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?

"Read more"

[thetorpedodog]

Read more from Slate's special issue on procrastination.

Actually, I think I'll wait until tomorrow...when I have work to do.

If I were stranded on a deserted island...

[mark-t]

... and could only have one thing, it would be a deck of cards. I would start to play solitaire and eventually somebody inevitably would come along to tell me to place that red eight on the black nine and I'd be rescued.

Solitaire vs. Sid Meir Games

[Proudrooster]

It was often said in days of yore that Windows was the best $80 Solitaire game one could buy. However, I believe that Sid Meir games such as Civilization dwarf Solitaire have consumed far more time. Civilization IV is epic and can take days to finish a single game.

I won't even touch the MMORPG's like Evercrack and WOW.

Can anyone get me a pre-release demo of StarCraft II ? That is the one I really want to waste a lot of time on.

Re:Can It?

[kojimoto_atusis]

I hate you! Now I will remember the songs again, is gonna be a long long week, unless i can find my gameboy

Inaccurate Summary

[wbren]

If you play FreeCell, there's a interesting paragraph about its inventor.

Inaccurate! The interesting paragraph about the inventor of FreeCell is present in my copy of the article, despite the fact that I do not play FreeCell. /badjoke

George W Bush plays Solitaire?

[Centurix]

Do you think GWB has admin rights on his PC? As a system administrator, would you have the guts to remove sol.exe? If you did, would it be a unilateral decision?

Just imagine, sol.exe could be the only thing to stop GWB from getting bored enough to push the Big Red Button.

CPS can't come get them...

[Chmcginn]

if there's no doors in their house.

Re:If I were stranded on a deserted island...

[LoverOfJoy]

If I could only have one thing on a deserted island it'd be a yacht.

Re:Can It?

[ozmanjusri]

There is an antidote [youtube.com].

Re:CPS can't come get them...

[morari]

That's simply not true. They'll just teleport in and take your baby anyway. They can teleport out as well, so it's not as if you can set the house on fire in order to kill the baby and the social worker. :(

Re:George W Bush plays Solitaire?

[owlnation]

Do you think GWB has admin rights on his PC?

GWB has a PC? Maybe someone put a speakandspell there and told him it was a PC. But lets face it, he's going to be a 1st level IT support nightmare -- "Is it plugged in Mr President? ...etc".

Unless there's a MS Whitehouse edition? "Who do you want to bomb today?" and "Ah I see you're trying to waterboard someone. I can help with that!"

Re:Perfect steps...

[Darkness404]

Well, as they say, Emacs is a perfectly good operating system, it just lacks a decent text editor.

Re:Can It?

[leothar]

You evil bastard!

Re:Perfect steps...

[YrWrstNtmr]

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...

And the inverse to that is:
Several small, individual, standalone files that do one thing each and do it well, vs one bloated monolithic pile o crap that tries to do everything.

Re:Screw Card Games!

[stuporglue]

Finally, a reason to upgrade!

I spent 1991 playing Tetris.

[ChrisCampbell47]

I'm not kidding. Well, I was finishing my engineering degree, and had a frisky girlfriend, so it didn't consume all my time, but I swear every remaining waking moment was spent playing it. On my tricked out zero-wait-state 12 MHz 286. And it was the original Russian DOS-mode game, none of this crappy flash knockoff shite. I will bury you.

I always thought...

[Totenglocke]

Funny, I always thought that the reason so many people played solitaire was because it's the only game that doesn't crash in Windows.

Re:Can It?

[mrbluze]

It used to, a long time ago... although nobody should be subjected to the horror that is Windows Tetris.

... not even my mother in-law?

Re:Can It?

[Oktober Sunset]

Don't worry, i'll get him back. with this. [youtube.com]

Hmm

[pedrop357]

I'm playing a game right now, so I'm really getting a kick out of these repli...Err umm... sorry, wrong site.

In Soviet Russia, games play YOU!

That's better.

Re:Can It?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, you're taking this way too seriously..... seriously....

Vista not necessary

[Weaselmancer]

Just grab GNU chess Windows port. [tim-mann.org]

Funny story about GNU chess.

Back when I was in college I had two friends that were sharing an apartment. One worked in the day, the other at night. Their only communication was a chessboard on top of the TV. Each person would take a move before going to bed.

One friend cheated. He compiled GNU chess on his Linux box, inputted the board, cranked it up to nearly maximum, and left it to calculate the next move. It would take about 10 hours or so to calculate its next move.

He'd come home from work, make a sandwich, login and get his move, and go to bed. Needless to say he was kicking much ass, and his friend was mightily puzzled at his ability to do so.

He finally came clean though - it was a pretty funny scene when he did. =)

Re:Can It?

[noidentity]

I thought BSOD was the most-played game on Windows; it's even an exclusive that only Microsoft is able to include.

Re:If I were stranded on a deserted island...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a thread about games; accordingly, you may not take a yacht with you. However, a Levenshtein calculation from "yacht" to all known game term provides a result of 4 for "yahtzee".

So, yahtzee it is!

Re:Vista not necessary

[sprintkayak]

I heard a funny (and probably fictitious) story by Harry Anderson (the Judge from Night Court). His friend is into chess (belongs to a chess club) and Harry bets that he could beat his friend and at least break even with the whole club at the same time. He watches the first half of the opponents make their moves and then telegraphs them to the other boards which he starts on. To beat his friend he pairs him up with the club champ.

Aha, you're wrong!

[Anonymous Coward]

I am also Mr. Anonymous Coward.

- CmdrTaco.

Re:Can It?

[Anonymous Coward]

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?!?

Bug reports!

pfft

[GregNorc]

Skifree taught me a lot about life.

Whenever you think things are going well, a giant monster will run out of the woods and attack you.