What’s on the cards on Tuesday? A game of Solitaire, perhaps? Well, Microsoft would certainly like you to set aside your work for a bit and play the old favourite, which ruled PCs in the 90s.

The Seattle-based software giant is promoting May 22 as National Solitaire Day. This was the day 28 years ago that it loaded the game on its Windows software, and made the world go crazy shuffling cards.

To celebrate the day, Microsoft has put out a rather corny promotional video where people are shown playing at work, happy that they don’t have to pretend to be productive. It even features a cute dog pawing at the cards. “There’s no need to be particularly productive today on National Solitaire Day — just play some Solitaire!” the ad urges.

For a generation of workers. the most-used Windows application was not Word, Excel or PowerPoint but Solitaire. Microsoft found itself with a winning card when one of its coders, Wes Cherry, digitised the vintage classic solo card game Patience and put it on its Windows 3 operating system. Solitaire went viral.

As Paul Jensen, Studio Manager, Microsoft Casual Games, recalls on the xbox.com page, Solitaire also helped people learn how to use the mouse and keyboard in tandem — Windows 3 used a graphical user interface for the first time and dragging and dropping files were alien concepts for users.

It was also ironic that the makers of the world’s most productive software solution created the ultimate office time-waster. During its heydays there were cartoons that showed clerks playing the card game even as people waited in line at banks.

Apparently, Cherry even invented a boss key that would help you quickly hide the Solitaire from the screen when someone approached, showing an innocuous work page instead. For some strange reason Microsoft took Solitaire off Windows 8 only to bring it back in 2015 in Windows 10 on the digital game’s 25th anniversary.

Lost in the shuffle

Today, in the era of super-fast mobile internet and social media, does anyone really play Solitaire? When BusinessLine reached out to CEOs, start-up founders, mid-level executives, and millennials, it drew a near blank.

“I played Solitaire, Pinball and Minesweeper the most when internet speeds were low. That was nearly 20 years ago,” recalls Ninad Chhaya, co-founder and COO, GoPhygital and incidentally a game developer.

“I haven’t played Solitaire in many years. In the office, all I see around me is Candy Crush,” says Naresh Gupta, COO, Bang in the Middle. Most people said Angry Birds and Candy Crush had pushed Solitaire to an unused corner of the screen or web.

“If you know how to play Solitaire, Rogue or Pac-Man, you are likely to NOT be a millennial. It is not a weapon of choice for getting distracted by those still building up their work experience,” says Abhijit Bhaduri, HR expert and former chief learning officer of Wipro, who refers to the Windows game as a lonely person’s stress buster.

No more aces?

Will the game ever regain its old stature? A quick check on the Google Play store reveals a million plus downloads for the Microsoft Solitaire Collection but the deck seems loaded against it, going by the reactions. “It’s like the Nokia snake game. Nostalgia for a bunch of people, but no connect with the newer lot,” says Gupta.

“I don’t play computer games at all now, apart from Twitter,” says Anil Chandhok, CEO and President of Chenab Impex, an importer of gourmet foods. “But will celebrate tomorrow by playing Solitaire once again.”

“What was indulgence in Solitaire back then is Social Media today,” sums up Steve Correa, CHRO of Diageo India. Does Microsoft have any cards up its sleeve?

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