Sorry to say, I can’t provide links to the best alternatives, because I haven’t played them. These include Winboard, a free, open source chess program based on GnuChess. There are plenty of less-slick alternatives, too. SparkChess also looks attractive, and you can either play it online (free) or download a full version ($12.99). It’s shareware and costs $11.24 to register. Most casual gaming websites seem to have their own versions as well.Ĭhess Giants 2.4 by Pierre-Marie Baty is a desktop Windows program that looks a lot like Microsoft’s Chess Titans and may be an acceptable substitute. Examples include World of Solitaire, Net Solitaire and Minesweeper.js. There’s also no shortage of versions that you can play online in your web browser. They all look pretty much like the original. For example, a web search for “minesweeper clone” finds Minesweeper X, one called Clone, and Andrew Lim’s Minez. Why not try a few of those? There are also plenty of alternatives that you can download from other sites. There are hundreds of alternatives in the Windows Store: a search for “solitaire” finds 730 apps, while “solitaire for desktop” finds 81. The bundle includes five games so perhaps a one-off £7.95 would be acceptable, but I don’t think people who have been playing Solitaire free for 25 years really want to pay that much every year in perpetuity. In the UK, the Solitaire Collection costs £1.19 per month or £7.95 per year. Third, the pricing for ad-free versions looks too high. There’s nothing wrong with having a gamertag, and serious gamers love them, but they should be optional for casual gamers.

Second, running a casual game like the Microsoft Solitaire Collection Premium Edition lumbers you with an Xbox Live gamertag. The basic free version should still be free and ad-free.

First, introducing a new freemium game is not the same as taking a game that’s been free for decades and making it freemium.

Having said all that, I don’t think this is a smart move on Microsoft’s part, for three reasons. That’s what happens when people don’t want to pay for content. Companies don’t charge for the games, but they charge to remove advertisements or to add extra features. This is almost always the case with free store-based apps whether on Windows, Android or Apple’s iOS. These Microsoft games are still free, but they now include adverts.

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