Bill Gates says he's a gamer now, calls them 'a terrific metaphor for human connection'
Bill Gates has written a new blogpost about a «terrific» novel by Gabrielle Zevin called Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow. Titled «This novel about video games felt personal to me,» Gates discusses the book's plot, some of his own personal gaming history, and uses this lens to muse about his relationships with key Microsoft players.
«I never thought I’d relate to a book about gaming, but I loved Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow,» writes Gates. «Am I a gamer? For a long time, I would have said no because I don’t spend hundreds of hours going deep on one game.
»But when I was younger, I loved arcade games and got very good at Tetris. And in recent years, I have started playing a lot of online bridge and games like Spelling Bee and a bunch of the Wordle variants. The definition of a gamer is becoming a lot broader and more inclusive, and it might be fair to start calling me one".
I wonder just how good at Tetris qualifies as very good in Gates' mind, because he's obviously an exceptional individual and this claim only made me think of a recent Minesweeper story. A former Microsoft employee recalled that, when Minesweeper was being played internally prior to release, Gates got so hooked and was spending so much time on the game that staff had to engineer a high score he couldn't beat. I half-suspect Bill's hiding a World of Warcraft habit.
The novel Gates is discussing centres on the life and friendship of Sam and Sadie, who bond as kids over Super Mario Bros. before embarking on a game development career together. «Although there are plenty of video games mentioned in the book—Oregon Trail is a recurring theme—I’d describe it more as a story about partnership and collaboration,» writes Gates. Sam and Sadie create a
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