NVIDIA GeForce Now streaming service drama - publishers pulling out

[Dexter]

https://reclaimthenet.org/activision-blizzard-nvidia-geforce-now/

Activision Blizzard tells NVIDIA to not let GeForce Now customers play any of their games
Activision Blizzard is the publisher of many of the most popular games on the platform and customers aren't happy.

by Arnold Zafra February 11, 2020 - 11:50 pm EST

Online gamers who have been enjoying streaming their Activision Blizzard games will be surprised to find out that by the next time they log in to the platform, their games might no longer be playable there.

GeForce Now, a new streaming service that allows players to stream their PC games from a server farm, is run by NVIDIA.

It did allow various games including Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Overwatch which are developed by Activision Blizzard.

However, according to NVIDIA, Activision Blizzard requested to have all its games pulled out from GeForce Now.

Although Activision Blizzard are not required to tell NVIDIA why they want to do this, it means that players are suddenly left to find out that they can no longer stream their favorite Activision Blizzard games PC games on GeForce Now.

NVIDIA says that it's unfortunate that this has to happen as Activision Blizzard games are among the most popular games that are being streamed on their platform that only officially launched last week.

They are still hoping to work together with Activision Blizzard to reenable their games and other games in the future.

“Per their request, please be advised Activision Blizzard games will be removed from the service. While unfortunate, we hope to work together with Activision Blizzard to reenable these games and more in the future,” a spokesperson said.

NVIDIA GeForce recently terminated its beta testing mode and has become available to the public with a minimal fee of $5 a month.

 

[Valky]

Imagine liking any activision blizzard games to begin with that you actually have a favorite, lol.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Imagine liking any activision blizzard games to begin with that you actually have a favorite, lol.

Activision isn't half the publisher it used to be.

 

[J_C]

https://reclaimthenet.org/activision-blizzard-nvidia-geforce-now/

Activision Blizzard tells NVIDIA to not let GeForce Now customers play any of their games
Activision Blizzard is the publisher of many of the most popular games on the platform and customers aren't happy.

by Arnold Zafra February 11, 2020 - 11:50 pm EST

Online gamers who have been enjoying streaming their Activision Blizzard games will be surprised to find out that by the next time they log in to the platform, their games might no longer be playable there.

GeForce Now, a new streaming service that allows players to stream their PC games from a server farm, is run by NVIDIA.

It did allow various games including Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Overwatch which are developed by Activision Blizzard.

However, according to NVIDIA, Activision Blizzard requested to have all its games pulled out from GeForce Now.

Although Activision Blizzard are not required to tell NVIDIA why they want to do this, it means that players are suddenly left to find out that they can no longer stream their favorite Activision Blizzard games PC games on GeForce Now.

NVIDIA says that it's unfortunate that this has to happen as Activision Blizzard games are among the most popular games that are being streamed on their platform that only officially launched last week.

They are still hoping to work together with Activision Blizzard to reenable their games and other games in the future.

“Per their request, please be advised Activision Blizzard games will be removed from the service. While unfortunate, we hope to work together with Activision Blizzard to reenable these games and more in the future,” a spokesperson said.

NVIDIA GeForce recently terminated its beta testing mode and has become available to the public with a minimal fee of $5 a month.

ActiBlizz is on a way to being the Number 1 most evil gaming company again. It was always a struggle between them and EA, but ActiBlizz really outdoing itself lately.

We can laugh on people who buy and play ActiBlizz games, but just think about it. Someone bought a game, but only because they can play it on GeforceNow, since they don't have a powerful enough PC. And now they can't play that game, despite having it on their libraries. Good job ActiBlizz, good job!

 

[rusty_shackleford]

https://reclaimthenet.org/activision-blizzard-nvidia-geforce-now/

Activision Blizzard tells NVIDIA to not let GeForce Now customers play any of their games
Activision Blizzard is the publisher of many of the most popular games on the platform and customers aren't happy.

by Arnold Zafra February 11, 2020 - 11:50 pm EST

Online gamers who have been enjoying streaming their Activision Blizzard games will be surprised to find out that by the next time they log in to the platform, their games might no longer be playable there.

GeForce Now, a new streaming service that allows players to stream their PC games from a server farm, is run by NVIDIA.

It did allow various games including Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Overwatch which are developed by Activision Blizzard.

However, according to NVIDIA, Activision Blizzard requested to have all its games pulled out from GeForce Now.

Although Activision Blizzard are not required to tell NVIDIA why they want to do this, it means that players are suddenly left to find out that they can no longer stream their favorite Activision Blizzard games PC games on GeForce Now.

NVIDIA says that it's unfortunate that this has to happen as Activision Blizzard games are among the most popular games that are being streamed on their platform that only officially launched last week.

They are still hoping to work together with Activision Blizzard to reenable their games and other games in the future.

“Per their request, please be advised Activision Blizzard games will be removed from the service. While unfortunate, we hope to work together with Activision Blizzard to reenable these games and more in the future,” a spokesperson said.

NVIDIA GeForce recently terminated its beta testing mode and has become available to the public with a minimal fee of $5 a month.

Hey it's like that thing Rusty talked about where you don't own proprietary software

 

[abija]

Bet it's the phone market... Was wondering why Rockstar or Capcom games aren't there. Should fight them in court because they are just renting hardware but probably Nvidia doesn't have deep enough pockets for that.

 

[Valky]

https://reclaimthenet.org/activision-blizzard-nvidia-geforce-now/

Activision Blizzard tells NVIDIA to not let GeForce Now customers play any of their games
Activision Blizzard is the publisher of many of the most popular games on the platform and customers aren't happy.

by Arnold Zafra February 11, 2020 - 11:50 pm EST

Online gamers who have been enjoying streaming their Activision Blizzard games will be surprised to find out that by the next time they log in to the platform, their games might no longer be playable there.

GeForce Now, a new streaming service that allows players to stream their PC games from a server farm, is run by NVIDIA.

It did allow various games including Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Overwatch which are developed by Activision Blizzard.

However, according to NVIDIA, Activision Blizzard requested to have all its games pulled out from GeForce Now.

Although Activision Blizzard are not required to tell NVIDIA why they want to do this, it means that players are suddenly left to find out that they can no longer stream their favorite Activision Blizzard games PC games on GeForce Now.

NVIDIA says that it's unfortunate that this has to happen as Activision Blizzard games are among the most popular games that are being streamed on their platform that only officially launched last week.

They are still hoping to work together with Activision Blizzard to reenable their games and other games in the future.

“Per their request, please be advised Activision Blizzard games will be removed from the service. While unfortunate, we hope to work together with Activision Blizzard to reenable these games and more in the future,” a spokesperson said.

NVIDIA GeForce recently terminated its beta testing mode and has become available to the public with a minimal fee of $5 a month.

Hey it's like that thing Rusty talked about where you don't own proprietary software

Proprietary software isn't really the core issue. I don't have the source code to any of my drm free games and there has never been an issue like this with them. The problem is draconian stripping of freedom which DRM is purposed to do, preventing you from accessing your owned copy (not source code and IP rights, but personal copy to do anything you want with by yourself). DRM and streaming (where you don't even own a copy to begin with) both serve to accomplish this end, where you can't access the software at all because it encrypts itself to be shut down unless you have permission from big brother to use it.

Streaming fundamentally changes the market concept from selling a good to a service.

 

[DalekFlay]

Eventually everything will be a stream or limited time download tied to a monthly payment subscription service, and no one will ever expect to "own" anything at all. This kind of stuff with Blizzard is growing pains toward that goal, basically.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Proprietary software isn't really the core issue. I don't have the source code to any of my drm free games and there has never been an issue like this with them

Did you just completely skip over the entire WC3 fiasco?
Also, basically any game that relied upon an online service will eventually fall victim to this same fate.

 

[Valky]

Proprietary software isn't really the core issue. I don't have the source code to any of my drm free games and there has never been an issue like this with them

Did you just completely skip over the entire WC3 fiasco?
Also, basically any game that relied upon an online service will eventually fall victim to this same fate.

What is the WC3 fiasco?
And yes, I agree games relying on online services have this problem. Online requirements are rife with DRM systems but that's part and parcel if you play shit like multiplayer.

 

[Nyast]

What is the WC3 fiasco?

Blizzard earned the lowest metacritic score ever ( 0.5 ) with their Warcraft 3: Reforged and broken promises.

More relevant to this discussion: they nuked the old Warcraft 3 classic. People on the old version ( which didn't buy or have anything to do with Reforged ) were surprised with a 40+ GB patch that removed tons of online features, killed matchmaking, custom maps and much more. There's currently no way to play the original WC3 anymore.

 

[DalekFlay]

They couldn't take it away from you if you had it backed up and DRM free though, which is Valky's point.

 

[Valky]

What is the WC3 fiasco?

Blizzard earned the lowest metacritic score ever ( 0.5 ) with their Warcraft 3: Reforged and broken promises.

More relevant to this discussion: they nuked the old Warcraft 3 classic. People on the old version ( which didn't buy or have anything to do with Reforged ) were surprised with a 40+ GB patch that removed tons of online features, killed matchmaking, custom maps and much more. There's currently no way to play the original WC3 anymore.

As DalekFlay said above. And as I said additionally, part and parcel if you play multiplayer games.

 

[Dexter]

https://reclaimthenet.org/bethesda-pulls-out-nvidias-geforce-now/

Bethesda pulls out of Nvidia’s GeForce Now service
Bethesda is the second major publisher to pull out.

by Cindy Harper February 21, 2020 - 3:55 pm EST

Nvidia has announced that it's losing another major publisher from its GeForce Now cloud gaming service. This time, they've lost Bethesda Softworks, the parent company of Bethesda Game Studios.

Nvidia made the announcement on their forums.

Bethesda is home to popular series such as The Elder Scrolls and Fallout.

There's one Bethesda game that's going to remain on the platform though – that's Wolfenstein: Youngblood.

However, Nvidia hasn't clarified why that game will remain on the service.

Just a week ago, GeForce Now customers lost access to all Activision Blizzard games when the publisher requested to be removed from the service.

With Activision Blizzard, it was rumored that there was a disagreement about how Nvidia GeForce Now worked – as it allows players to play games that they've already purchased on platforms such as Steam.

This consumer-friendly decision by Nvidia means that customers don't have to purchase a separate copy of the game to use on that platform – as they do with Google Stadia – GeForce Now's streaming rival.

It's not yet known if the same issue is what's causing Bethesda to pull out of the service and block its customers from playing on NVidia GeForce Now.

In a statement, NVidia said, “As we approach a paid service, some publishers may choose to remove games before the trial period ends. Ultimately, they maintain control over their content and decide whether the game you purchase includes streaming on GeForce NOW. Meanwhile, others will bring games back as they continue to realize GeForce NOW’s value (stay tuned for more on that).”

Reminder:

Another thing is developers (and even some publishers) will most likely not like their payment model, you can especially already hear Walking Sim or short "story" game devs complain, but it's generally a stupid business model even for large publishers that won't want to replace $60 retail purchases for a few bucks of Streaming hours split up on them (and the hardware and bandwidth doesn't come cheap either, and don't forget the provider's cut)

They're not just gonna acquiesce to Nvidia making bank using their games.

 

[abija]

Too bad nvidia doesn't have the balls to sue. Their service is hardware renting, software companies shouldn't have any control over it.

 

[Dexter]

Too bad nvidia doesn't have the balls to sue. Their service is hardware renting, software companies shouldn't have any control over it.

Sue for what lol?

 

[abija]

For software companies deciding on what machine you can install or not the software you bought? It's almost the same as publishers asking percents of video card sales or games won't work with them.

 

[Dexter]

For software companies deciding on what machine you can install or not the software you bought? It's almost the same as publishers asking percents of video card sales or games won't work with them.

You're not making any sense, you bought a game license/copy that you can use privately, not one for Streaming it from Nvidias servers to your PC. The only way any such "service" can offer it is with an explicit agreement between the provider and the respective publisher or developer that owns the rights for that specific game. From a legal standpoint it isn't much different than a Streaming service trying to offer Streaming movies that you supposedly own the Blu-Ray for for free, the studios would shut them down and sue them instantly. Seeing as Nvidia is now asking money for said service but will likely either not pay the publishers/developers anything or at most a pittance it seems rather obvious why they don't want Nvidia to make money off of their games in this way.

 

[Average Manatee]

For software companies deciding on what machine you can install or not the software you bought? It's almost the same as publishers asking percents of video card sales or games won't work with them.

You're not making any sense, you bought a game license/copy that you can use privately, not one for Streaming it from Nvidias servers to your PC. The only way any such "service" can offer it is with an explicit agreement between the provider and the respective publisher or developer that owns the rights for that specific game. From a legal standpoint it isn't much different than a Streaming service trying to offer Streaming movies that you supposedly own the Blu-Ray for for free, the studios would shut them down and sue them instantly. Seeing as Nvidia is now asking money for said service but will likely either not pay the publishers/developers anything or at most a pittance it seems rather obvious why they don't want Nvidia to make money off of their games in this way.

There's nothing illegal about playing games on a computer you don't own (whether rented or free use at a friend's house or a library or whatever) and there's nothing illegal about streaming a video of the game you own from another location.

I have a feeling that if NVIDIA wanted to play hardball they could take it to court and get it declared that its all legal and they don't need permission. I'd say the betamax case sets a pretty good precedent:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Corp._of_America_v._Universal_City_Studios,_Inc.

namely, that recording and replaying broadcast programs on the time and form of the consumer's choosing is fair use.

The catch is that NVIDIA doesn't necessarily want this, because if a court declares it fair use then anyone could replicate it and compete. They'd rather avoid that and try to individually negotiate with publishers in order to maintain a much higher barrier to entry to competition and hopefully an effective monopoly.

 

[abija]

You use that license privately on GeforceNow. You use it exactly how you would from your own PC.

From a legal standpoint it isn't much different than a Streaming service trying to offer Streaming movies that you supposedly own the Blu-Ray for for free, the studios would shut them down and sue them instantly.

Sure they would and they should lose. Should every VPS provider pay for what users are installing on the machines?

 

[Dexter]

There's nothing illegal about playing games on a computer you don't own (whether rented or free use at a friend's house or a library or whatever) and there's nothing illegal about streaming a video of the game you own from another location.

You can't automatically expect that you can view a movie on Amazon Prime Video or on YouTube Premium or whatever because you bought it on DVD or got it on an Alternate service like Hulu before. Google or Amazon do not own the rights for Streaming the movie to you without paying the creator/rights holder. The only way they could accomplish this was some sort of agreement between all involved parties that you bought something on Amazon and they'll allow you to watch it on Prime Video or whatever. The extraordinary thing here is that publishers allowed this to go on as far as it has without being compensated so far while it was in Trial, not that they're pulling out now that it becomes a commercial offering (and they won't be the last). If Nvidia refused to take down the Streaming of said games from their service/servers they would be sued and 100% lose since they don't own the rights to said games either, similar to how Google/YouTube can't just offer movie Streaming for $5 a month and just say "lol, they bought a copy b4 somewhere else k". Similarly you can't play a game on PC or on Xbox just because you bought it on PlayStation before. That's not how anything works.

 

[Average Manatee]

There's nothing illegal about playing games on a computer you don't own (whether rented or free use at a friend's house or a library or whatever) and there's nothing illegal about streaming a video of the game you own from another location.

You can't automatically expect that you can view a movie on Amazon Prime Video or on YouTube Premium or whatever because you bought it on DVD or got it on an Alternate service like Hulu before. Google or Amazon have no right to Stream the movie to you without paying the creator. The only way they could accomplish this was some sort of agreement between them that you bought something on Amazon and they'll allow you to watch it on Prime Video or whatever. The extraordinary thing here is that publishers allowed this to go on without being compensated so far while it was in Trial, not that they're pulling out now that it becomes a commercial offering. If Nvidia refused to take down the Streaming of said games from their service they would be sued and 100% lose similar to how Google/YouTube can't just offering movie Streaming for $5 a month and just say "lol, they bought a copy b4 k". That's not how anything works.

According to what law or court case?

The legal argument Nvidia would make is that they are merely renting their systems to you for the duration of play and verify that you own the game through Steam. Nvidia isn't streaming the game to you, you are streaming it to yourself. You can rent computer time from tons of places online and do whatever legal you want with them including play games, Nvidia is merely streamlining the setup to be very easy to the end user.

 

[Dexter]

The legal argument Nvidia would make is that they are merely renting their systems to you for the duration of play and verify that you own the game through Steam. Nvidia isn't streaming the game to you, you are streaming it to yourself.

I'm sorry this is just too much retardation for me now so I'll try this just once more and am bowing out after this. When you buy a game on Steam it gives you the right to download and play it on Steam and whatever else deal Steam has arranged with the rights holders like Family Sharing (from which devs can opt out btw.).

It doesn't give a third party and entirely unaffiliated company that isn't involved in the purchase Agreement between Customer, Steam and Publisher the right to Stream said games from their servers. It also doesn't give an unaffiliated company like GOG the right to let you download said games from their service/servers unless they specifically make a deal with the specific rights holders to allow this (which would be GOG Connect).

 

[Average Manatee]

The legal argument Nvidia would make is that they are merely renting their systems to you for the duration of play and verify that you own the game through Steam. Nvidia isn't streaming the game to you, you are streaming it to yourself.

I'm sorry this is just too much retardation for me now so I'll try this just once more and am bowing out after this. When you buy a game on Steam it gives you the right to download and play it on Steam and whatever else deal Steam has arranged with the rights holders like Family Sharing (from which devs can opt out btw.).

That's not necessarily true. That's what the EULA might say, but an EULA does not determine law. You can personally copy a Steam game and play it without Steam as you please. You are only breaking copyright law if you are making a copy for another person.

It doesn't give a third party and entirely unaffiliated company that isn't involved in the purchase Agreement between Customer, Steam and Publisher the right to Stream said games from their servers. It also doesn't give an unaffiliated company like GOG the right to let you download said games from their service/servers unless they specifically make a deal with the specific rights holders to allow this (which would be GOG Connect).arranged with the rights holders like Family Sharing (from which devs can opt out btw.).

As I said, the argument Nvidia would make is that you are renting from Nvidia and streaming it to yourself. You can literally, right now, do everything Nvidia is doing yourself with anywhere that is renting server time. Go rent a server, remote in, install whatever game you want and play it. Granted I expect most options won't have a good GPU if at all (and ones that do are probably compute brands that won't have proper driver support for games), but you can certainly play DOOM or w/e.

 

[abija]

When you buy a game on Steam it gives you the right to download and play it on Steam

And this is exactly what you do on GeforceNow. Are you arguing that if I buy a 3dsmax license and use a vps server to render, that vps company needs to kickback to autodesk?