Bots in Word With Friends? Is this some kind of phishing attempt?

[dalej42]

@VMey

I created an account just to comment on this! This is definitely happening, and my theory is that it is the Words With Friends team themselves creating these to try to force more engagement. Echoing many of your original observations, here’s why I think it is Words With Friends:

• There’s something weird with these accounts, no history of your play with them. That wouldn’t be what you would see if this was someone who had written a script to automate play for some reason. It appears to actively be a feature.
• The images are stock photos. Here’s the one I’m playing with currently: Words with Friends bot stock photo - Album on Imgur. I found it easily with reverse image search as just another stock photo.
• There’s no maliciousness, they just play, no spamming or scamming.
• They always play within 1-2 minutes, which I think is similar to the Solo Challenge feature.

So, I think it is pretty messed up that WWF is doing this, since they’re not being forthcoming about it. Seems like a scammy way to drum up engagement…

Is it possible some computer science class had a project where students created game bots?