Activision forces NVIDIA to remove all game from GeForce NOW

[Tarba]

Eh, why do you think these services will never take off?
Because they don't offer free games.
It's like Netflix bringing you movies at a flat monthly rate, but you have to pay for each movie.
Those with dirty cheap laptops will probably pirate a game instead of paying a monthly fee and on top of that spending 10-20% of their laptops worth on a single game.
Use your brain bit.

Everything you said is wrong.
If you want to compare to netflix it would be being able to watch a movie you bought on a 4k homecinema you rent.
If you have a bad computer or a mac, pirating a game won't let you use it miraculously on your crappy computer.
Use your brain bit.
Geforce now was a pretty good and légal solution.
Blizzard forbidding cloud gaming can stand as much as blizzard forbidding you to play with a particular graphic card wich works well and has no compatibility problem.
I'm pretty sure that with a class action it will be rolled over.
I'd like to see them explaining why you can't rent a computer to play their game.
While war3 or starcraft were in every cyber cofee.

[Onikaroshi]

Most likely they liked GeForce (tried it and it's actually working) but Google or someone else offered them more money. And obviously they went with Money over Users.
So they're either waiting for Nvidia to match the money or waiting for the other cloud service to integrate it.

Willing to bet that at some point Actiblizzard games will be available on some cloud platform that either has a higher sub cost or requires you to pay extra for each game even if you own it already.

Wow, at least, should never be allowed on a cloud service, you could far too easily run your botting programs with little to no means of repercussion

[Strawberry]

Everything you said is wrong.
If you want to compare to netflix it would be being able to watch a movie you bought on a 4k homecinema you rent.
If you have a bad computer or a mac, pirating a game won't let you use it miraculously on your crappy computer.
Use your brain bit.
Geforce now was a pretty good and légal solution.
Blizzard forbidding cloud gaming can stand as much as blizzard forbidding you to play with a particular graphic card wich works well and has no compatibility problem.
I'm pretty sure that with a class action it will be rolled over.
I'd like to see them explaining why you can't rent a computer to play their game.
While war3 or starcraft were in every cyber cofee.

So what, you're going to start a class-action lawsuit over every other game developer who doesn't want their games on other platforms, like Steam.
Or maybe you're going to start a lawsuit over Sony for PS4 exclusive games?
Also, you haven't proven me wrong. People who can't afford a laptop that can run games properly will not spend €50 on a game. Those people also most likely don't have a stable internet connection to stream games.

Please. You people are delusional.
Cloud computing has been tried many times before, and it hasn't worked. It will only work if stores like Epic show up granting free games from time to time, or EA's own sub which grants hundreds of games for some $9.99/month. $5/month + have to buy the games? Yeah, right.

[Dhrizzle]

Seems like Activision-Blizzard really wants to give EA are run for their money for the title of "most anti-consumer publisher of all time".

Just wait until you're an adult and have to deal with companies that don't sell toys and games, there are far worse things out there. Companies that are slightly annoying during playtime are basically the easy-mode tutorial for the real world.

[Onikaroshi]

Everything you said is wrong.
If you want to compare to netflix it would be being able to watch a movie you bought on a 4k homecinema you rent.
If you have a bad computer or a mac, pirating a game won't let you use it miraculously on your crappy computer.
Use your brain bit.
Geforce now was a pretty good and légal solution.
Blizzard forbidding cloud gaming can stand as much as blizzard forbidding you to play with a particular graphic card wich works well and has no compatibility problem.
I'm pretty sure that with a class action it will be rolled over.
I'd like to see them explaining why you can't rent a computer to play their game.
While war3 or starcraft were in every cyber cofee.

Good lord, there's not legal standing for any action.

They block cloud gaming because it removes control of the End User experience from their hands. Want to bot in WoW? Just go to Cloud gaming!

Warden launches with wow (and every other blizzard game), it resides on the computer being run on. On cloud gaming the company running the cloud service would be the ones to monitor what is going on on the person pc during the session. It takes all control out of keeping botting and the like down out of Blizzard's hands and moves them to the services. The service probably would have to be willing to run Warden every time someone starts a Blizzard game for blizzard to even consider allowing their games on the service.

But legal action? lol... that would be like saying Disney can suffer legal action for moving all their IP to their own streaming service and no longer allowing it on Netflix.

[Jshadowhunter]

Blizzard stabs its long-standing customers and audience in the fucking back in order to leech of masses of mindless drones of Chinese communist hivemind.

[Edge-]

Blizzard stabs its long-standing customers and audience in the fucking back in order to leech of masses of mindless drones of Chinese communist hivemind.

How are they being "stabbed in the back" if it's apparently an issue with nvidia?

And what does any of this have to do with China?

[Mojo03]

How are they being "stabbed in the back" if it's apparently an issue with nvidia?

And what does any of this have to do with China?

No one knows why they did it. Everything people are saying is conjecture, not fact.

What is fact is they removed it without warning and didn’t apologize to the people that relied on the service to play the games or offer any kind of explanation. Say they were “stabbed in the back” is hyperbole, but it’s for sure not pro-consumer and yet another of many, many actions the company takes that provides evidence it doesn’t care about its community outside of money. You can argue it’s a business, whatever, but quality companies don’t do that and are user centric. They will only do it as long as people keep tolerating it.

[Edge-]

No one knows why they did it. Everything people are saying is conjecture, not fact.

All evidence points to that being the case. There's no other explanation, and it jives with ToS and, as I linked, was an issue that beta users were worried about as early as 2018 when Blizzard was handing out 30 day bans for folks that used it to play Blizzard games.

What is fact is they removed it without warning and didn’t apologize to the people that relied on the service to play the games or offer any kind of explanation.

If it was indeed not authorized, they owe no apology. The ones who owe an apology would be nvidia, for misleading users.

Say they were “stabbed in the back” is hyperbole, but it’s for sure not pro-consumer and yet another of many, many actions the company takes that provides evidence it doesn’t care about its community outside of money.

I won't disagree entirely here, but like...companies are always interested in money. Blizzard is just much more transparent about it nowadays.

And again, if it's accurate that nvidia didn't have their approval and that's why the games were pulled without notice, it's on nvidia for being anti-consumer by misleading them.

They will only do it as long as people keep tolerating it.

Yup. And Blizzard has put in the time to build that fanbase that allows them to shit all over them left and right with minimal impact. Players need to stop tolerating it before Blizzard gets the message.

[Blackmist]

Probably fucks with their anti-cheat stuff. Either false positives that they can't be arsed to weed out, or rampant cheats they can't ban.

[Mojo03]

All evidence points to that being the case. There's no other explanation, and it jives with ToS and, as I linked, was an issue that beta users were worried about as early as 2018 when Blizzard was handing out 30 day bans for folks that used it to play Blizzard games.



If it was indeed not authorized, they owe no apology. The ones who owe an apology would be nvidia, for misleading users.



I won't disagree entirely here, but like...companies are always interested in money. Blizzard is just much more transparent about it nowadays.

And again, if it's accurate that nvidia didn't have their approval and that's why the games were pulled without notice, it's on nvidia for being anti-consumer by misleading them.



Yup. And Blizzard has put in the time to build that fanbase that allows them to shit all over them left and right with minimal impact. Players need to stop tolerating it before Blizzard gets the message.

The TOS states “unauthorized” cloud gaming. I find it very hard to believe Nvidia would have it on their platform for 2+ years without it being “authorized”. It takes a fat chunk of money and time to create the service, they aren’t going to take chances and throw it on their platform without an okay from a team of lawyers that vetted it.

The bans, from what I’ve seen, originated from one guy on MMO champ claiming he got banned for 30 days, which was also reversed. The reddit thread is also about that same case. It looks like it gone blown out of proportion and further more we don’t know details and there wasn’t an actual statement from Blizzard about it. You can chalk it up to internet gossip without any real valid proof.

[Edge-]

The TOS states “unauthorized” cloud gaming. I find it very hard to believe Nvidia would have it on their platform for 2+ years without it being “authorized”. It takes a fat chunk of money and time to create the service, they aren’t going to take chances and throw it on their platform without an okay from a team of lawyers that vetted it.

I'm aware of that. But like...big fuckups like this have happened in the past, and they'll happen again. It's currently the most reasonable explanation I've seen, especially since we've seen news of Blizzard's partnership for cloud gaming with Google, but we have absolutely zero confirmation that nvidia had ever reached any partnership or agreement with Blizzard for their games on geforce now.

And, again, I'll point to the thread as early as 2018 in which I linked where folks were getting banned. If this was authorized, they wouldn't have been getting banned.

The bans, from what I’ve seen, originated from one guy on MMO champ claiming he got banned for 30 days, which was also reversed. The reddit thread is also about that same case. It looks like it gone blown out of proportion and further more we don’t know details and there wasn’t an actual statement from Blizzard about it. You can chalk it up to internet gossip without any real valid proof.

Re-linking

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce...izzards-eula-/

https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comment..._using_nvidia/ - Mod confirming the EULA changes regarding cloud streaming are legit.

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...-are-going-out! MMOC thread in question

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...1#post49767178 post from OP in that thread who chatted with geforce support clearly stating that Blizzard games were not authorized for use on the platform at that time.

I see nothing of reversals, and it seems like it hit more than just one person.

Again, absent confirmation from nvidia that they were an authorized streaming platform, which if they were they were I imagine they'd have been shouting about that extremely loudly by now, everything points to them never having official authorization from Blizzard to have their games on the platform.

[Dundebuns]

Why the heck are people paying to beta test?! Kudos to the marketing guys that managed to convince the masses that QA is an excercie you should pay for and not be paid to do.

[Mojo03]

I'm aware of that. But like...big fuckups like this have happened in the past, and they'll happen again. It's currently the most reasonable explanation I've seen, especially since we've seen news of Blizzard's partnership for cloud gaming with Google, but we have absolutely zero confirmation that nvidia had ever reached any partnership or agreement with Blizzard for their games on geforce now.

And, again, I'll point to the thread as early as 2018 in which I linked where folks were getting banned. If this was authorized, they wouldn't have been getting banned.



Re-linking

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce...izzards-eula-/

https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comment..._using_nvidia/ - Mod confirming the EULA changes regarding cloud streaming are legit.

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...-are-going-out! MMOC thread in question

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...1#post49767178 post from OP in that thread who chatted with geforce support clearly stating that Blizzard games were not authorized for use on the platform at that time.

I see nothing of reversals, and it seems like it hit more than just one person.

Again, absent confirmation from nvidia that they were an authorized streaming platform, which if they were they were I imagine they'd have been shouting about that extremely loudly by now, everything points to them never having official authorization from Blizzard to have their games on the platform.

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce...izzards-eula-/ - A link with people talking about it on Nvidia forums. Literally nothing here.

https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comment..._using_nvidia/ - A reddit thread talking about MMO champ posting that the EULA was updated. Not a single person I saw in the thread claimed to have gotten banned. All theoretical. Nothing here again.

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...-are-going-out! - One person claiming they got banned, whose word were just supposed to take. Also claims to have gotten it reversed if you read the whole thing.

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...1#post49767178 - A screenshotted chat bubble with zero context as to who is actually talking. It's literally a super cropped screenshot with zero proof he's actually talking to an Nvidia representative. Let alone the "representative" has awful English.

So like I was saying its internet gossip. You have nothing here.

Furthermore, neither Activision or Nvidia has really commented on the reasoning behind it, so all we can do is guess.

The greediest answer, which is usually the most plausible when we're talking about Activision, is they left to go exclusive to Stadia. They literally just partnered with Google last week on a massive, massive gaming contract.

This is one link: https://www.ccn.com/activisions-new-...happy-finally/

There are mannyyyyyy if you google it.

[Edge-]

Again, do you really think that nvidia wouldn't be saying that they had authorization to host Blizzard games through their service, if they actually had it?

If this was truly the case, they'd make that crystal clear.

The fact that they haven't speaks volumes, and all the other links I provide are more evidence supporting that conclusion.

[Mojo03]

Why the heck are people paying to beta test?! Kudos to the marketing guys that managed to convince the masses that QA is an excercie you should pay for and not be paid to do.

I had used it for 2 years and hadn't paid a dime and if you sign up for it now, you get 3 free months before you start paying 5 measly dollars a month. Check your information before commenting.

- - - Updated - - -

Again, do you really think that nvidia wouldn't be saying that they had authorization to host Blizzard games through their service, if they actually had it?

If this was truly the case, they'd make that crystal clear.

The fact that they haven't speaks volumes, and all the other links I provide are more evidence supporting that conclusion.

They might not be really aware that people are talking about it and don't feel the need to comment. Who knows. There isn't like an outcry from the public demanding to know if they were authorized. I don't know, it would be nice to have some kind of answer though.

[Edge-]

https://twitter.com/4Scarrs_Gaming/s...49648561037312

Looking some of these up, multiple publishers have pulled their games during the beta, even. This adds more weigh that nvidia wasn't getting the necessary approvals from publishers before adding their games to the service.

Jon Scarr isn't a nobody, either. He's legit.

[Onikaroshi]

https://twitter.com/4Scarrs_Gaming/s...49648561037312

Looking some of these up, multiple publishers have pulled their games during the beta, even. This adds more weigh that nvidia wasn't getting the necessary approvals from publishers before adding their games to the service.

Jon Scarr isn't a nobody, either. He's legit.

Smells like nVidia didn't want to pay to provide the games on the service.

[Edge-]

Smells like nVidia didn't want to pay to provide the games on the service.

It's increasingly looking like two scenarios, neither of which is good for the green guys -

1. They legit just didn't even think about this stuff. At all. And the publishers pulling games in beta didn't clue them in.
2. They were hoping to skate by unnoticed, or use their userbase to try to pressure publishers into keeping their games on the service.

I'm not sure what other realistic options there are, honestly. Because it's sure looking like the source of the problem is nvidia, not any of the individual publishers.

[BeepBoo]

Probably as someone said earlier, Google Stadia made a bid for their services. Dont act like if you got offered more money for the same sort of thing by a rival company you wouldnt at least consider it.

Lol. Can't wait for cloud-service-specific-based exclusives!