Passport2 on the House

Legacy Software, which operates the Passport2 multiplayer games site, is now offering its games for free.

Those games are bridge, backgammon, chess, and less familiar titles Intelligentsia trivia and Spell-O-Rama. Previously, Legacy had charged US$4.95 a month for unlimited play access to its games.

The company says that 10,000 customers have downloaded games since Passport2 was launched a year ago.

But "as long as the online gaming business remains so volatile, we think our best strategy is to make game playing free and generate revenue from advertising and co-marketing agreements, such as those we have in place with AT&T WorldNet, Earthlink, and The New York Times on the Web," said the company in a statement.

The Passport2 Network's client server technology allows up to 300 players per server to participate simultaneously. It touts as its features multiple types of chat and robot players that interact with its live customers.