来源：芝士英语
The most successful game ever isn’t World of Warcraft (《魔兽世界》) or Tetris (《俄罗斯方块》). Click, click and click—actually, no other game has been played by more people than Minesweeper, a little game that debuted (首次亮相) back in 1990 as part of the Windows Entertainment Pack, a paid add-on (附件) for Windows 3.0.
谈到史上最成功的的游戏，既不是《魔兽世界》也不是《俄罗斯方块》，而是《扫雷》，一款玩家只需不断地点击即可进行的游戏。扫雷这款小游戏，于1990年作为Windows娱乐组件包，即Windows3.0附件程序的一部分首次亮相。
The Windows Entertainment Pack came about just because Microsoft was concerned that the operating system’s high hardware requirements meant people would see it as a tool only for large enterprises. Minesweeper was among the first to be added to the add-on. Of course, the game wasn’t just a time-killer. It was initially intended as a way to teach people basic mouse controls in an era where most computing was text-based.
微软公司担心其操作系统的高硬件配置会使人们误解，Windows系统存在的意义只是作为大型企业的工具，所以Windows娱乐组件包应运而生。《扫雷》是第一批被加入附件中的程序之一。当然，这游戏不仅是打发时间的利器，在那个信息处理基于文本的时代，《扫雷》教会了人们如何进行基本的鼠标操控。
Microsoft knew early on that Minesweeper was something unusual. “We all fell in love with it very quickly,” said Bruce Ryan, former Microsoft product manager. Ryan set a speed record of six seconds in the game’s beginner mode, and sent out a company-wide e-mail challenge to beat his score. The only one who answered was Bill Gates, who managed to clear it in five seconds.
微软早就知道《扫雷》游戏将会与众不同。“我们都很快爱上了这款游戏”，前微软产品经理布鲁斯·雷恩说道。雷恩在这款游戏的初学者模式下设置了一个由他创造的6秒记录，并且通过邮件向全公司发起挑战，让同事们来超越他的记录。唯一打破记录的同事便是比尔盖茨，他成功地在5秒内完成扫雷。
There was even no budget to do quality testing on the Windows Entertainment Pack, but Ryan joked that Minesweeper was the most-tested product in Microsoft history because the whole company was addicted to it. Gates actually ended up uninstalling Minesweeper from his personal computer because he was sinking too many hours into it.
雷恩甚至并没有预算做Windows娱乐组件包的质量测试，但是他打趣道，《扫雷》将会是微软历史上被测试最多的产品，因为整个微软公司的员工都沉迷于这款游戏。事实上，直到盖茨把他个人电脑上的《扫雷》卸载后，他才停止玩这个游戏，因为他在游戏中投入了太多的时间。
The Windows Entertainment Pack was a hit, with Minesweeper a tremendous success. The game was so well-loved that in the early days of the Internet, there was even a website offering cash prizes in online score competitions. Minesweeper itself was built right into the Windows operating system.
Windows娱乐组件包一下就成为了当时的热点，而《扫雷》更是获得了巨大的成功。这个游戏受到人们的广泛喜爱，早期的互联网中甚至有一个网站举办了在线分数竞赛，并提供高额现金奖励。《扫雷》游戏本身正是建立在Windows操作系统之上。
It’s a fair bet that wherever computing takes us in the future, Minesweeper will always be along for the ride, and we’ll have plenty of time to improve our “mine-sweeping” skills.
我敢打赌，无论在未来计算机将会指引我们走向何处，《扫雷》将会始终与之同行，我们也将会有许多时间来提升我们的“扫雷”技术。
