A pointlessly deceptive Solitaire app.

Netflix’s Solitaire mobile game is eating shit.

Netflix makes mobile games, apparently, and one of them is of the classic solo card game, Solitaire. I’ve been playing it constantly.

While the app itself is designed rather well, there is one curious component that doesn’t really make sense. Or else, it would make sense if it wasn’t a flat-out, pointless, cheap lie.

Netflix’s Solitaire has a “multiplayer” mode which supposedly pairs you up with another real-life player, live. You both play through the same game to see who wins the deal first. You each can see the other’s score as the game goes on, and at the end, you’ll see a screen summarizing who won and how each of you performed. It sounds simple enough.

Except that this multiplayer mode is completely, entirely, utterly fake.

The app doesn’t disclose this anywhere, but over my many weeks of playing, I’ve been able to conclude quite confidently that every instance of playing against a “live player” somewhere in the world is really against a bot.

Apparently, having an unsophisticated program make basic moves and slapping it with a random first name is enough to convince the hordes of existing players that they’re having a real-life social engagement with someone. It’s sickening.

I first grew suspicious when I noticed that every time I selected a new multiplayer game, I was immediately paired up with a waiting player. I never had to “hold” for even a single second to sync up the start times; the games would always begin immediately following the same standard three-second countdown. When a game ends, I can start a new one immediately and have another player available without needing to wait even one second.

How could these be real people? Sure, mobile games may be popular, but what are the chances that I’d be able to find a willing, available Solitaire player at ANY second of ANY hour of ANY day? Without even waiting a few seconds? Especially when you consider the fact that this game is only available to active Netflix subscribers. With an estimated 238-or-so million users, that whittles down the possibilities considerably. From there, you have to think about how many of those users even know about Netflix’s mobile games, how many of them have Solitaire installed, how many of them are actively using the game at any one time, how many of THEM are looking for a multiplayer game (rather than just playing alone), and finally – how many of those very few active multiplayers are looking to start a new game within the three second countdown of my requested game starting!

Can someone do the math on that? Because I think it may be close to zero.

I could end the argument right there, but I’ve observed several other clues demonstrating the multiplayer hoax that I obviously must share.

Every player I’ve matched with – and this is after hundreds of games – has had a username consisting of, simply, a first name. The platform allows you to use an array of letters and numbers to make a username, yet nobody I’ve ever played against has made their username anything other than a single first name. No numbers, descriptors, dictionary words, abbreviations, or random mashing of letters. In a world where we’re all used to crafting social media handles with various characters, it’s unfathomable that I wouldn’t have encountered even one person with something else as their username. Personally, I go by “Anonymous,” and it stands to reason there may be others who would similarly want privacy when playing in an outlet that can (supposedly) match you up with anybody.

As if that wasn’t enough, I have also never played against anyone who willingly gave up and left the game early – not once. In Solitaire, it’s common to play yourself into a corner where there are no moves left and you must end the game. This happens to me all the time. When I’m in a multiplayer game, stuck and out of moves, and I see the opposing “player’s” score still increasing, I’ll often quit the game. It isn’t out of a lack of sportsmanship – there are sometimes literally no more moves to make. And yet, whenever I’m beating my opponent badly, they sit there and still play until the end.

Now, you may argue that perhaps the game’s design has it so that you simply aren’t informed of players who have bowed out early, and if they’re gone, you’re just set to keep playing through the game until you inevitably win or leave it yourself. I doubt that, as the app usually has you play a series of three or four games against the same player in succession. If any of them had quit early, you wouldn’t be able to play the next games in the series with them, and yet I always do.

But what really clinched it for me was a series of games I played a few weeks ago against one particular other user, let’s call him Darren. I played a game against Darren, I won, and I immediately started the next one. I beat him again, and immediately started a third one. When I beat him the third time, I put my phone down for a bit. I went and did something else, and when I went back to Solitaire several minutes later and started a new multiplayer game, my opponent was still Darren! What in the world are the chances that the same user would be ready to start three games immediately but then also put their phone down at the same time and then also come back, ready to play, at the exact same time, too?

Even if it was another Darren, what are the chances that the very next player available would also be named Darren?

Remember, the app never keeps a user waiting for a new player for even a few seconds, so it’s not like Darren was sitting there trying to start the next game that whole time – he’d have been paired with someone else. More likely, the app’s connection hadn’t refreshed when I put my phone down, and so the bot named Darren hadn’t updated.

In the time I’ve been working on this entry, I’ve started numerous more multiplayer games for research. Every single one started immediately.

Why does every single thing have to be a lie? Why is there constant misrepresentation in every facet of everything in life? Why does a simple card game app need to deceive its audience? What is to be gained? Is it even worth it? Is any of it worth it? Would it really have been so horrible just to label the multiplayer gameplay as playing against “the computer,” which electronic games have done for decades? Did someone sit there and program little first names to represent these other players, and what were they thinking as they did so? How does anyone expect anyone else to be honest about anything when we can’t even be honest about completely trivial, unimportant matters like this? ✍︎

***

Follow-up, months later:

Wow, I am so stupid. Throughout this entire investigation, I neglected to try ONE SIMPLE TRICK to confirm once and for all that the Solitaire app is a fraud. I can't believe it took me this long to think of it: AIRPLANE MODE. I just took a flight and played Solitaire at 35,000 feet, where there was no wifi or service of any kind. The multiplayer games began and ended without any issue, and I even set a game down and picked it up 20 minutes later with my "opponent" still waiting. Not that anyone was arguing with me before, but what do those nonexistent people have to say now?