On Woogles, and on growing the game we all love

Last week, I published in this space an interview that I did with the creators of Woogles, a new online platform for word gaming that went live to the public earlier in October. I had the privilege of chatting with all seven Wooglers in a group setting, and we went on for over half an hour. They shared their insights on a wide range of topics - their respective roles on the team, their views on the current shortcomings with online Scrabble play, their vision for the future of the game, and more. It was all enlightening stuff - check it out if you haven't already.

This week, I wanted to follow up with a perspective of my own - partially riffing off of last week's interview, but also incorporating some other thoughts I've been kicking around lately.

In short, I want to talk about how we grow the game.

I'll start by saying there were a couple of lines in particular from last week's interview that really stuck with me. The first was from Josh Castellano, and the second, piggybacking off of Josh, was from Jesse Day:

"I had been thinking ... about how it would be nice if we had just one place for everything. All the stats, a place to play, everything, it's all in one place. That would just make everything better."

"Another thing I think about is the journey of expertise. The tools are so scattered right now! Why shouldn't they all be in one place? My dream is that a future champion from Pakistan, or wherever, finds our website and has everything they need to go from rank novice to expertdom."

I've thought a lot about these quotes over the last week, because I think they're getting at something really important. If we want top-level Scrabble to not just survive, but thrive in future generations, we need to have a pipeline for bringing in new talent that makes real sense. I've been around the game for 13 years now, and in my time in Scrabble, I've seen very few top players arrive on the scene and rise up the ranks. I've seen far more quit. Some attrition is to be expected, sure, but we've got to have an effective way to bring in more strong players than we lose.

I've recently learned a little bit about what it's like navigating into a new gaming realm. For about a year now, I've been somewhat obsessed with chess. I randomly played a couple games against my nephew at a family gathering last fall and I enjoyed it more than I expected, and I felt like I had a decent feel for the game. So, curious whether I could ever beat someone who wasn't a 7-year-old, I did a few Google searches that night, trying to figure out how I could improve at chess.

I found a ton of stuff.

For starters, there were lots of Reddit threads recommending various pieces of content. I read a few articles and learned some basic concepts - stuff like the difference between an Italian opening and a Ruy Lopez, and how to checkmate someone using just a king and a queen. I found a handful of good YouTube channels and Twitch streams. And of course, I found Chess.com, which is an incredible one-stop shop for everything. You can play games, you can review your games, you can examine experts' play, you can study openings, and on, and on, and on. It's all there.

Now, I'll never be a chess grandmaster. In a year's time, I've reached the point where I can beat a 1200 player on a good day. But I firmly believe that if I really, really wanted to keep climbing the ladder, I'd have all the tools at my fingertips to do so. Everything I'd need to study and practice and keep refining my game is there.

Somehow I doubt that new Scrabble players feel the same way.

Don't get me wrong - we have some tools. We have ISC and we have Quackle and we have Aerolith and Zyzzyva and all that fun stuff. We have some Twitch streams, some YouTube videos, some books, and so on. All of this is well and good! But it's all disjointed, and it's not exactly easy for new players to find, and the path "from rank novice to expertdom," as Jesse puts it, is therefore quite convoluted. The easiest way for new players to learn how to improve, I suppose, is to find a local Scrabble club first, then learn about all the Scrabble tools out there through word of mouth once you've made a few Scrabble friends IRL. This works for some people, but the process could be so much smoother.

Another bit of personal perspective I should share here is from my career. Most of the work I've done for the last decade or so is in a field called "inbound marketing." The concept of inbound marketing is pretty simple - in the 21st century, people find the products and brands and experiences they like by seeking them out actively. They don't respond to radio commercials and newspaper ads like they did in the 20th century - those strategies are now known as outbound marketing, and they’re dying out. People today, in fact, do everything they can to avoid ads. When they actually want to find new stuff, they find it themselves. They Google it.

That means that when a new user makes a query - like I did a year ago when I Googled "how to improve at chess" - you've got to make sure they find you. You need content that's optimized for search engines, and an engaging social media presence, and all of that. You need to put something out there that's truly worth finding.

That will have to be a team effort. Bringing Scrabble into the 21st century is going to be a complicated process, and it'll require all sorts of people with all sorts of skills - technical skills, teaching skills, storytelling skills, people skills, everything. I've tried to use this blog to showcase people who have those skills and are using them for the betterment of the game. Not just the Woogles team but also John O'Laughlin, who co-created Quackle back in the early 2000s; Ben Schoenbrun, who's been an innovator in the world of virtual tournaments; Will Anderson, who's become the preeminent Twitch streamer in the game; and Eric Rosen, who's a major player in the online chess world and has applied a lot of wisdom about online chess content to Scrabble content as well.

I share these people's stories not just because they're interesting (though they definitely are!), but also because I hope these individuals will inspire others like them to come forward. At this point in its evolution, Scrabble just needs more. More of everything - more tournament directors, more content creators, you name it. I think the Woogles team, by creating a better place for players to practice and learn, is doing something tremendous for the Scrabble community. My hope is that others will step up and do more big things. Together, we can most definitely create a world in which more people climb the ranks from rank Scrabble novice to expertdom. We just have to work together.