Long before we had Angry Birds and Twitter to distract us at work, there was Solitaire on Windows. The card game has been a staple of Microsoft’s opearting system for decades, but getting the full Solitaire experience on the newest OS may cost you.
The newly released Windows 10 features the Solitaire Collection, which includes several variants of the classic card game. However, unlike the version of the game you played at your grandma’s house in the ‘90s, Windows 10 Solitaire comes packed with advertisements. To get rid of the ads and earn some in-game currency (yes, this centuries-old game is borrowing from Candy Crush), users can pay $1.49 per month or $9.99 per year.
This actually isn’t the first time Microsoft has tried to get users to pay for Solitaire. A premium version of the game was also released for Windows 8, but the title wasn’t pre-installed in the operating system as it is in Windows 10.
It’s not that surprising that Microsoft is charging for Solitaire, considering that Windows 10 is free and the company is increasingly seeking revenue via ongoing subscription services instead of one-off software purchases.
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