In a year not half-finished replete with change and loss -- a year that will feature prominently in history books, should those things remain in the future -- it seems churlish and childish to bitch about having Scrabble for iPad taken away, but here I am regardless.
I started playing Scrabble for iPad on 16 November 2011 -- on my first iPad, living in the first home I ever bought just outside of Petoskey -- and played until 5 June 2020, at which point the app was no longer supported. In that span of time over not quite a decade, I had a record of 5792 wins and 4369 losses and 16 ties, with a winning percentage of 56%, although it was most likely a few points lower, as I had to force forfeit some dummies who had a week to move but didn't. I had 2499 bingos -- all seven tiles played in one turn -- with my best bingo ("talkings") hitting two triple-word scores for a total score of 204. In short, I won more games than I lost, and every now and again, I won big.
I usually played at least 20 games at a time, usually with complete strangers. Sometimes, those folks would play me again (as I've written about before with Carl), but usually, it would be different people with each new game. Every now and again, there would be rote compliments exchanged via the Chat feature, but most often, it would just be the game played until completion, played in silence. There were no ads, no crass gamification badges, and no funky tiles. Instead, it was a one-time fee for the app, and then the game was afoot. I played in airports and hotels, bathrooms and beds, in sunshine and in storms. And then it stopped.
Media consolidation and the in-app purchase model guaranteed that Scrabble for iPad would morph into something more potentially profitable for the parent company, and so it is that the add-supported ScrabbleGo is now the only Scrabble-branded platform available. And unless you select the "Classic" option, you'll be bombarded with animations and digital fireworks and ads for back braces at a striking rate. (The ads are still there in the Classic version, but not after every turn.) I'm still playing multiple games per day, but it's a compromised experience that makes me wish for what I had. Real life offers far too many instances of that set of sensations, so I hoped against hope that I would still have the Scrabble to which I had grown accustomed. I just wish I knew the word for that.
I started playing Scrabble for iPad on 16 November 2011 -- on my first iPad, living in the first home I ever bought just outside of Petoskey -- and played until 5 June 2020, at which point the app was no longer supported. In that span of time over not quite a decade, I had a record of 5792 wins and 4369 losses and 16 ties, with a winning percentage of 56%, although it was most likely a few points lower, as I had to force forfeit some dummies who had a week to move but didn't. I had 2499 bingos -- all seven tiles played in one turn -- with my best bingo ("talkings") hitting two triple-word scores for a total score of 204. In short, I won more games than I lost, and every now and again, I won big.
I usually played at least 20 games at a time, usually with complete strangers. Sometimes, those folks would play me again (as I've written about before with Carl), but usually, it would be different people with each new game. Every now and again, there would be rote compliments exchanged via the Chat feature, but most often, it would just be the game played until completion, played in silence. There were no ads, no crass gamification badges, and no funky tiles. Instead, it was a one-time fee for the app, and then the game was afoot. I played in airports and hotels, bathrooms and beds, in sunshine and in storms. And then it stopped.
Media consolidation and the in-app purchase model guaranteed that Scrabble for iPad would morph into something more potentially profitable for the parent company, and so it is that the add-supported ScrabbleGo is now the only Scrabble-branded platform available. And unless you select the "Classic" option, you'll be bombarded with animations and digital fireworks and ads for back braces at a striking rate. (The ads are still there in the Classic version, but not after every turn.) I'm still playing multiple games per day, but it's a compromised experience that makes me wish for what I had. Real life offers far too many instances of that set of sensations, so I hoped against hope that I would still have the Scrabble to which I had grown accustomed. I just wish I knew the word for that.
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