How exactly would this work? Geforce now is not a platform like stadia despite being a cloud gaming streaming service.
They don't have a store, they just use your already owned accounts and games.
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Bethesda follows Activision in pulling games from Nvidia’s GeForce Now
- Thread starter ghostcrew
- Start date
How exactly would this work? Geforce now is not a platform like stadia despite being a cloud gaming streaming service.
They don't have a store, they just use your already owned accounts and games.
Exactly. Not the same as Stadia at all. GFN connects you to a Windows 10 instance running whatever launcher is required.
"Hey, here's a service that will allow more people to buy and play our games! Let's pull our games from it!"
Douchebag publishers want some of that sub money Nvidia gets without putting any effort into creating their own cloud infrastructure.
Douchebag publishers want some of that sub money Nvidia gets without putting any effort into creating their own cloud infrastructure.
Your analogies don't really work. It's one thing if you're doing those things for personal use--it's your right. It's completely another when a third party charges money for doing those things for you. Personal use and commercial use are different.
The analogies used in here make it unclear how GeForce Now actually operates. Some people claim it's simply a virtual machine you have remote access to where you can install and run games, while other people claim that GeForce Now simply verifies if you own a game and then gives you access to it from their library (e.g. like iTunes Match or the book analogy earlier). I thought it was supposed to be like the former. I could understand publishers having issues with it if it was the second scenario.
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It's kind of both. They offer x amount of games (they say 'hundreds') that are already installed on their end and you can access them instantly once they verify that you own them. Everything else ('around 1,000 games') you can install on their server when you want to play.
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It is the first one.
This is NOT like iTunes Match. This is like buying an album on iTunes and then NVidia comes in and says you can listen to all your iTunes music, so long as you log in to iTunes via this remote PC that we offer that runs iTunes. The remote PC service also allows you to listen to your Spotify music too, via the Spotify app installed on the remote PC.
Nobody actually does that kind of service because you don't need beefy hardware to listen to music. But in the case of games, Nvidia provides the rental hardware, but you still need to use your own games via their respective services/storefronts.
When you open a game on NOW, it opens steam on their machine, you log in with your account and the game starts by running it from that steam client. The game runs from Steam, not from NOW.
Nvidia couldn't figure out how to make it work that's most likely why both Activision and Bethesda pulled their games out.
Let me tell you they have some brilliant minds over at Bethesda. /s
If you go to the geforce now forums and reddit you'll see people saying they bought X game due to being able to play on the service but then what happens? "Ah fuck it lets remove our games and try to get some cash from nvidia".
If anything they were probably selling more games but whatever.
It works like this:
1) You download geforce now launcher
2) You pick a game or application (steam i.e)
3) A server is launched and video streaming starts on your end. Then it asks for your steam/origin/epic games store/uplay account credentials in order to play the game
4) If you don't own said game, you'll have to buy it on a platform like the ones I said before since Nvidia doesn't have a store. It's just a bunch of VMs running videogames/apps.
Except the license to the games aren't what's being rented here, it's the hardware that Nvidia is renting. This is a digital good, so the "work" amounts to a symlink command. If Nvidia instead shipped every subscriber a gaming laptop for a period of time that still requires that you use your Steam/Origin/whatever account to play your games, do you still think publishers should get a slice? I personally don't think so, the publishers aren't doing anything it's the exact same scenario except the hardware is on a rack instead of on your desk. They shouldn't feel like they deserve to double-dip, this is my single license being run on whatever PC I want, rented or not.
Looks like Bethesda have pulled all of their games from GeForce Now, other than Wolfenstein: Youngblood.
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Bethesda follows Activision in pulling games from Nvidia’s GeForce Now
Another bad sign for the state of cloud gaming as GeForce Now loses another publisher.www.theverge.com
Looks like we might be seeing more and more publishers pull their games from the service now that Nvidia are charging for it. GeForce Now is now missing games from Activision Blizzard, Bethesda, Capcom, Konami, EA, Square-Enix, Bandai Namco, Remedy and Rockstar.
Quote from GeForce Now boss Phil Eisler regarding their current 90 day trial period that the service is in (as in, nobodies paying for it yet):
Thats a lot...like a lot lot
Oh i can't wait to see Sterling's reaction to that.
This is absurd. I ALREADY OWN the game, the developer already got my money.
Publishers are assholes, remember early gen rumblings, before console unveillings, that Sony & Microsoft were in discussion with publishiers to make it impossible selling the games used? They are greedy scum. If this continues, and its already in a sad state, we will not own the games we buy (not even sure we do now on digital platforms..)
This is absurd. I ALREADY OWN the game, the developer already got my money.
Publishers are assholes, remember early gen rumblings, before console unveillings, that Sony & Microsoft were in discussion with publishiers to make it impossible selling the games used? They are greedy scum. If this continues, and its already in a sad state, we will not own the games we buy (not even sure we do now on digital platforms..)
Publishers will just start selling single-device game licenses from now on. You can only play the games on the initial system you purchased it.
I actually don't think this will hold up in court. Most EULAs say that software is licenced to a specific person. They don't say anything about "needing to own the hardware it is being used on."
If I lease a high end workstation am I not allowed to play Overwatch on it? If I visit my cousin and install my copy of Doom on his laptop, am I not allowed to play it?
How is it any different if I remote into an Nvidia computer that I've rented and install a game I've bought? How arbitrarily far away do you have to get from the hardware before you're not allowed to install your games on it?
Nvidia isn't installing anything, it's up to the user to choose what they want to install from their own personal accounts. Nvidia just offers a remote desktop connection.
If I lease a high end workstation am I not allowed to play Overwatch on it? If I visit my cousin and install my copy of Doom on his laptop, am I not allowed to play it?
How is it any different if I remote into an Nvidia computer that I've rented and install a game I've bought? How arbitrarily far away do you have to get from the hardware before you're not allowed to install your games on it?
Nvidia isn't installing anything, it's up to the user to choose what they want to install from their own personal accounts. Nvidia just offers a remote desktop connection.
So say I buy a lot of kindle e-books from Amazon, but don't actually have a physical Kindle. Now some company offers to rent Kindles to customers, and I go and rent a Kindle device and log into my Amazon account that has all these books I already bought on it and read them, how can Amazon say "no you're not allowed to read your books on this Kindle"?
Isn't that what Nvidia basically offers? Rented PC?. Or that is basically what an Internet Cafe is except you don't go to this physical place.
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Despite what any of us think should or shouldn't be available, Nvidia themselves state that the rights holders have the final say in if content is available via GeForce Now.
GeForce Now boss Phil Eisler:
So what's next? Are they going to include a profit for publishers or stick with few publishers? I guess making a deal with them will increase the price of the subscription.
If that were true, how do you think the "Instant Play" feature on Geforce Now works, where you don't have to download the game files?
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The subscription is already gonna get more expensive once the Founders period is over. The current price is an introductory offer.
I don't see how the service can continue to be viable, at a higher cost than it is now, without them getting back major publishers. Almost every major publisher has pulled their titles from the service at this point.
That's for developers who offer DRM free versions. Or F2P, but you still have to authenticate with whatever storefront to prove you own it.
Such a bullshit. I can go and rent windows GPU instance from whatever VM vendor and play my games there without an issue. But when Nvidia wants to abstract the boring part away (and make the allocation more efficient) publishers start crying. Of course they are trying to make more money but it would be a real shame if services like GF Now fail because of that.
Neither of these responses address the actual question I asked.
The post I was responding to said that Nvidia does not keep any copy of the game files themselves. If that were true, you would need to download the files in order to install the game, right?
If it were as clearcut as you say, the boss of GeforceNow wouldn't say that "Ultimately, the publishers maintain control over their content and decide whether the game you purchase includes streaming on GeForce Now."
As a customer, you're essentially giving Nvidia your game and paying them to make it available on a mobile device it wasn't initially meant for. It's not all that different from giving Microsoft your copy of a PS4 exclusive and paying them so that you can play it on your Xbox. Do you think Sony wouldn't mind Microsoft getting money thanks to their game just because you own your copy?
Don't get me wrong: as a consumer, I'm not happy about the publishers' poor support of streaming, but I can understand their point of view.
Not really downloading locally, but downloading to the Nvidia instance, yes. You do that. It's very fast near instant because they likely cache the files in their data centres to save bandwidth.
Geforce Now is such a good service too for both customers and publishers. If you don't have a powerful PC you can still build a library on Steam and play the games through GFN, when you do upgrade you can play them locally. Literally no one loses out.
Luckily Cyberpunk will be on GFN and that's the one game I know I'd have to upgrade for but it's not something I want to do this year. But guess what, I will still buy it on Steam and play it, then play it again when I eventually do upgrade.
Fuck anyone forcing their games off GFN.
Luckily Cyberpunk will be on GFN and that's the one game I know I'd have to upgrade for but it's not something I want to do this year. But guess what, I will still buy it on Steam and play it, then play it again when I eventually do upgrade.
Fuck anyone forcing their games off GFN.
But this platform exclusive thing has not existed in the PC space for decades. Besides, they didn't seem to mind blockbuster renting xboxes back in the day.
Obviously Nvidia is going to say this so they don't have to go to court, but in my opinion a court should rule in Nvidia and consumer favour here. I'm still playing it on PC, how I choose to compress and deliver the video/audio stream of the title to my screen should be irrelevant and not in the control of a publisher.
Truth...I have games installed on both my laptop and PC that I play, this is exactly what GFN is now and I can't understand publishers pulling game's from it.
It's also no different than me buying another PC and installing my games on that one, then going between pc1/laptop or pc3 to play the game.
GFN would probably drive sales for people who can't afford the latest GPU but what the new game, so shortsighted
But this is my whole point: If they keep a copy of files in their data center to reduce install times and reduce bandwidth costs, then Nvidia is copying the files, right?
It might seem like splitting hairs, but it matters from a legal perspective, and is why you can't say that GFN is identical to simply renting a VM instance.
Steam does the exact same thing. Your ISP does the same thing. It's called a CDN.
If I ran Nvidia, I'd tell all of these publishers to just take us to court, because I can't imagine they don't win that lawsuit. Might as well set the legal precedent now, and get it out of the way. Cost of doing business.
Nvidia isn't making a dime off of these games. They are FACILITATING ACCESS to a PC in the cloud, that lets people use their legally purchased games, running from the launchers they were purchased on.
These publishers don't like it, presumably because they want to reserve the right to figure out a way to make money off their own competing streaming service in the future. And that's fine, but it doesn't change the facts of what Nvidia are doing here. They aren't selling your games without giving you a cut. They aren't running your games on a service they aren't supposed to be running on.
Nvidia isn't making a dime off of these games. They are FACILITATING ACCESS to a PC in the cloud, that lets people use their legally purchased games, running from the launchers they were purchased on.
These publishers don't like it, presumably because they want to reserve the right to figure out a way to make money off their own competing streaming service in the future. And that's fine, but it doesn't change the facts of what Nvidia are doing here. They aren't selling your games without giving you a cut. They aren't running your games on a service they aren't supposed to be running on.
But we have now. There are now Epic store exclusives, and many publishers have their own launchers. There is no reason to think it would be any different with streaming.
I honestly think the publishers wouldn't mind GFN so much if Nvidia steamed only to PCs. But since it extends to mobile platforms, things get really murky.
Did I say that GFN is the only cache in the world? No. I am simply trying to explain why it isn't legally identical to just renting a VM as so many in this thread are repeatedly claiming.
There are different legal provisions for hosting of copyrighted material (section 512B) vs caching of copyrighted material (section 512C) in the DMCA:
17 U.S. Code § 512 - Limitations on liability relating to material online
If we want to have any meaningful discussion of whether there is a legal basis for publishers to block GFN from offering their games, we need to be clear about exactly what the service does and which laws apply.
No, but Rockstar, EA, Capcom and Square Enix are also missing. Such a shame.
I just don't understand how publishers cannot see the benefit of this, specially with them making 100% of the revenue if they only allow for games purchased at their store to be compatible with cloud gaming. I bought Wolfenstein Youngblood from the Bethesda store, I didn't know that store existed but I found it because I was looking for a good price. If anything Steam should be the one scared about how this can evolve. Geforce Now could become a place where every developer has their own store front, where they make 100% of the revenue from their games and Nvidia only takes care of renting the hardware to play them and handling the unified friend list and features between stores. Not even Epic with their 12% cut could compete with that.
PC is the place many of these publishers earn 100% revenue of each game sold. People often skip PC because they can't afford their own hardware. Geforce Now solves this issue, but nope.. They don't want it.
They are looking to earn more money than a one off sale either through their own cloud service or with a deal cut from a cloud service provider. The premise being ongoing revenue outweighing the single sale.
So they do want it, but they want it ongoing, every month.
Irrelevant. You still use those platforms to access your games on GFN. I'm talking about architecture/hardware exclusivity.
The way eg. Steam operates is deliberately designed in a way thact you can just hook up a caching transparent proxy in between and it will speed up downloads depending on the HW and settings of such proxy. I'm not a lawyer so I couldn't easily decipher that page and what it means in practice. Suppose Nvidia rents a VM instance that does not implement caching but VMs are provisioned on a network that is behind a huge transparent cache maintained by another company. How does that change things? I doubt that can be enforced in practice.Did I say that GFN is the only cache in the world? No. I am simply trying to explain why it isn't legally identical to just renting a VM as so many in this thread are repeatedly claiming.
There are different legal provisions for hosting of copyrighted material (section 512B) vs caching of copyrighted material (section 512C) in the DMCA:
17 U.S. Code § 512 - Limitations on liability relating to material online
www.law.cornell.edu
If we want to have any meaningful discussion of whether there is a legal basis for publishers to block GFN from offering their games, we need to be clear about exactly what the service does and which laws apply.
it makes sense for a lot of people to go against Nvidia on this,
the service makes "PC gaming" ultra cheap, so it's kind of bad console companies, google stadia...
it's ridiculous because Nvidia isn't even making money out of the games, just renting the hardware use basically, the companies selling the game are still being paid properly like a regular PC sale.... so I can only think that it's some pressure from Sony, MS, Google or their own ambitions for streaming.
if the service was available on my region I would totally be using for next gen titles instead of buying a console or upgrading, but if games are no longer available that becomes impossible.
the service makes "PC gaming" ultra cheap, so it's kind of bad console companies, google stadia...
it's ridiculous because Nvidia isn't even making money out of the games, just renting the hardware use basically, the companies selling the game are still being paid properly like a regular PC sale.... so I can only think that it's some pressure from Sony, MS, Google or their own ambitions for streaming.
if the service was available on my region I would totally be using for next gen titles instead of buying a console or upgrading, but if games are no longer available that becomes impossible.
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Good luck to Nvidia selling GPUs in a world where games like Fallout, Doom and Elder Scrolls don't work with them.
Great idea.
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