Whatever Alec Baldwin’s true reason for refusing a flight attendant’s routine request, it has had an undeniable outcome.

Millions more people now know about the online game called Words With Friends.

The actor was told to leave an American Airlines flight Tuesday when he declined to stop playing the game on his iPad.

Owned by Zynga, the company behind the Farm Ville game on Facebook, Words With Friends has rules familiar to anyone who has ever played Scrabble. The game can be played on Facebook, iPhone and Android devices. Users can download free versions that offer games punctuated by ads or pay a few dollars for an app that is advertisement-free.

Unlike the Scrabble board game, competitors can pick up play anytime or anywhere. And the game will pulse out an alert when it’s your turn.

"I currently have 10 games going," said Colleen Dabill of West Palm Beach, owner of a dog training company called Bone-a-Fide. "So there is always somebody playing."

Dabill may play a couple rounds during her lunch break then pick up the game again in the evening.

Dabill finds Words more intellectually stimulating than that other addictive online game: Angry Birds.

And that may be the beauty of it – children can play with parents or grandparents. Or it can be played at a highly sophisticated level that involves two-letter words, exploiting triple word scores and creative uses of the letter X.

Zynga is making the most of Baldwin’s bad boy behavior, urging users to let the company know if they’ve ever gotten in trouble for playing the game, and making "Alec" the word of the day Wednesday.

"Let Alec Play," the company tweeted.

Baldwin’s publicist was unapologetic.

"He loves Words with Friends so much that he was willing to leave a plane for it," Matthew Hiltzik said.

There is speculation that Baldwin was involved in a publicity stunt to raise the company’s profile because Zynga announced last week that it plans to raise $1 billion in an initial public offering.

Zynga is based in San Francisco and has about 2,300 employees. It was founded in 2007 by CEO Mark Pincus, who Forbes estimates has a net worth of $2 billion.

The company says 232 million monthly users play its games, which also include CityVille, Mafia Wars, Zynga Poker, Chess With Friends, Cafe World, and Treasure Isle.

Dabill’s brother-in-law, Paul Dabill of West Palm Beach, got her engaged in the game.

The co-owner of a string of franchise restaurants is such a devoted fan that he always has 20 games in progress – the maximum.

In addition to playing Words with his young nephew Noah and his brother Tom (they have five games going), Paul Dabill uses a player search function to find opponents.

"I’ve had people I’ve been playing for six months from Indonesia, Dubai and an American traveling in Russia," he said. "It’s been interesting to me to see how globally connected the game is."

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

‘Words’ tips

• Yes, these are words:

Xi, Qat, Zee, Qi

• Too many vowels? Try ‘Aioli’
• The colored spaces are your friend. Combine them to increase your points.
• Play all seven letter tiles, get an additional 35 points.