Just as the original Wordle was bought by the New York Times, the spin-off music guessing game, Heardle, has now been purchased by Spotify.
Heardle has already been rebranded and now runs using Spotify rather than Soundcloud, but otherwise the playing experience remains the same — and it’s still free for all players. However, as a result of the move, Heardle has been made unavailable in all but a small number of English-speaking countries: the U.S., U.K., Ireland, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
The move to make it only available in a limited number of countries is a shame. I would guess it's down to licensing, but that's going to annoy quite a few people that have surely been playing Heardle.
That aside, it makes sense in my opinion, that Spotify would purchase Heardle. For one, they can now put the Spotify logo on the website, but by making it easy for a guessed song to play via Spotify, I assume they're going to get quite a few new users.
What I'm sure will happen further down the line, is that the song choice will become a marketing tool, and potentially could be sold for promotional purposes.
Update: 25/09/2022