GeForce now loses all Activision blizzard titles

[spartaman64]

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Nvidia has announced that all Activision Blizzard games available on its GeForce Now streaming service will soon be removed from streaming play at the publisher's request. The move affects a number of GeForce streamable games on Blizzard's Battle.net launcher, including Overwatch, World of Warcraft, Starcraft 2, and the Call of Duty series (Destiny 2 is still streamable since Bungie split with Activision just over a year ago).

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"[We're] continually adding new games, and on occasion, having to remove games – similar to other digital service providers," Nvidia said in a statement. "While unfortunate, we hope to work together with Activision Blizzard to re-enable these games and more in the future."

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Activision Blizzard hasn't publicly commented on the reason for this pullback, and the company's games could return soon. But last month Activision Blizzard announced that it had entered into a multiyear partnership with Google Cloud to provide backend infrastructure support for its game, as well as esports streaming services through YouTube. Activision didn't announce any plans to bring games to Google's Stadia service at that time, but such a move would make some sense as an extension of that existing partnership.

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GeForce Now users can still play their Activision Blizzard games locally, so no one will fully lose access to any purchases as a result of this move (that probably won't be the case if and when Google's streaming-only Stadia service shuts down). Still, the feature removal is painful to anyone who purchased these games (or Nvidia's streaming subscription plan) at least in part to enjoy them via streaming. That includes players who might have used GeForce Now to play Activision Blizzard games on mobile phones, where local play just isn't an option in most cases.

Source: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/02/activision-blizzard-abruptly-removes-its-games-from-geforce-now-streaming/

 

I hope the games gets added back soon and this isn't a move by Blizzard to sign an exclusive deal with Stadia. And this highlights a worrying possible future trend with cloud gaming platforms getting exclusive games and fracturing the market further. Like how you might need to get a Netflix, Hulu, HBO, and Disney plus to watch all the movies you want to watch. You might need to subscribe to GeForce, Stadia, Microsoft cloud gaming etc to play all the games you are interested in. 

[emosun]

30 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

I hope the games gets added back soon and this isn't a move by Blizzard to sign an exclusive deal with Stadia.

yeah but wouldnt it be a good thing for both of those sinking ships to go down together

[Taf the Ghost]

Or Activision is going to launch their own service. EA has one in early Beta right now. Why wouldn't Activision want to get in on this?

[Arika]

8 minutes ago, Taf the Ghost said:

Or Activision is going to launch their own service. EA has one in early Beta right now. Why wouldn't Activision want to get in on this?

exactly my thought.

 

every publisher is going to have their own streaming service, exactly like we have every movie studio having their own streaming service. and all of them will fail because people will just buy the games they want instead of having 10 subscriptions to game streaming services which all still are terrible experiences. 

[Taf the Ghost]

1 minute ago, Arika S said:

exactly my thought.

 

every publisher is going to have their own streaming service, exactly like we have every movie studio having their own streaming service. and all of them will fail because people will just buy the games they want instead of having 10 subscriptions to game streaming services which all still are terrible experiences. 

From my perspective, I view it was a Game Rental Service going mainstream. PC Gaming, as a rental business, never worked because of, well, just replication. Now you'll be able to sign up for a service for a month for less than the price of a movie ticket, in a lot of places. Solid way to play a game you're interested in, to be frank. "Game Streaming" isn't inherently a problem (minus data cap issues) in the same way that Video Streaming isn't, but it fills a specific market. And I don't think that market is as big as everyone that's funneling billions into this thinks it will be.

 

Though part of me finds it funny that everyone is trying to get Subscription Services, whether launcher or streaming based, for less than the price of MMO subscriptions back in the day.  Which points to the actual reality is they want you to pay a Subscription and then buy lots of microtransactions. 

[LostElric]

22 minutes ago, Taf the Ghost said:

From my perspective, I view it was a Game Rental Service going mainstream. PC Gaming, as a rental business, never worked because of, well, just replication. Now you'll be able to sign up for a service for a month for less than the price of a movie ticket, in a lot of places. Solid way to play a game you're interested in, to be frank. "Game Streaming" isn't inherently a problem (minus data cap issues) in the same way that Video Streaming isn't, but it fills a specific market. And I don't think that market is as big as everyone that's funneling billions into this thinks it will be.

 

Though part of me finds it funny that everyone is trying to get Subscription Services, whether launcher or streaming based, for less than the price of MMO subscriptions back in the day.  Which points to the actual reality is they want you to pay a Subscription and then buy lots of microtransactions. 

To be fair, Geforce Now isn't really a rental service, as you buy the games from their respective store fronts and actually own them if you log into the service on another PC, as much as one can own a digital good. You're paying Nvidia for their servers. Overall it seemed pretty good and a win for everyone, as the store fronts got to take in the money on the sale of the game, the person actually owns their copy, nvidia gets money for letting you use their servers.

 

I have to assume though with Activision's recent deal to stream their esports through youtube that they worked out an exclusive deal with Stadia too. I suppose though could try and do their own streaming service but that doesn't really seem to be their usual M.O.. Till recently they weren't really interested in selling their games on BattleNet and were fine selling on Steam. They do love signing deals that make them more money though like CoD exclusives or timed exclusives to platforms.

[DrMacintosh]

For anyone who has GeForce Now, is Star Trek Online available on it?

[williamcll]

3 hours ago, Arika S said:

exactly my thought.

 

every publisher is going to have their own streaming service, exactly like we have every movie studio having their own streaming service. and all of them will fail because people will just buy the games they want instead of having 10 subscriptions to game streaming services which all still are terrible experiences. 

And then it just goes back to piracy.

[Shreyas1]

 my friend bought Modern Warfare last week, his pc is too weak and he had the intention of only using GeForce now for it

 

press f to pay respects

[Master Disaster]

Some of you guys are missing the point, there will be no way to buy your own games any more because greedy publishers don't want you actually owning a product, ownership comes with rights. When all this is done there will be no way to play modern games in any capacity other than stream them.

 

By the end of this decade every publisher will be streaming only and every publisher will have their own service with their own games.

 

This also highlights another major issue with game streaming, the user has no control over the titles available to them. You might subscribe to X service because it has Y game on it but then in the future a better deal is struck, Y is moved onto Z service and suddenly you're left subscribed to X with no use for it. This exact shit happened a few months back, my Mum got an email from Sky TV telling her that Marvel have decided to remove all their content, both TV Shows & Movies from Sky TVs streaming service. There was no explanation given, no offer of compensation, just a "this thing that we price increased only a few months ago now has less content, have a nice day".

[Daiyus]

7 hours ago, Arika S said:

exactly my thought.

 

every publisher is going to have their own streaming service, exactly like we have every movie studio having their own streaming service. and all of them will fail because people will just buy the games they want instead of having 10 subscriptions to game streaming services which all still are terrible experiences. 

This is exactly why I don't subscribe to any kind of game pass, only have one TV streaming service active at once (backing up what I watch as I do), and will never ever take cloud gaming seriously. I still buy music on CD's, movies on Blu-ray and games individually. If there isn't a copy of the data in my house then as far as I'm concerned I don't own it. I'm not paying for 10+ different subscriptions, which will total far more than I pay per month for what I want individually. Not to mention once I've bought stuff there's no chance it will become unavailable due to changing distribution agreements. They can't come and take my discs or hard-drive away.

 

Should the time come when streaming is the only way to consume modern media, then I'll just become a retro-hermit.

[Master Disaster]

4 hours ago, williamcll said:

And then it just goes back to piracy.

You can't pirate a game stream. If they don't sell you the product at all then there's no way to pirate it. It also kills modding and the second hand game market.

[Master Disaster]

3 minutes ago, Daiyus said:

This is exactly why I don't subscribe to any kind of game pass, only have one TV streaming service active at once (backing up what I watch as I do), and will never ever take cloud gaming seriously. I still buy music on CD's, movies on Blu-ray and games individually. If there isn't a copy of the data in my house then as far as I'm concerned I don't own it. I'm not paying for 10+ different subscriptions, which will total far more than I pay per month for what I want individually. Not to mention once I've bought stuff there's no chance it will become unavailable due to changing distribution agreements. They can't come and take my discs or hard-drive away.

The problem here is that once other industries see the gaming industry pulling this shit and getting away with it everyone else will follow suit. Luckily for us ripping a video stream is far easier than ripping a game stream (which is probably impossible tbh).

[WereCatf]

7 hours ago, LostElric said:

To be fair, Geforce Now isn't really a rental service, as you buy the games from their respective store fronts and actually own them if you log into the service on another PC, as much as one can own a digital good. You're paying Nvidia for their servers. Overall it seemed pretty good and a win for everyone, as the store fronts got to take in the money on the sale of the game, the person actually owns their copy, nvidia gets money for letting you use their servers.

All of this is why I, personally, find NVIDIA's Geforce Now a really good proposition. I don't personally have any need for it, since I already have a powerful PC and I have such good broadband at home and mobile-broadband on my phone that I can make use of Steam's Remote Play, but if I was in a worse position, I could definitely envision myself using Geforce Now. I really like that your games are not tied to the service and the service is just another way of playing the games you already have.

[WereCatf]

I just checked and Geforce Now apparently does support modding one's games as well via Steam Workshop, so that's another positive thing going for it.

[TechyBen]

"Cloud services" and "software license".

As far as I can see, GFNow is just a VM on a cloud service. So companies now want to decide what I can and can't run on a VM and on the cloud?

GET OUT!

[maartendc]

10 hours ago, spartaman64 said:

I hope the games gets added back soon and this isn't a move by Blizzard to sign an exclusive deal with Stadia. And this highlights a worrying possible future trend with cloud gaming platforms getting exclusive games and fracturing the market further. Like how you might need to get a Netflix, Hulu, HBO, and Disney plus to watch all the movies you want to watch. You might need to subscribe to GeForce, Stadia, Microsoft cloud gaming etc to play all the games you are interested in. 

Well I would imagine Activision / Blizzard is looking to make it's own streaming service, or at least it's own subscription gaming service such as Origin Access or Xbox Game Pass. They have enough hubris to think they are big enough for that.

 

I do agree this is a bad trend. Pretty soon you will have to be subscribed to 3-4 game subscriptions to be able to play all the games you want. The fact that it is streaming or not is kind of irrelevant, because there are more and more subscription services where you download the full game as well (such as Origin Premier and Game Pass). Perhaps publishers are looking to phase out straight up "purchasing" games over time.

 

By and large, this would be a bad value. At an average price of $15 / mo (Origin Acces Premier Price), this would easily run you $45-$60 a month. Might be good for people who buy a ton of games, but for me personally, I buy like 3-4 full price games a year maybe. So this would be extremely bad value for me.

 

Also, this is a worrying trend seeing as how publishers like EA release unfinished games on the regular: Anthem, Battlefield V, etc. Pretty soon you will be subscribed to a bunch of gaming services with a bunch of beta tests on offer...

 

Every day we are moving further and further from the trusted: buy a disc/cartridge, put it in machine, play.

 

 

[SeriousDad69]

Anything that throws a monkey wrench into cloud gaming I'm all for lol. Don't think it'll slow it down much though, bugmen will sacrifice almost anything for the slightest conveniences.
Like bugmen will buy smart light switches that data mine your network and have apps that data mine your phone and get an Amazon Echo that records everything you say and zooshes it off to cloud for everyone in China/India/Government to hear, all because they're too lazy to get up off their asses and flip a switch lmao. Cloud gaming is right up the ally of those people.

[realpetertdm]

10 hours ago, Arika S said:

exactly my thought.

 

every publisher is going to have their own streaming service, exactly like we have every movie studio having their own streaming service. and all of them will fail because people will just buy the games they want instead of having 10 subscriptions to game streaming services which all still are terrible experiences. 

What if publishers make games exclusive to their streaming service?

[rockking1379]

1 hour ago, realpetertdm said:

What if publishers make games exclusive to their streaming service?

Then it’s going to take a lot of serious die hard fans to make it financially successful. Personally I didn’t even subscribe to GFN but I liked the idea of it. Mostly for the technology to make its way down to the consumer level. Which steam remote play sort of has done. But if you try to force me to use your platform to play your game then I likely won’t bother. Rockstar has forced the move to use their game launcher. And I basically quit playing GTAV. 

[RejZoR]

And this is why streaming services are shit. Services like Steam are bad enough coz you never really own the games, but at least for now, they respected purchases prior accessibility changes so even if game is removed from store, those who bought it can still play it, you just can't buy it new anymore. Streaming services can just lose games for no reason and it's big FU from me. Plus you own even less of them.

[Kisai]

On 2/12/2020 at 3:40 PM, spartaman64 said:

Source: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/02/activision-blizzard-abruptly-removes-its-games-from-geforce-now-streaming/

 

I hope the games gets added back soon and this isn't a move by Blizzard to sign an exclusive deal with Stadia. And this highlights a worrying possible future trend with cloud gaming platforms getting exclusive games and fracturing the market further. Like how you might need to get a Netflix, Hulu, HBO, and Disney plus to watch all the movies you want to watch. You might need to subscribe to GeForce, Stadia, Microsoft cloud gaming etc to play all the games you are interested in. 

Exclusivity is going to result in people just ignoring these cloud services to be honest. I have Stadia right now, and it's just kinda feels like a waste of money. 

 

Geforce Now doesn't even add anything, you're essentially paying to play games poorer than they would on your own system, and yeah I can see one use case for this (eg you're visiting somewhere and don't want to lug your gaming desktop around) but in general the cloud gaming stuff has already crashed and burned, and the only people who are going to put up with it are those who can't afford a console or pc. 

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

I hope Game stream dies an horrible death. and i hope these new kids don't fall for it, as it starts with that, befoe you know they are the majority. 

[Unixsystem]

On 2/13/2020 at 5:47 AM, realpetertdm said:

What if publishers make games exclusive to their streaming service?

That's not going to happen in any significant capacity until someone can make a streaming service that doesn't suck ass. By all accounts GeForce Now is one of, if not the best of the options, but game streaming in even optimal circumstances if fighting against both stubborn and incompetent ISPs as well as the laws of physics. I'm not sure which problem is more likely to be solved first. 

 

Certain genres straight up cannot work over a stream given current tech (fighting games, rhythm games, competitive shooters, character action games, etc). No publisher is going to sacrifice entire franchises and millions of sales just out of some vague desire to control piracy/mods/ownership. They may want to, and I'm sure streaming services will continue to get pushed regardless of consumer feedback, but the idea that they are going to just axe a massive subset of their audience by making everything stream exclusive just reeks if terrible business. And if they did try it, then you'll just see indie versions of those big games picking up even more steam. 

[Chronified]

I've been using a workaround since I realized there were Steam titles missing back in the Beta.

 

Open an undemanding game, keep it in the title screen

Disable Alt+tab on your Windows PC and it'll let you Alt+tab into the Steam client on the Geforce now client. 

Then just download and open whatever game you want to play, as long as it's in your Steam library and under 120GB it's fine.