Spotify is shutting down Heardle, the music-guessing game inspired by Wordle, less than a year after acquiring the game for an undisclosed amount.
“Thanks for playing Heardle, but unfortunately we have to say goodbye,” a pop-up message reads on the Heardle website. “From May 5th, Heardle will no longer be available.”
Spotify purchased Heardle last July amid the frenzy around Wordle, the word-guessing game created by Josh Wardle that the New York Times picked up in early 2022. At the time, Spotify said Heardle would serve as another music discovery tool for the platform and, in the future, would become available to listeners around the world in their native languages.
But less than a year later, Spotify has abandoned that plan as Heardle becomes the latest casualty in Spotify’s ongoing efforts to trim costs. “After careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to say goodbye to Heardle as we focus our efforts on other features for music discovery,” a Spotify spokesperson said.
The Stockholm-based audio giant is also shuttering Spotify Live, its live audio Clubhouse competitor, at the end of this month, despite making a 57 million euro (or $67.7 million at the time) acquisition of a live audio company to power that offering.
And in January, Spotify laid off around 6 percent of its workforce, or around 600 employee, and saw the departure of top content and ad business executive Dawn Ostroff.
“As we evolve and grow as a business, so must our way of working while still staying true to our core values,” Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said in a January blog post about the cuts. “To offer some perspective on why we are making this decision, in 2022, the growth of Spotify’s operating expenses outpaced our revenue growth by two times. That would have been unsustainable long-term in any climate, but with a challenging macro environment, it would be even more difficult to close the gap.”
