NVIDIA explains why it has removed Activision Blizzard Games from GeForce Now
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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Senior Member
Posts: 14039
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I still don't really get the licensing on this. If I'm logging into my own account why does Blizzard get to say I can't play it remotely?
For example if I was running W10 on Azure and logged into my Blizzard account through an RDP session or whatever - blizzard can just say no? I can't play their games that way? Where do they draw the line with this? If it's another computer on my own network? My friend's computer down the street?
Just seems completely arbitrary and I'm curious to know if there is something in the EULA about it and what it specifically says.
Senior Member
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Joined: 2011-05-17
The issue here in essence a royalty agreement. How will Activision get paid per game for being on the service? What is the common denominator that will determine how much. Movies have a stranglehold over movie theaters. First week the theater sees nothing. All ticket proceeds go the studio. The theater functions only off the profits from the popcorn, soda, and candy. Aside from that the theater also has to meet a per seat charge. The number of seats is the common denominator here. The number of seats determines how much the base fee for the movie is. So a smaller theater will pay less than a larger one. The disagreement am sure was over what the equivalent to a seat in a theater is. There is no standard formula yet. There is also the whole clause about non-existing technologies that needs to be developed and accepted. Interesting times business wise.
Senior Member
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Except this is more akin to me watching movies I own over Plex.
I already own the game. I'm renting a computer from Nvidia. Why can't I play the game I own on my rented computer?
Senior Member
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as far as i understand this, the user has to own the game in order to run it on geforce now, so why is blizzard here expecting to make even more money?
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I am not sure a "misunderstanding" actually explains it. We are talking about two very large companies here.