Wordle's hardest word caused 60% of players to break their streaks

pcgamer.com:

Like many websites, we publish a daily hint and answer for Wordle(opens in new tab). We do this because every single day Wordle players search for a hint and answer to that day's Wordle puzzle. To be blunt about it: a lot of people cheat at Wordle.

But I don't think people cheat just so they don't have to do the puzzle themselves—what would even be the point of playing Wordle every day if you were just going to look up the answer? I'm pretty sure that when people cheat at Wordle it's just to maintain their streaks. Wordle keeps track of how many times you've played, what percentage of games you've won, along with your current streak. If you miss one, that streak is reset to zero, which can be a pretty big blow if you're gone for weeks or even months without missing a single word.

So, I get it. You're down to your final guess, and the grid is showing one of those bastard words like  CA_ER, which could be CAPER or CABER or CATER or maybe ever CAGER. Your 71-day streak is on the line. Screw it! You take a little peek at the answer, and you don't have to suffer the indignity of starting your streak over from nil.

At the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco this week, Zoe Bell, Executive Producer of New York Times Games, talked about the NYT's first year of Wordle, which the paper acquired from creator Josh Wardle(opens in new tab) for a seven-figure sum in January of 2022. During her talk, Bell revealed what the toughest Wordle word has been to date. 

It was PARER.

On average, every day about 15% of players have their streaks broken. But on September 16, PARER stumped a whopping 60% of players. I can see why: it's definitely one of those words, which Bell called a «skyscraper word» where the grid winds up looking like