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Why Windows Solitaire Eats So Much Time
An anonymous reader writes "This article suggests that Windows Solitaire may be the most-often played computer game. It's not so much an article about Solitaire, but rather an article about Windows and human nature and socialization. If you play FreeCell, there's a interesting paragraph about its inventor." Can Solitaire really eat up more hours than have been sacrificed to Tetris?
Seriously though, I have Quake, SimCity2000, and Diablo on any computer that I use just in case I do get bored. Those titles will run on pretty much anything.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
I don't have any proof, but I'll still tell:
A few years ago I was cleaning out the records room where I worked. Among all the old manuals of long dead software, I found a four floppy install set of Windows 3.1 (or 3.1.1? It was a very long time ago). On its list of features was Solitaire, listed as mouse practice software of all things. Needless to say, a joke quickly circulated in the office, that we weren't playing games; we were training for better hand-eye coordination with a computer mouse.
That aside, if anyone has an old copy, or knows of an image online, I would very much appreciate the correlation of ecidence.
I loathe Freecell. I also play an average of 3 or 4 games of it a day. I don't think I get any satisfaction from the act of playing or from winning, but it has become the primary opportunity to shut off my brain for a moment or two between tasks. I cannot count the number of times I have opened the game, then closed it because I could find no motivation to play, then re-opened it and played a game 15 minutes later. In the meantime, I could be reading /. or wikipedia or playing a real game, but none of these other diversions quite fill the short-term, no thought required niche that the hated Solitaire game does. There is something seriously wrong with me ...
One virtue of solitaire over most other computer games is that it's not time-based. You can play for exactly as long as you want to. You don't need to finish a level in the time allotted, kill the aliens before they land, play a word before your opponent gets annoyed with you, or anything like that. You have complete control of the gaming schedule.
One can have similar experiences from playing board games vs. computer opponents, or from the crafting aspect of MMOs. But solitaire is by far the simplest way of achieving them.
To err is human. To forgive is good system design.
On a Per-Person level, I think there are more people that have spent 20 hours in a day playing Tetris, than Windows Solitaire.
But, I think more people play Solitaire than play(ed) Tetris, so collectively its more hours. I think you missed the tag line from TFA "Chen, the company's usability research crew discovered that the three most-played computer games solitaire or something else, Microsoft or otherwise, preloaded or user-installed) are, in order Spider Solitaire, Klondike Solitaire, and Free Cell."
now personally, i have over 13,000 games of WC3TFT, which translates to roughly 135.416*(infinitely repeating 6s) days of warcraft 3... and i know free cell is probably not even the second game, for my list, that right belongs to the first (us release) of Advance wars, with well over 1000 hours (over 41 days straight) free cell isn't even my third favorite game, I've probably only done 500 hands of it in total, but i am an atypical player.
It makes me wonder, how exactly did Microsoft figure out which programs are used the most? does windows XP and later 'phone home' the top 10 most launched applications? if it does that, that number can be skewed, if the Microsoft coded apps are going by 'games played' using built in statistics, then how can they compare to ordinary video games that don't provide these statistics to Microsoft? after all, i would only launch wc3 once a day, and get in as many as 50 games a day... but if the statistics are of launching the application, I've known some people who 'think' they get better game hands by exiting and restarting free cell than by normal means of getting a new game...
seriously How is Microsoft getting their numbers?!?
* = based on an average game length of 15 minutes, but my average game length might be longer, i can't recall and the statistics are only for one season, not the whole time I've been a warcraft player.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
Linux solitaire(AisleRiot) has everything from Agnes to Zebra! not 'just' spider, Klondike, and free cell... which windows implements through three separate executables?!? for simple card games?!? you need 3 game engines to play cards?!?! crazy man crazy...
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
Solitaire is a good thing.
Although it probably seems foreign to most of us here, mouse hand-eye coordination is not automatic.
And for new users or even new users at a business, our IT people encourage people to start with something like solitaire and just let people goof off until it becomes automatic. (Notice the stores or businesses that have mouse driven software and the users take FOREVER to move the cursor on screen to make selections. Giving them a week of play time on something like Soitaire would increase their productivity in the long run, and reduce customer frustration. (Not that I recommend a Mouse UI for checkstands or small business invoicing, but there is a lot of crap software out there in specific industries that rely on it.
It is also a good tool for users moving to touch pads, pens, thumbsticks, etc as it is simple, mindless and yet lets people master the abstract motor neural control of input devices.
Everytime we have a proficient tech that 'hates' an input device, our policies are to make them use that input device, at least for stuff like solitaire if not general work until it becomes second nature. Especially if the tech is ever going to be using it in public or assisting corporate clients where the device might be widely used. (Touchpads and Thumbsticks being #1 on this list.)
You figuring that out makes me think of Xfire, which tracks the amount of time played by people who have the Xfire client installed.
Some quick calculations using stats from the xfire site show that on today, a non-holiday sunday, approximately 44 man-years of time have been played only in the game World of Warcraft. Not to mention that leaves out all Mac WoW'ers (we do exist), and ever so rare wine linux WoW'ers. And even on top of that, all the people who did play on windows today but don't have the Xfire client installed.
Full disclosure: I am a Microsoft MVP and have been on campus and this information is not from anyone there but rather from a conversation in a bar in Seatle as I recall. My memory is a tad bit fuzzy. I blame beer.
/. crowd but it seems to make some sense to me.
However... I came away with the impression that Windows "still included" the games (this was XP release era) because of the reason that it has always included the games. The games were there as a test for graphics and the ability to create random numbers. I am unable to find anything online to add to this however and would love some insight/thoughts. Saying, simply, "That's what I was told." Surely isn't going to cut it with the
I'm not sure how or why you got modded down but them's the breaks.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
They did on Vista. My wife wants to use my work laptop all the time, just to play mahjong.
Infact all the windows games have been re-written using WPF and look very sweet.
It seems that Wes would himself prefer Robotron 2084 to Solitaire.