In the run-up to Christmas, with many workplaces winding down their workloads and exploring plans for IT services that will be actioned early in the New Year, there is often a sprinkling of festive spirit amongst everyone in and out of the office.

Work is extremely serious, but there is a lot of value in winding down, taking it a little easier and enjoying the last few days of work before the downtime leading to the New Year. There is a lot of economic value in what seems frivolous and trivial, and nobody knew that more than Microsoft.

Long before and completely separate from the separate and monolithic Xbox Games Studios, Microsoft saw a lot of value in electronic entertainment, packaging it as part of Microsoft 

Windows and even sneaking some particularly ambitious games into versions of Office.

There was a very good reason for this, a good reason why they stopped hiding the games and a reason why they continue to use entertainment as a vital part of their productivity software.

Fundamental Fun

Microsoft’s forays into interactive entertainment started as early as 1979, with the release of a version of the popular text adventure Colossal Cave Adventure, Olympic Decathlon, and a game known as Donkey, in which the player drives around trying to avoid hitting donkeys.

These three games, outside of the Microsoft Flight Simulator series, were the only games Microsoft published until the 1990s. However, when they returned to game publication, the goal was no longer simply to supplement the income from productivity software and MS-DOS.

Whilst Microsoft Windows is the standard operating system for business today, this was not always the case, and Microsoft struggled with the first two versions of the graphical user interface to plead its case.

At the time, many businesses that were not involved in technology sectors saw computers as glorified typewriters and computers with graphical user interfaces were not seen as being more intuitive or effective ways of doing work but effectively as toys.

It is rather ironic that the most important tool Microsoft used to win businesses over was, in fact, a computer game.

Specifically, Microsoft believed that the reason why people were not using Windows in the numbers they expected was because they were unfamiliar with the interface. This focus on user experience would later lead to the Microsoft Agents (such as Clippy), Microsoft Bob and CoPilot.

To fix this, they designed a set of games that introduced the main actions they would need to do anything they wanted within the Windows interface, including using Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access.

These included Hearts, FreeCell, Minesweeper, and later 3D Pinball Space Cadet, but by far the most important of these from an educational standpoint was Solitaire.

A variation of Klondike, the standard single-player card organisation game, Solitaire was very useful for teaching a generation of people unfamiliar with the mouse how to use a modern business computer, and sales of Windows 3.0 and 3.1 were gigantic compared to earlier versions.

However, as many businesses and Microsoft themselves would learn to their endless consternation, the game was almost too effective and welcoming, leading to a minor moral panic in business circles concerning the “addictive” nature of the game.

It was perhaps not an unfounded fear; Bill Gates was famously addicted to Minesweeper, a game packaged with Windows 3.1 designed to teach people to use the right mouse button, to the point that when he removed it from his own computer he would sneak into other offices to play it.

However, despite this, it did have value and would remain an installation option from Windows 3.0 up until Windows 8, when it became a downloadable addition and easier to block.

The Hall Of Tortured Souls

However, Microsoft Office contained several secret features, something that had existed since the first version of Microsoft Access.

Hidden in the code was an animation of a gun shooting two ducks, a strange reference to Access’ biggest competitor Paradox, which one team member pronounced as “pair ‘o’ ducks”.

By far the most famous of these Easter Eggs was a strange first-person shooter mini-game called The Hall of Tortured Souls.

In practice, it was simply a small set of rooms that served as a credits screen for the developers, but it was remarkably elaborate for something that was embedded into the code for Microsoft Excel 95.

However, this was just the beginning, as the next version of Excel had a flight simulator that had the same function and the same level of audacity to it.

At the same time, Microsoft Word 97 had a pinball game, Access had a Magic 8 Ball toy and Excel 2000 had a 3D version of the arcade game Spy Hunter known as Dev Hunter.

All of these games were interesting, remarkably sophisticated and showed the capability of the hardware these systems were typically installed on, however, they were also not meant to last.

Trustworthy Computing And The End Of Fun?

In 2002, Bill Gates launched an initiative known as Trustworthy Computing, which signposted a pivot in Microsoft towards a security-first initiative, making the installation of new undocumented features secondary to keeping computers safe.

This was without question the right move, but a consequence of this is that it ended the era of secret games being installed into Microsoft Office that served as a showcase of the power of the tools.

However, it was not the end of the use of games to help improve user familiarity with Office Software.

In 2010, Ribbon Hero was published as a free casual game that taught users how to interact with the then-new Ribbon interface used by Microsoft Office, providing points and rewards for doing so.

It was a novel idea, although not one that has been replicated since by Microsoft, presumably since the Ribbon is still being used to this day as of Microsoft Office 2024 and 365.

Ultimately, a good way to make a new interface familiar is to make it enjoyable and entertaining, much like how the best way to make an office or team familiar is through icebreakers and engaging ways to bring people together.

It was a novel, incredibly influential approach, and the residual effects are often underappreciated.