April 12–23, 2026 Welcome back to the WordPress.com changelog!  Over the past two weeks, we opened up the WordPress 7.0 beta for Business and Commerce sites, made it easier for…

WordPress.com News Read on blog or Reader WordPress.com Changelog: Try the WordPress 7.0 Beta and a One-Click Solution for Plugin Errors By WordPress.com Staff on April 24, 2026 April 12–23, 2026 Welcome back to the WordPress.com changelog!  Over the past two weeks, we opened up the WordPress 7.0 beta for Business and Commerce sites, made it easier for you to fix plugin errors, and made our Support Center more easy to navigate. Releases Try WordPress 7.0 before it ships WordPress 7.0 is on its way, and if you’re on a Business or Commerce plan, you can now test the beta on your live and/or staging site. Visit Sites → Your Site → Settings → Server → WordPress, and pick the beta version from the dropdown. WordPress.com takes an automatic backup of your site before switching the version, keeps your site on the latest beta as new betas are released, and lets you switch back to a stable version at any time from the same settings area. Security When a plugin breaks your site, you can fix it in one click When a plugin causes a fatal error on your WordPress.com site, you no longer face a blank screen with no way out. Site owners will now see an error page that identifies which plugin triggered the problem and offers a one-click Deactivate button, which works even if the site won’t load normally, to disable the offending plugin before it has a chance to run again. Meanwhile, your site visitors see a clean apology — no technical details, no alarm. For further peace of mind, our Happiness Engineers are constantly working to detect potential issues with plugins that may cause fatal errors on your site and proactively seek solutions before they become an issue for you or your readers/users.  We also have a dedicated team of Security Specialists who work on detecting and resolving malware and other threats to your sites and will keep you updated with anything they find via email. Support Navigate our Support Center with the Support Assistant Using the search bar in our Support Center now launches the Support Assistant by default for logged in and logged out users. The chat can surface answers to your specific questions, highlight helpful support resources, and connect you with one of our incredible Happiness Engineers if you need more assistance. Fixes and improvements We shipped additional reliability and polish updates across WordPress.com too, including: Adding an explicit confirmation screen when connecting your WordPress.com account to Telegram. Preventing survey pop-ups from appearing while the Help Center is open, so the two don’t compete for your attention. Enabling customers to start a free trial using UPI. Comment Like WordPress.com News © 2026. Unsubscribe or manage your email subscriptions. Get the Jetpack app Subscribe, bookmark, and get real-time notifications – all from one app! Automattic, Inc. 60 29th St. #343, San Francisco, CA 94110

David Edery co-founded Spry Fox in 2010 with a simple goal: creating games that make people happy. What followed was 15 years of quirky, original titles like Cozy Grove, a…

WordPress.com News Read on blog or Reader Spry Fox Has Been Making Games for 15 Years. Their Blog Is Still One of Their Best Growth Tools. By Matt Wondra on April 22, 2026 David Edery co-founded Spry Fox in 2010 with a simple goal: creating games that make people happy. What followed was 15 years of quirky, original titles like Cozy Grove, a narrative-driven life simulation game that became a cult favorite, and Spirit Crossing, a cozy MMO currently in open alpha and targeting a full PC launch later in 2026.  In 2022, Netflix acquired the studio. In January 2026, Spry Fox spun back out as an independent studio, still partnering with Netflix on Spirit Crossing. Through all of it, including the acquisition and the spin-out, their WordPress.com presence stayed constant. Why a game studio still needs a website Many game studios lean hard on social media and paid advertising. Spry Fox has always done things differently. Their growth has been almost entirely organic — built through a newsletter, Discord communities, Reddit, and a blog that’s been running since the early days of the company. We’ve been trying to maintain a relationship with our audience through our newsletter, our Discord servers, and our blog on WordPress. That’s been driving the majority of our growth over the years. David Edery co-founder Spry Fox The blog is where Spry Fox puts the thinking that deserves more space than quick Reddit or Discord updates. A deep dive into how they tuned the economy of Spirit Crossing, a post explaining a design decision, or a longer piece on where the studio is headed. That’s where we put deeper thoughts. If we need a place to say: hey, we thought carefully about this — we always start with the blog. David Edery co-founder Spry Fox It’s also an archive. A record of how the studio thinks, what they’ve built, and why.  The site also drives traffic. People search for old games like Triple Town, land on the blog, and discover what Spry Fox is working on now. It’s a quiet but steady acquisition channel, and one that costs almost nothing to maintain. The website that just works Spry Fox’s game sites — including Cozy Grove and Spirit Crossing — are hosted on WordPress.com and built and maintained by the Automattic Special Projects team. For David, the value is straightforward. The website just works. If there’s ever an issue, it gets solved. I don’t have to think about it. David Edery co-founder Spry Fox That’s not a small thing for a studio focused on making games. Every hour spent on hosting, maintenance, or troubleshooting is an hour not spent building. WordPress.com removes that category of problem entirely. Your story deserves a home, too Spry Fox has spent 15 years building an audience without massive investments in paid advertising. Their site on WordPress.com is a big part of why that works. A place they own and control, and a record of who they are and what they’re building. WordPress.com gives you fast, secure hosting and a platform built for long-form publishing, so you can focus on the work that truly matters. Get started with WordPress.com Comment Like WordPress.com News © 2026. Unsubscribe or manage your email subscriptions. Get the Jetpack app Subscribe, bookmark, and get real-time notifications – all from one app! Automattic, Inc. 60 29th St. #343, San Francisco, CA 94110