Spotify is closing down Heardle, the Wordle-inspired music game it acquired last July. Inspired by the classic word game Wordle, Heardle gave players six attempts to guess a popular song after listening to the intro. After its acquisition, the company promised Heardle would remain free to play for everyone. However, due to the company’s desire to prioritize its other music discovery initiatives, Spotify has decided it is best to sunset Heardle on May 5.
Recently, Spotify has been focusing on expanding its music and podcast discovery features, such as rolling out TikTok-style feeds and a new smart shuffle for playlist recommendations. In April, the company rolled out a feature called the AI DJ, which figures out the type of music users like and matches the tracks accordingly. As Heardle no longer played a major role in Spotify’s goals for music discovery, the company, which is currently undergoing belt-tightening measures, decided to sunset the game instead of providing ongoing maintenance.
At the time of its acquisition, Heardle enjoyed a peak of 69 million monthly desktop and mobile web visits in March 2022, according to data from web analytics firm Similarweb. After the purchase, the visits decreased to 41 million, and it is likely that there was a further decline in the game’s usage since then. Moreover, the Wordle game trend itself has been on the decline since the New York Times bought it in January of last year, putting additional strain on Heardle’s future prospects.
Although Heardle had still been fairly popular prior to its acquisition, the decision to close it has been met with some discontent from the many users that enjoyed it, albeit not from the Forbes contributors who provided the daily answers and clues needed to play it, nor from the sites hosting Heardle clones. However, despite the game’s closure, Spotify is not abandoning interactive experiences altogether. The company still features its interactive AI DJ, numerous polls and Q&As for podcast creators, a presence on Roblox, and gaming integrations on Xbox and PlayStation, among other things.
Ultimately, the impact of the shutdown of Heardle will be on those who enjoyed it, even though the company may have decided it was best to put its resources more towards its music discovery goals. With the AI DJ and other services, it looks like Spotify is continuing to strive towards its mission of bringing music to its users in fresh and engaging ways.
