's going to be a lot of fun. Number two, if you're like Azhelle, I already have my idea. Why are you trying to control me? All right. I got you, I want you to head over to learn.thetoycoach.com/playlist.
[00:22:53] Why do I want you to head over there? Well, there, I've got a really fantastic download for you. 10 things you need to know before developing your toy idea, a download which comes with a 10 episode playlist of the best episodes of this podcast for someone who is just starting out developing their toy ideas. So you've got choices today for your action item my friends, you can do one, you can do both, but you've got to do something. As always, thank you so much for spending this time with me today. I know your time is valuable and that there are a ton of podcasts out there. So it means the world to me that you tune into this one. Until next week, I'll see you later toy people.
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