[santoshalper]

Don't worry, Windows is still far, far more ubiquitous. The bigger reason people don't play solitaire as much as they used to is that it is no longer the only game installed on their PC.

So many people in the 90s learned solitaire playing it on a work from a lack of other options on their work PC. Now with the so many games on the web and your smartphone, you might not even try it.

People give Microsoft a lot of shit, but including bundled games on what was at the time primarily a business OS was bold, controversial, and brilliant.

[cwizou]

> including bundled games on what was at the time primarily a business OS was bold, controversial, and brilliant.

Brillant, sure, but not completely sure it was controversial or bold, they have stated that it was primarily included in Windows 3.0 to help people get used to the new paradigms (for Windows) of the mouse and drag and drop, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Solitaire

> People give Microsoft a lot of shit

Well they didn't help themselves by shoving ads and subscriptions in all of those games : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Solitaire_Collection...

[noirscape]

Windows Solitaire mostly died because Microsoft strangled it with microtransactions and ads during the Windows 8 days.

What went from a simple minigame you could fire up at any time got transformed into this monstrosity that kept forcing ads on you, urging you to buy premium versions, adding "engagement" nonsense (daily missions) and selling you back the same features that came free in the Windows 7 version.

[netcraft]

ive always seen the reason MS included solitaire and minesweeper was to teach people how to use a mouse and a gui.

I can remember even in the early 2000s when we started installing PCs instead of green screen terminals at different locations having employees play solitaire as a way to get them used to their new computers and learning how to use a mouse.