TITLE
How Bill Gates’ Minesweeper addiction helped lead to the Xbox
AUTHOR
Kyle Orland
PUBLICATION
Ars Technica
YEAR
2023
ARTICLE TYPE
Book Excerpt
FROM THE ARTICLE
The early Windows version of Minesweeper became an instant hit on Microsoft’s internal network when it released in 1990, according to people who worked there at the time.“We never had to work very hard to find testers,” said Libby Duzan Nuttall, who served as Microsoft’s lead product manager for entertainment in the ’90s. “It was one of those things where you would walk down the hall and you’d see it… on people’s computers. At that time at Microsoft, people were staying late into the night, so you’d see people taking breaks, 9 o’clock at night, playing a round of Minesweeper.”
[…]
While Minesweeper love at Microsoft wasn’t universal, the game managed to get its hooks into the most important backer a Microsoft game could have.
“Bill got addicted,” as Fitzgerald put it bluntly.
That’s Bill Gates, of course, the billionaire Microsoft founder and CEO (though he was not yet “the richest man in the world” in 1990). Despite having money to spend on much more elaborate entertainments, in 1990, Gates found himself obsessed with dominating [Minesweeper coder Curt] Johnson and Donner’s simple Windows gaming experiment.
COMPANIES MENTIONED
Microsoft
GAMES MENTIONED
Minesweeper
PEOPLE MENTIONED
Bill Gates
EXCERPTED FROM
Boss Fight Books – Minesweeper
SEE ALSO
The Fierce Microsoft Battle That Led To One Of The Biggest Video Games Of All Time – Kotaku (2023)
How do you monetize Minesweeper? – GamesIndustry.biz (2023)
Minesweeper, Solitaire, and a ’90s Moral Panic – Reason (2023)