January 2022

Announced today, the New York Times Company has bought current word game sensation Wordle for “in the low seven figures.” The acquisition comes along with the hopes to “increase digital subscriptions to 10 million by 2025.”

Wordle is a browser-based word game where players are given six chances to solve a 5-letter word. You’ve certainly seen the endless Tweets of green and black squares as people show off their daily Wordle victories.

The article by the New York Times describes the changes in Wordle player counts:

It first appeared on a no-frills, ad-free website in October, and had 90 users on Nov. 1. That number grew to 300,000 by the middle of this month, and now millions play the game daily.

It is entirely unknown how this will conflict with a promise made earlier this month by creator Josh Wardle to keep the game free and without ads.

The full quote (as quoted from the BBC) reads:

Today SNK released a new trailer of its upcoming fighting game The King of Fighters XV, focusing on the post-launch DLC coming in 2022.

The first DLC will come in March, and it’ll be Team Garo, including Rock Howard, Gato, and B. Jenet.

The second DLC, which will complete the Team Pass 1, will come in May. Team South Town will bring back a bunch of villains with Geese Howard, Billy Kane, and Ryuji Yamazaki. Each DLC on its own is priced at 1,870 yen each, while the Team Pass is priced at  3,300 yen and included in the Deluxe Edition.

A second Team Pass will come this year starting in the summer with the third team of three characters, and ending in the fall with a second team of three, for a total of 12 DLC characters in a year. This means that by the end of 2022 we’ll have 51 characters in total in the game.

You can check out the assets below.

On this week's From Panel to Podcast, we breakdown what we want from WB Games Montréal's Gotham Knights, the successor to the beloved Batman Arkham series. With Batman supposedly dead at the outset of play, the Bat-family has a lot of weight on their shoulders to deliver a superhero experience that can live up to his legacy. We discuss the tone we want to see, gameplay direction, and also who should show up as villains.

For the comic readers out there, we go deep into two red-hot series: Something is Killing the Children and Saga. Yes, Saga is finally back after a three year break! We also talk about our favorite books from last week's new releases rack, and highlight the books we hope to pick up this Wednesday.

If you would like to follow us on Twitter: Andrew Reiner (@Andrew_Reiner) and Philip Hoff (@bnow23).

From Panel to Podcast is a weekly show created by two lifelong comic book readers who offer suggestions on which comic books you should be reading each week. Each episode also dives into the latest developments for comics in video games, movies, and television shows. We'll even discuss comic book collectibles and anything we think you should know about that pertains to this entertainment medium.