Rant: Shitty nickel-and-diming practices. Aka the "WHY THE FUCK IS SOLITAIRE $10?" thread.

[Vae]

Solitaire is something I sorely missed on Win8. It's something simple to dick around on, and computer Solitaire saves me the hassle of devoting an entire physical area to card space.

So I went looking for it.

I was surprised and a bit happy to find it on the Windows site "for free",



but then this shit comes along:



Huge red flag. I usually avoid anything with in-app purchases like the goddamned plague, and don't even have my credit card registered to my Google Play account.


So I dug around a little bit more and found out that this version of Solitaire (and Minesweeper, if you want that instead.) costs $1.50 a month to play without a number of full-video ads.
There's no "Shut up and buy it for one price" option, either. Closest thing you get to that is $10 for a year.
That's $20 a fucking year, if you want both.

For something that's free and ad-free
in every previous Windows version.

That's fucking ridiculous.
That's more than a physical deck of cards you can go out and pay once for and use permanently.
That's more than a specialty deck of Mass Effect cards that I own.

Thankfully, there's still ways to get Win7 Solitaire working on Win8 / 10, instead.
But the fact that they expect this for software that's come bundled with the OS for years is fucking absurd.


And while it's simply unrealistic to expect this kind of shitty practice to cease being any time soon (because some idiots still do inevitably pay into the "freemium" cancer),
goddamn is it ridiculous that this is what we've come to as a gaming market.

Fucking $10 for Solitaire.
Eat my ass.

[Sarcastic Coffeecup]

For $3 you can buy a deck of cards and just play it IRL. It also comes preinstalled with other IRLC, such as poker, blackjack and other casino hits.

[TrishaCat]

I've heard of microtransactions and other similar awful practices when it comes to companies trying to reel in extra cash on a game, but Solitaire? A game that was free in every previous iteration of Windows? What's it doing costing money? I mean, I get the idea of wanting compensation for one's work, so I suppose its arguable that they might finally decide they want money for their game, but even still, pushing that further with annoying and intrusive ads and asking for constant payments to not have the game ad-riddled is just adding insult to injury. This means that someone couldn't even do something as simple as playing a game of solitaire without having a commercial smacked in their face unless they wanna give Microsoft their money on a regular basis. Plus this is basically making a perfectly working game, and tacking on features that actively make it worse just for the sake of getting extra money to get rid of those features, which is really scummy on Microsoft's part.

I hate microtransactions and stuff like that. 

[PastryOfApathy]

The future of gaming is here!

[Endless/Nameless]

Yeah, this kind of thing is really getting out of hand. I still can't believe you can't even buy Photoshop anymore without a subscription. I like buying things outright, screw this crap. 

[Azure]

Freemium pls. Another annoying concept is the season pass. Why would i spend 50 dollars for MAYBE content that i cant preview before it releases and have no control over how much is actually released. My greatest fear is one day they will figure out how to get rid of paper books and all ebooks will have popups and video commercials between chapters. I would be forced to commit ritual suicide

[Terminal7]

1 minute ago, Azure said:

Freemium pls. Another annoying concept is the season pass. Why would i spend 50 dollars for MAYBE content that i cant preview before it releases and have no control over how much is actually released. 

Usually the core game is so that it requires you to pay so you can at least enjoy some of the mediocre gameplay that's there. 

Developing is just a great big money-grab now. 

 

[#00Buck]

I have a hard time imagining you playing solitaire. 

6 hours ago, Vae said:

Fucking $10 for Solitaire.
Eat my ass.

I mean. Is this the attitude of a solitaire player?

Be careful you might rage and spill your chamomile tea and then you doily collection would get stained. 

[ArielMT]

It's even worse on Windows 10.

If WinXP-rules Klondike is all you want to play, save yourself a bunch of hassle and install SolitaireXP.  It works in Windows 8.1 and Windows 10. (Mind the DoubleClick ads. The real download link is in the upper-right corner.)

[WileyWarWeasel]

@Vae I don't mean to be a contrarian but did anyone think about this from the perspective of the poor executives and shareholders of Microsoft:

http://www.statista.com/statistics/267808/net-income-of-microsoft-since-2002/

Their net income of $12.19 Billion in 2015 was the lowest it's been since 2006! D:

Seriously though, just spend the bare minimum to get what you want regardless of how much you earn and look for free/open source software whenever possible

[Vae]

7 hours ago, Azure said:

Freemium pls. Another annoying concept is the season pass. Why would i spend 50 dollars for MAYBE content that i cant preview before it releases and have no control over how much is actually released. My greatest fear is one day they will figure out how to get rid of paper books and all ebooks will have popups and video commercials between chapters. I would be forced to commit ritual suicide

Season passes are basically the equivalent of paying for cable, neither of which I do.

And books with ads in them have existed for years now.
They're called "magazines." Lol.

4 hours ago, ArielMT said:

It's even worse on Windows 10.

If WinXP-rules Klondike is all you want to play, save yourself a bunch of hassle and install SolitaireXP.  It works in Windows 8.1 and Windows 10. (Mind the DoubleClick ads. The real download link is in the upper-right corner.)

There's actually a version of Win7 games (Solitaire, Spider, Freecell, Minesweeper, etc) that have been modded to work with 8 / 10.
Which was my workaround.

Those are here:
http://winaero.com/blog/get-windows-7-games-for-windows-10/

(For staff: If this needs to be removed for "piracy", feel free to do so. I just don't think it counts because these programs are free as originally packaged.)

5 hours ago, #00Buck said:

I have a hard time imagining you playing solitaire. 

I mean. Is this the attitude of a solitaire player?

Be careful you might rage and spill your chamomile tea and then you doily collection would get stained. 

I only play Solitaire furiously with a light gun,
like God intended.

31 minutes ago, WileyWarWeasel said:

@Vae I don't mean to be a contrarian but did anyone think about this from the perspective of the poor executives and shareholders of Microsoft:

http://www.statista.com/statistics/267808/net-income-of-microsoft-since-2002/

Their net income of $12.19 Billion in 2015 was the lowest it's been since 2006! D:

Seriously though, just spend the bare minimum to get what you want regardless of how much you earn and look for free/open source software whenever possible

Lol that dropoff from 22b to 12b.

Well gee, a smart company might reconsider their methods after nearly an entire 50% decrease,
but I don't expect much.

Also obligatory clip is obligatory:

 

 

 

 

Edited February 29, 2016 by Vae

[ArielMT]

4 minutes ago, Vae said:

(For staff: If this needs to be removed for "piracy", feel free to do so. I just don't think it counts because these programs are free as originally packaged.)

The article's been up for 16 months, and I've even seen the program linked to from the Microsoft Answers forums.

[Ratmomma]

Microsoft may as well install their own version of the Neopets game, Adver-Video, in which they pay you in Xbox One funny money to watch shitty Microsoft ads that praise the bug festival known as Win10.

[LazerMaster5]

So that means I should keep my PC running Windows 7 then.

[Zeke]