Has solitaire become more of a thing?

I have noticed that Solitaire seems like is becoming more and more a part of the mission statement when it comes to game design. It feels like there games more and more often have solitaire options or are just plain solitaire.

Now, my gaming focus has been for the past number of years on Print and Play and Roll and Write. I also follow playtesting, be in the form of formal playtest trials or design contests. So my view might be totally askew.

I have read that it is easier to get playtesters if you have a solitaire option, which just makes sense. I have no problem trying out a prototype that might have all kinds of issues. I am not going to ask my wife to do the same.

However, I have also read one game designer (it was Krzysztof Matusik) write that they think that having a good solo mode in a Roll and Write was important. (That does deserve the caveat that I strongly suspect that Roll and Writes in particular have developed in a direction that favors solitaire play. More on that later) Button Shy seems to be doing very well with their Simply Solo series and are offering more solitaire games in general. And the solitaire game A Gentle Rain has gotten and continues to get more mainstream attention than I think a solitaire game would have gotten ten years ago.

It is my uneducated, unsubstantiated assumption that this trend, if it actually exists, is directly related to Covid. I am not a sociologist or a market analyst so my opinion is worth a grain of salt at best. Still, I think we have not yet begun to understand or appreciate the effect of the pandemic on the world.

And I think its also safe for me to say that Roll and Writes were particularly affected. They are the easiest and most accessible form of PnP games to make. For many of them, you just need to print out a page per player. No need to make cards or tiles or pawns. And you can put those pages in file protectors and use dry erase makers so you can keep on using the same sheet.

More than that, Roll and Writes lend themselves to multi-player solitaire games in the style of Take It Easy. Everyone has their own play sheet but shares the die rolls. Which made them perfect for playing over zoom or other kinds of video conferencing.

Yes, you can play a vast number of games online in a wide variety of ways. But being able to manually play a game, the tactile experience of writing something down, clearly has its own appeal.

I definitely saw the number of prototypes for Roll and Writes, particularly ones that used the Take It Easy style of play, explode during the pandemic. And the numbers have remained strong. More than one game publisher, Postmark Games and Hammerdice as two of the more obvious examples, use them as a major part of their business plan.

So, I feel confident in saying that some sections of the hobby have moved to a more solitaire friendly direction. And, it feels like I see one as a option for the number of players in a lot of games at stores.

Is this a real thing? I don't know. Is it a bad thing or a good thing? Pretty sure its just a thing, neither good or bad.