No, Microsoft. Stop it. This isn’t cool. We were all impressed by Windows 10, but then you have to go and ruin our honeymoon with the news that you’ve actually placed microtransactions in Solitaire, that once-free, beloved game that came pre-installed in older editions of your operating system.
The virtual card game will still be playable in Windows 10, though non-premium members will be forced to sit through full-screen video advertisements every now and again. “Premium” (and I use that term very lightly) members will be able to play the game with no advertisements, will receive more coins for completing the game’s Daily Challenges and will also receive a boost for every game they play of TriPeaks and Pyramid, two different versions of Solitaire that you can play within the app.
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A premium membership will set you back $1.49 a month, or $9.99 for a whole year. The game is playable without this membership, but that’s not really the point, is it? Microtransactions are irritating enough on smartphones, and as such seeing them leak onto Windows 10 is a little concerning. Windows 8 allowed for a paid model of Solitaire to be downloaded (the game didn’t come pre-installed with the OS), but considering that Microsoft is planning to release no more operating systems and rely only on updates to Windows 10, could it be possible that the company is looking towards these kinds of purchases to keep driving cash in for Windows 10?
I’m probably looking into it too much, but Solitaire employing this kind of microtransaction system certainly suggests that Microsoft will use it elsewhere within the OS, so it seems reasonable to predict that in the future we could see similar features feature ads and monthly subscriptions that will then remove them.
Hopefully this won’t be the case and at the most these microtransactions will be limited to the OS’s games, but regardless of this Solitaire players are still likely going to be annoyed that their pure card game has been tainted.
