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Nvidia’s GeForce Now is losing all Activision Blizzard games, a bad sign for cloud gaming
No more Overwatch, WoW or Call of Duty, among others.
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Nvidia’s GeForce Now is losing all Activision Blizzard games, a bad sign for cloud gaming (see threadmark for Nvidia statement)
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Yeah I tried to make the point that existing license agreements did not allow for this situation, and that Nvidia would be potentially opening themselves up to litigation if they let people stream games on Geforce Now without explicit permission to do so from publishers. I very much expect other publishers (especially those with existing/announced plans for game streaming like Ubisoft, EA, Bethesda, Square Enix and probably some others) to seek to get their games removed from this service.
Maybe if Nvidia offered these publishers a portion of the revenue from the streaming subscription they could secure permission to support these games, but I would imagine that they'd have to pass that cost on to users.
Dunno why people thought it would just be a free for all and major publishers would turn a blind eye to it. I did see Valve staff promoting this service too, dunno if they just didn't think through the ramifications or what.
Maybe if Nvidia offered these publishers a portion of the revenue from the streaming subscription they could secure permission to support these games, but I would imagine that they'd have to pass that cost on to users.
Dunno why people thought it would just be a free for all and major publishers would turn a blind eye to it. I did see Valve staff promoting this service too, dunno if they just didn't think through the ramifications or what.
I can't wait to sign up to fourteen different cloud services to play the games I want to play. Let's do it, I'm ready.
(probably what will actually happen is what's already starting to happen with video streaming: people subscribe for a month, binge the shit out of the service, then leave)
(probably what will actually happen is what's already starting to happen with video streaming: people subscribe for a month, binge the shit out of the service, then leave)
Wouldn't it benefit them to have it available on GeForce Now? I mean, the user still has to buy the game. If anything, it should make the game available to more people.
This is exactly what will happen. I won't be surprised if this happens to Gamepass as well.
It would benefit them a lot less than people subscribing to a service from which they get ongoing revenue.
That's obvious. That's why MS said that their biggest competitors now are Amazon and Google. Cloud Providers.
This is the big advantage that Microsoft will have with xCloud, as their licensing agreements for the next generation of Xbox will likely include a clause for inclusion in the streaming service. Potentially, if Valve stood up a first party solution they could make that part of the Steam agreements as well (in fact, there were rumors of such last year).
What's especially frustrating is that GeForce Now only works with your already existing purchases, so it's especially odd that companies are barring folks from streaming games that they already own a license for.
They apparently see cloud gaming as akin to video streaming than media ownership so it makes sense that this would happen. Publishers love eroding consumer features for their own benefit.
I'm glad that digital game "ownership" doesn't have the same problem, at least on the major sites. If I own a game on Steam and the publisher decides to remove it from the store, I can still redownload my copy five years later.
I'm glad that digital game "ownership" doesn't have the same problem, at least on the major sites. If I own a game on Steam and the publisher decides to remove it from the store, I can still redownload my copy five years later.
Everyone wants their own cloud streaming service, just like how everyone wants their own streaming network for television shows and movies. It's going in that direction for the gaming industry rather quickly.
Anime and TV show services are already saturated as hell to the point of basically advocating for piracy, It's almost like they want people to pirate their shit instead of making it easy to give them money. I'm absolutely bowing out of game streaming if there's gonna be all kinds of subscriptions for games too.
That doesn't make any sense, you have to own the game already to play it on Geforce Now, why would Nvidia share any of the streaming revenue? The game publishers should be happy with having their game needing to be purchased.
This just seems so bizarre to me, I would think most companies would be happy to have more people buying their games because they suddenly have access to hardware good enough to run it.
Potentially very possible. Microsoft, Sony, Google on the heavyweight side, but I can easily see publishers trying to establish their own stream content delivery networks too. Valve, Epic, EA, Activision, maybe even Ubi?
Competition could stifle it right when it's ready to grow as well, if people start pulling content off competing services.
As mordecaii83 says, you'd think they'd be happy to have a hardware barrier to software sales removed.. there has to be something more to this.
It still doesn't make sense to me. The publisher could still have a subscription service for access to their games. GeForce Now is just for the ability to stream it.
Why remove it so early though? Shutting off access without having any way to capture that revenue seems like a premature move.
I mean, it was a Japan exclusive thing. Perhaps they'll still come up with their own streaming service in the future.
This is Activision we are talking about. If they can squeeze a nickel somewhere they will.
Where when you bought those games did the license agreement grant you permission to stream them via Geforce Now or similar services?
Why would they not seek to charge you to do so when they are entirely within their legal rights to do so?
I don't like this outcome, but it's an extremely obvious one. Corporations are gonna corporate.
The publishers I mentioned are specifically already implementing or at least planning their own streaming service from which they would get all the revenue. Why would they want to allow Geforce to undermine such services? Especially when they have not granted Nvidia or users the rights to do it.
Imo it is better than turning a blind eye temporarily then revoking access later down the line after people get used to using the service more. Also from a legal perspective they are probably far better off taking immediate action.
Activision Blizzard just signed a huge deal with Google transferring all their server hosting to Google, and exclusive eSports broadcasting deal for YouTube gaming.
I wouldn't be surprised if Google is behind this, pending some sort of Stadia deal.
I wouldn't be surprised if Google is behind this, pending some sort of Stadia deal.
You've also noticed they haven't released anything else on streaming for the Switch, and we talk about Japan.
The big advantage of GeForce Now was that their entire game library ISN'T tied to the streaming service.
I mean, there aren't very many of them, given the seemingly poor performance of stadia.
GeForce now has more goodwill precisely because that isn't the case.
Well geez, I was actually considering hopping back into Black Ops 4 with this. I just don't play it enough to warrant the amount of space it takes up nowadays.
Parts of this remind me when some older cloud infrastructure providers were providing their customers with provisioned Windows experiences... for which Microsoft was not paid. Let's just say, those servers don't exist anymore. :p
I'm curious to know how this exactly works in terms of licensing, must be a "fun" thing to have to deal with. :D
I'm curious to know how this exactly works in terms of licensing, must be a "fun" thing to have to deal with. :D
The entire point of GeForce Now is that it doesn't tie your entire game library to a streaming service. Instead, it lets you stream games you already own from Steam, Uplay, Origin, etc. It's meant to be a complementary service to PC gaming, not a replacement for it.
fuck it's infuriating. Then we have to sift through the detritus and wait for the majority to fail before amalgamating again. The number of subscriptions I have is already out of hand.
This except instead of "own" substitute in "have a license to play on your local device".
Probably. Like with movie/TV streaming, if you've already started getting into the nuts and bolts of distribution you'd be a fool to put your games in someone else's hands.
And like with movie/TV streaming, it remains to be seen whether having a dozen streaming platforms is actually viable.
Sounds like xcloud might be our plex-like solution for this.
Hopefully Nvidia works out the agreements and gets the games back on.
In a way it helps the developers and Nvidia. Developers can have another source of revenue from those that wouldn't consider getting the games due to too weak hardware. That those developers don't have the resources to launch a streaming service of their own. Nvidia gets the revenue from the streaming ability.
It's not like Nvidia is siphoning money away from the devs
In a way it helps the developers and Nvidia. Developers can have another source of revenue from those that wouldn't consider getting the games due to too weak hardware. That those developers don't have the resources to launch a streaming service of their own. Nvidia gets the revenue from the streaming ability.
It's not like Nvidia is siphoning money away from the devs
Seems dumb as hell to me that the devs / pubs of these games even have a say in the matter. It's Nvidia's backend that's running it.
It'd be like if they arbitrarily decided that certain hardware wasn't allowed to launch their games, and everybody had to go out and buy new hardware. Not talking about a new console or something. Something with the same OS. Just literally them saying, "hey, you can't use that motherboard."
They don't have anything that competes with it yet. They shouldn't be allowed to pull their games from it until they offer an alternative.
It'd be like if they arbitrarily decided that certain hardware wasn't allowed to launch their games, and everybody had to go out and buy new hardware. Not talking about a new console or something. Something with the same OS. Just literally them saying, "hey, you can't use that motherboard."
They don't have anything that competes with it yet. They shouldn't be allowed to pull their games from it until they offer an alternative.
I take it that's their free service that allows streaming from your own hardware? The difference is that the devs / pubs can't monetize that. They see Nvidia making money from GeForce Now, and they say, "no, we want some of that even though we're not doing anything on our end to obtain it".
Are you sure you're not confusing streaming and subscription? Where have those companies said they're planning a streaming service? Either way, it's too bad. I like GeForce Now.
Well, yes, though that applies to almost any digital product nowadays.