NVIDIA explains why it has removed Activision Blizzard Games from GeForce Now

by Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 02/17/2020 06:51 PM | source: bloomberg | 28 comment(s)

Last week we reported that Activision Blizzard games had been removed from NVIDIA’s streaming service, GeForce Now. There wasn't really an explanation leaving customers wondering as to how what and why.

According to NVIDIA, the removal games was due to a misunderstanding between the green team and Activision. It turns out that the video-game giant wanted a commercial agreement with Nvidia before they proceeded -- and the situation stemmed from a simple misunderstanding, Nvidia said on Thursday.

Because Activision participated in the beta test of the service, Nvidia thought that agreement extended to the initial trial period after GeForce’s Feb. 4 launch. The service, which hosts games online and sells superscriptions to players, is now available to the general public. Nvidia has been offering a free 90-day trial to its initial crop of customers, which it calls "founding members."

Activision Blizzard has been a fantastic partner during the GeForce Now beta, which we took to include the free trial period for our founders membership. Recognizing the misunderstanding, we removed their games from our service. We hope hope we can work with them to re-enable these, and more, in the future - Bloomberg.

So Activision Blizzard wanted to negotiate a new commercial agreement before its games were available on GeForce Now. NVIDIA had stated that it does not currently plan to have commercial agreements with game publishers. Obviously, this displeased Activision and the publisher decided to remove its games from this service. GeForce Now is a streaming gaming service, subscribers pay $4.99 a month to stream games from Nvidia-owned data centers.

NVIDIA could re-enable the games, however, there isn’t any ETA on when that may happen.

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pharma
Senior Member

Posts: 2225
Joined: 2003-09-10

#5761676 Posted on: 02/19/2020 05:53 AM

Actually last year there was a ruling against Steam who tried to prohibit the sale of digitized games .

"In other words, game ownership passes on to the buyer.
...
Additionally, the French courts say that the description of Steam as a subscription service within the user agreement is counter to the nature of purchases on the platform. Users spend defined monetary amounts on single products in standalone transactions that grant access to the game forever, while subscription services (like the upcoming Apple Arcade) have a defined accessibility period and don’t imply ownership."

I would not be surprised to see a challenge against Activision regarding consumer rights to games bought by consumers.

Astyanax
Senior Member