Spotify Dropping Wordle-Inspired Music Guessing Game ‘Heardle’

(CTN NEWS) – Heardle, the Wordle-inspired music guessing game that Spotify purchased in July for an undisclosed fee, is being discontinued.

Similar to Wordle, Heardle gives users six chances to correctly identify a popular song. However, unlike Wordle, where users type letters to create words, Heardle uses audio cues from the song’s start.

Heardle would continue to be available for free play for everyone, Spotify promised at the time of its acquisition.

According to the company, Heardle will end operations on May 5, which now wants to concentrate on its other goals related to music discovery.

An in-app message on the Heardle website is used to make the modifications public.

“We hear that Heardle’s closure resulted from Spotify’s desire to focus more of its efforts on music discovery through recent improvements to the app rather than off-platform games with Wordle-inspired design.”

Heardle No Longer Played A Major Role In Spotify’s Music Discovery Efforts After Updates

Last month, Spotify released a substantial update to its mobile app, including new TikTok-inspired discovery feeds for podcasts and music and other improvements, like Smart Shuffle playlist suggestion and a new podcast autoplay function.

Additionally, it unveiled a “AI DJ” that plays your preferred tracks after learning what genres of music you enjoy. The more you use the function, the more intelligent it becomes over time.

Heardle was no longer a significant component of Spotify’s overall music discovery initiatives as a result of these adjustments.

In addition, there is less of a financial incentive to experiment with side projects, such as the creation of a fun music game, like there is at many IT companies that have just implemented cost-cutting measures like layoffs.

However, Heardle was still fairly well-liked when it was acquired. The game’s monthly desktop and mobile online traffic peaked at 69 million in March 2022, according to data from web analytics company Similarweb.

Before the Spotify agreement, those visits had fallen to 41 million. They had probably worsened, rendering game’s continual upkeep an unwise bet.

In addition, Heardle’s own future prospects may have been deteriorating as well, with much of the Wordle frenzy also sliding downward after The New York Times purchased the main word game in January of last year.

Although we know Heardle kept some of its devoted fans following the acquisition, Spotify declined to comment on overall usage or repeat interaction with any particular statistic.

Heardle Did Not Ultimately Help Spotify Achieve Its Music Discovery Goals

However, the choice to redirect the company’s funding elsewhere wasn’t taken until Spotify discovered how Heardle users were interacting with the game.

After correctly guessing the song in the game, players could click a button to listen to the entire tune on Spotify. It’s possible that not enough players took this action, choosing to quit the game and return later.

In other words, Heardle ultimately didn’t assist Spotify in achieving its objectives regarding better music discovery.

The makeover also made a lot of Heardle’s capabilities redundant with the business’s other music discovery tools, and they did so outside of the Spotify app.

However, the news that Heardle would soon be shut down won’t likely be welcomed by people who enjoyed playing the game.

With the exception of the countless websites hosting Heardle clones and the Forbes contributors who had to put up the daily answers and hints.

In a statement, Spotify acknowledged the game’s closure.

“After careful thought, we have decided to say goodbye to Heardle as we focus our efforts on other features for music discovery,” a business representative said in a statement to TechCrunch.

Users will see a notice on the website warning them of the impending outage on May 5.

As far as we know, the game had no specific team, thus there was no consequence in terms of layoffs or organisational changes.

Despite leaving Heardle, Spotify is reportedly still interested in additional interactive experiences.

In addition to its interactive AI DJ feature, the firm currently offers polls and Q&As, allowing podcast listeners to communicate with their favourite creators.

Additionally, it will keep funding other gaming initiatives, such as the Spotify island on Roblox, the in-app Gaming centre, and additional Xbox and PlayStation connections.

With the shutdown of Spotify Live, a livestreaming service and competition for Clubhouse, earlier this month, Spotify also ended another side initiative.

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