Asus just hit us with an officially licensed Xbox gaming controller for CES 2023, the ROG Raikiri Pro. Not only does it hold a bunch of neat configuration features, it goes all out with an OLED panel slapped on the top.

That’s not an OLED for gaming on, however. It’s a 1.3-inch OLED display that can play custom animations, show mic status, or indicate battery life—the latter being our main concern in adding an OLED panel to anything wireless. 

I ended up in a hopeless tangle with today’s Wordle. I could take an educated guess at the back end of the word, thanks to the yellows and solitary green I’d already found, but the beginning just didn’t take shape before I ran out of guesses.

Wordle hint

A Wordle hint for Friday, January 6

The answer today is a relatively uncommon term used to describe a contradiction, something that is false or hidden. A speaker’s calm tone may _____ the anger they feel underneath, for example. There are two vowels to find today, and one of them is used twice. 

Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day 

If there’s one thing better than playing Wordle, it’s playing Wordle well, which is why I’m going to share a few quick tips to help set you on the path to success:

• A good opener contains a balanced mix of unique vowels and consonants. 
• A tactical second guess helps to narrow down the pool of letters quickly.
• The solution may contain repeat letters.

There’s no time pressure beyond making sure it’s done by midnight. So there’s no reason to not treat the game like a casual newspaper crossword and come back to it later if you’re coming up blank.

Today’s Wordle answer

What is the Wordle 566 answer?

Let’s turn those greens over. The January 6 (566) Wordle answer is BELIE . 

Previous answers

Wordle archive: Which words have been used

The more past Wordle answers you can cram into your memory banks, the better your chances of guessing today’s Wordle answer without accidentally picking a solution that’s already been used. Past Wordle answers can also give you some excellent ideas for fun starting words that keep your daily puzzle solving fresh.

Here are some recent Wordle solutions:

• January 5: SLEEK
• January 4: LAYER
• January 3: ANTIC
• January 2: SKIRT
• January 1: WHINE
• December 31: MANLY
• December 30: MOLAR
• December 29: HAVOC
• December 28: IMPEL
• December 27: CONDO

Learn more about Wordle 

Every day Wordle presents you with six rows of five boxes, and it’s up to you to work out which secret five-letter word is hiding inside them.

You’ll want to start with a strong word (opens in new tab) like ALERT—something containing multiple vowels, common consonants, and no repeat letters. Hit Enter and the boxes will show you which letters you’ve got right or wrong. If a box turns ⬛️, it means that letter isn’t in the secret word at all. 🟨 means the letter is in the word, but not in that position. 🟩 means you’ve got the right letter in the right spot.

You’ll want your second go to compliment the first, using another “good” word to cover any common letters you missed last time while also trying to avoid any letter you now know for a fact isn’t present in today’s answer.

After that it’s just a case of using what you’ve learned to narrow your guesses down to the right word. You have six tries in total and can only use real words (so no filling the boxes with EEEEE to see if there’s an E). Don’t forget letters can repeat too (ex: BOOKS).

If you need any further advice feel free to check out our Wordle tips (opens in new tab), and if you’d like to find out which words have already been used you’ll find those below.

Originally, Wordle was dreamed up by software engineer Josh Wardle (opens in new tab), as a surprise for his partner who loves word games. From there it spread to his family, and finally got released to the public. The word puzzle game has since inspired tons of games like Wordle (opens in new tab), refocusing the daily gimmick around music or math or geography. It wasn’t long before Wordle became so popular it was sold to the New York Times for seven figures (opens in new tab). Surely it’s only a matter of time before we all solely communicate in tricolor boxes. 

I ended up in a hopeless tangle with today’s Wordle. I could take an educated guess at the back end of the word, thanks to the yellows and solitary green I’d already found, but the beginning just didn’t take shape before I ran out of guesses.

Wordle hint

A Wordle hint for Friday, January 6

The answer today is a relatively uncommon term used to describe a contradiction, something that is false or hidden. A speaker’s calm tone may _____ the anger they feel underneath, for example. There are two vowels to find today, and one of them is used twice. 

Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day 

If there’s one thing better than playing Wordle, it’s playing Wordle well, which is why I’m going to share a few quick tips to help set you on the path to success:

• A good opener contains a balanced mix of unique vowels and consonants. 
• A tactical second guess helps to narrow down the pool of letters quickly.
• The solution may contain repeat letters.

There’s no time pressure beyond making sure it’s done by midnight. So there’s no reason to not treat the game like a casual newspaper crossword and come back to it later if you’re coming up blank.

Today’s Wordle answer

What is the Wordle 566 answer?

Let’s turn those greens over. The January 6 (566) Wordle answer is BELIE . 

Previous answers

Wordle archive: Which words have been used

The more past Wordle answers you can cram into your memory banks, the better your chances of guessing today’s Wordle answer without accidentally picking a solution that’s already been used. Past Wordle answers can also give you some excellent ideas for fun starting words that keep your daily puzzle solving fresh.

Here are some recent Wordle solutions:

• January 5: SLEEK
• January 4: LAYER
• January 3: ANTIC
• January 2: SKIRT
• January 1: WHINE
• December 31: MANLY
• December 30: MOLAR
• December 29: HAVOC
• December 28: IMPEL
• December 27: CONDO

Learn more about Wordle 

Every day Wordle presents you with six rows of five boxes, and it’s up to you to work out which secret five-letter word is hiding inside them.

You’ll want to start with a strong word (opens in new tab) like ALERT—something containing multiple vowels, common consonants, and no repeat letters. Hit Enter and the boxes will show you which letters you’ve got right or wrong. If a box turns ⬛️, it means that letter isn’t in the secret word at all. 🟨 means the letter is in the word, but not in that position. 🟩 means you’ve got the right letter in the right spot.

You’ll want your second go to compliment the first, using another “good” word to cover any common letters you missed last time while also trying to avoid any letter you now know for a fact isn’t present in today’s answer.

After that it’s just a case of using what you’ve learned to narrow your guesses down to the right word. You have six tries in total and can only use real words (so no filling the boxes with EEEEE to see if there’s an E). Don’t forget letters can repeat too (ex: BOOKS).

If you need any further advice feel free to check out our Wordle tips (opens in new tab), and if you’d like to find out which words have already been used you’ll find those below.

Originally, Wordle was dreamed up by software engineer Josh Wardle (opens in new tab), as a surprise for his partner who loves word games. From there it spread to his family, and finally got released to the public. The word puzzle game has since inspired tons of games like Wordle (opens in new tab), refocusing the daily gimmick around music or math or geography. It wasn’t long before Wordle became so popular it was sold to the New York Times for seven figures (opens in new tab). Surely it’s only a matter of time before we all solely communicate in tricolor boxes. 

Organizations like Game Workers Unite sprung up in the late 2010s to advocate for labor power in the games industry as critiques of crunch culture at studios drew wider attention. Workers at Stockholm-based studio Paradox Interactive successfully unionized and signed a collective bargaining agreement with the company in 2020, but it was at the end of 2021 leading into 2022 that things really started to boil over, resulting in the first successful union drives at major North American developers.

Raven QA

In December 2021, Activision Blizzard laid off 12 quality assurance (game testing) workers at Raven Software, a long-lived FPS studio and co-developer of Call of Duty’s Warzone battle royale mode. Raven’s remaining QA staff walked off the job in protest (opens in new tab), with other developers across Activision Blizzard joining in. With support from the wider A Better ABK employee advocacy group, the striking employees decided to unionize, forming the Game Workers Alliance through the Communications Workers of America.

Activision Blizzard proved hostile (opens in new tab) to the new union, refusing to voluntarily recognize it while arguing that any organizing effort at Raven should encompass the whole studio. Additionally, Activision Blizzard pushed through pay raises for other QA workers across the company, excluding Raven. 

Both Activision Blizzard and Starbucks (opens in new tab), another multinational corporation seeing unprecedented union activity, have utilized this tactic, but this pattern of issuing pay raises to non-unionizing employees in response to labor action has drawn condemnation (opens in new tab) from the National Labor Relations Board. 

The NLRB further ruled that there are enough differences in compensation and type of work done by videogame QA departments to warrant unionizing independently from the rest of a studio, opening the door to a union vote despite Activision Blizzard’s objections. The GWA at Raven won its vote to unionize (opens in new tab), and is currently in negotiations with Activision Blizzard over its first contract.

Knock-on effects

The first union at a big-budget game developer in North America was quickly followed by several more, all in QA departments working on major franchises. QA workers at Keywords Studios, a support studio to BioWare with employees currently working on the next Dragon Age, unanimously voted to unionize in June (opens in new tab). Blizzard Albany, the developer formerly known as Vicarious Visions and a support studio on the upcoming Diablo 4, saw its QA staff successfully unionize (opens in new tab) at the beginning of December under the same GWA/CWA umbrella as Raven.

These early victories precipitated the biggest coup so far in videogame labor organizing: the successful unionization of all 300 QA workers across ZeniMax Media (opens in new tab), which includes Starfield and Elder Scrolls developer Bethesda. In addition to the sheer size of the union organized, the ZeniMax drive was notable for the relative cooperation of parent company Microsoft. In the lead-up, figures like Xbox head Phil Spencer and Microsoft CVP and general counsel Lisa Tanzi issued public statements (opens in new tab) affirming Microsoft employees’ right to organize and the company’s willingness to recognize unions.

Microsoft followed through with this rhetoric in its dealings with ZeniMax Workers United, and CWA president Chris Shelton stated that Microsoft’s actions “should serve as a model for the industry and as a blueprint for regulators.” The stark contrast with Activision Blizzard’s combativeness is particularly notable given Microsoft’s pending $68.7 billion acquisition of the Call of Duty and World of Warcraft publisher.

That acquisition and its success could have a major influence on the labor movement in gaming going into 2023. This wave of studio unionizations first sprung up in opposition to Activision Blizzard management, with the company’s resistance to labor organization galvanizing its workers but also significantly impeding the unionization process. A milder Activision Blizzard moderated by Microsoft could provide a more favorable environment for future studios to organize in.

Even if the merger doesn’t go through though, it’s hard to see this momentum as a glitch games industry companies can patch out. An important test coming up is the union drive at the amusingly named Spellbreak developer Proletariat (opens in new tab), which was acquired by Activision Blizzard in 2022. The Proletariat Workers Alliance (again, great name) is the first instance in this current wave of unionizations of multiple departments, not just quality assurance, participating in the effort. 

It also remains to be seen what kind of contracts can be won at successfully unionized workplaces, and if similar movements can take hold at other publishers like Ubisoft and EA.

Organizations like Game Workers Unite sprung up in the late 2010s to advocate for labor power in the games industry as critiques of crunch culture at studios drew wider attention. Workers at Stockholm-based studio Paradox Interactive successfully unionized and signed a collective bargaining agreement with the company in 2020, but it was at the end of 2021 leading into 2022 that things really started to boil over, resulting in the first successful union drives at major North American developers.

Raven QA

In December 2021, Activision Blizzard laid off 12 quality assurance (game testing) workers at Raven Software, a long-lived FPS studio and co-developer of Call of Duty’s Warzone battle royale mode. Raven’s remaining QA staff walked off the job in protest (opens in new tab), with other developers across Activision Blizzard joining in. With support from the wider A Better ABK employee advocacy group, the striking employees decided to unionize, forming the Game Workers Alliance through the Communications Workers of America.

Activision Blizzard proved hostile (opens in new tab) to the new union, refusing to voluntarily recognize it while arguing that any organizing effort at Raven should encompass the whole studio. Additionally, Activision Blizzard pushed through pay raises for other QA workers across the company, excluding Raven. 

Both Activision Blizzard and Starbucks (opens in new tab), another multinational corporation seeing unprecedented union activity, have utilized this tactic, but this pattern of issuing pay raises to non-unionizing employees in response to labor action has drawn condemnation (opens in new tab) from the National Labor Relations Board. 

The NLRB further ruled that there are enough differences in compensation and type of work done by videogame QA departments to warrant unionizing independently from the rest of a studio, opening the door to a union vote despite Activision Blizzard’s objections. The GWA at Raven won its vote to unionize (opens in new tab), and is currently in negotiations with Activision Blizzard over its first contract.

Knock-on effects

The first union at a big-budget game developer in North America was quickly followed by several more, all in QA departments working on major franchises. QA workers at Keywords Studios, a support studio to BioWare with employees currently working on the next Dragon Age, unanimously voted to unionize in June (opens in new tab). Blizzard Albany, the developer formerly known as Vicarious Visions and a support studio on the upcoming Diablo 4, saw its QA staff successfully unionize (opens in new tab) at the beginning of December under the same GWA/CWA umbrella as Raven.

These early victories precipitated the biggest coup so far in videogame labor organizing: the successful unionization of all 300 QA workers across ZeniMax Media (opens in new tab), which includes Starfield and Elder Scrolls developer Bethesda. In addition to the sheer size of the union organized, the ZeniMax drive was notable for the relative cooperation of parent company Microsoft. In the lead-up, figures like Xbox head Phil Spencer and Microsoft CVP and general counsel Lisa Tanzi issued public statements (opens in new tab) affirming Microsoft employees’ right to organize and the company’s willingness to recognize unions.

Microsoft followed through with this rhetoric in its dealings with ZeniMax Workers United, and CWA president Chris Shelton stated that Microsoft’s actions “should serve as a model for the industry and as a blueprint for regulators.” The stark contrast with Activision Blizzard’s combativeness is particularly notable given Microsoft’s pending $68.7 billion acquisition of the Call of Duty and World of Warcraft publisher.

That acquisition and its success could have a major influence on the labor movement in gaming going into 2023. This wave of studio unionizations first sprung up in opposition to Activision Blizzard management, with the company’s resistance to labor organization galvanizing its workers but also significantly impeding the unionization process. A milder Activision Blizzard moderated by Microsoft could provide a more favorable environment for future studios to organize in.

Even if the merger doesn’t go through though, it’s hard to see this momentum as a glitch games industry companies can patch out. An important test coming up is the union drive at the amusingly named Spellbreak developer Proletariat (opens in new tab), which was acquired by Activision Blizzard in 2022. The Proletariat Workers Alliance (again, great name) is the first instance in this current wave of unionizations of multiple departments, not just quality assurance, participating in the effort. 

It also remains to be seen what kind of contracts can be won at successfully unionized workplaces, and if similar movements can take hold at other publishers like Ubisoft and EA.

Steam Award winners are chosen by vote, which means that a majority of users selected it over the other entrants in the category: Dota 2, Project Zomboid, No Man’s Sky, and Deep Rock Galactic. But in a way, Steam’s user review system means the Steam Awards are never really over. And sure enough, a slew of new negative user reviews were posted on Steam following the Labor of Love win, many of them expressing the feeling that it was the popularity of the Cyberpunk: Edgerunners (opens in new tab) show on Netflix, and not the game itself, that put it over the top.

• “Labor of Love my ass, the game is where it should’ve released at. It only got labor of love cause of the weebs and the dumb anime.”
• “This won labor of love because of the show and nothing else. There has been 0 content added to this game over 2 years compared to literally any of the other nominees. The game is still trash, and will continue to be till the company gets their ♥♥♥♥ together.”
• “Shocking how a decent animated adaptation can fool so many people into thinking the source material is worth forgiving, let alone awarding it as a ‘Labor of Love’.”
• “Cyberpunk Edgerunners didn’t make this a good game.”

It’s not a review-bombing in the classic sense. While there was a decided uptick in negative reviews since the Steam Award winners were announced—193 in total so far—by all appearances it’s a handful of fans expressing their frustration with the ongoing state of things, rather than a coordinated effort to cause grief for one reason or another. And there were still far more positive reviews posted over the same two days: 836 in all. 

In fact, that ratio isn’t too far off the user reviews posted in December 2020, when Cyberpunk 2077 first launched and was in its most dire state: More than 63,000 negative reviews, which is an absolutely wild number but still not much more than a quarter of the 227,000 positive reviews posted in the same period.

Despite its rocky history, Cyberpunk 2077 has only ever been “officially” review-bombed on Steam once. That happened in March 2022, when thousands of negative user reviews were posted after CD Projekt halted sales of its products in Russia and Belarus (opens in new tab) to protest Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As noted by The Gamer (opens in new tab), the volume of negative reviews was enough to pull the game’s “recent” review rating to “mixed,” although Valve later marked those reviews as off-topic, thereby excluding them from the overall rating (opens in new tab).

This one is still in there, though.

Steam Award winners are chosen by vote, which means that a majority of users selected it over the other entrants in the category: Dota 2, Project Zomboid, No Man’s Sky, and Deep Rock Galactic. But in a way, Steam’s user review system means the Steam Awards are never really over. And sure enough, a slew of new negative user reviews were posted on Steam following the Labor of Love win, many of them expressing the feeling that it was the popularity of the Cyberpunk: Edgerunners (opens in new tab) show on Netflix, and not the game itself, that put it over the top.

• “Labor of Love my ass, the game is where it should’ve released at. It only got labor of love cause of the weebs and the dumb anime.”
• “This won labor of love because of the show and nothing else. There has been 0 content added to this game over 2 years compared to literally any of the other nominees. The game is still trash, and will continue to be till the company gets their ♥♥♥♥ together.”
• “Shocking how a decent animated adaptation can fool so many people into thinking the source material is worth forgiving, let alone awarding it as a ‘Labor of Love’.”
• “Cyberpunk Edgerunners didn’t make this a good game.”

It’s not a review-bombing in the classic sense. While there was a decided uptick in negative reviews since the Steam Award winners were announced—193 in total so far—by all appearances it’s a handful of fans expressing their frustration with the ongoing state of things, rather than a coordinated effort to cause grief for one reason or another. And there were still far more positive reviews posted over the same two days: 836 in all. 

In fact, that ratio isn’t too far off the user reviews posted in December 2020, when Cyberpunk 2077 first launched and was in its most dire state: More than 63,000 negative reviews, which is an absolutely wild number but still not much more than a quarter of the 227,000 positive reviews posted in the same period.

Despite its rocky history, Cyberpunk 2077 has only ever been “officially” review-bombed on Steam once. That happened in March 2022, when thousands of negative user reviews were posted after CD Projekt halted sales of its products in Russia and Belarus (opens in new tab) to protest Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As noted by The Gamer (opens in new tab), the volume of negative reviews was enough to pull the game’s “recent” review rating to “mixed,” although Valve later marked those reviews as off-topic, thereby excluding them from the overall rating (opens in new tab).

This one is still in there, though.

Sim Wong Hoo, who founded Sound Blaster producer Creative Technology in 1981 and remained at its head ever since, has died. A statement (opens in new tab) released by the company said Sim “passed away peacefully” on January 4.

Creative Technology—known as Creative Labs in North America—was a groundbreaking player in the early days of PC gaming thanks to its long-running series of audio cards. After initially launching as the Creative Music System in 1987, the famous Sound Blaster line debuted in 1989, and quickly took over the market: Ad Lib, which prior to the arrival of Sound Blaster cards was the effective standard for PC gaming audio, lost so much ground so quickly that it was forced to file for bankruptcy in 1992.