Geforce Now in Taiwan - Rug pull and enshitification.

[ItBoom]

Backstory:

I started using GFN around 2021, I had a good deal through my carrier, which ended up costing around 60-65 USD a year.

the service was fine, living in Taipei my ping was incredible (usually only 1-2ms). there were games that run better than others, and there were some issues, but generally i was very pleased with it. back then we got the previous gen top GPUs - the 2080.

over time, Nvidea and their local partners introduced newer tiers, running the 4080 for a higher price, and keeping the old tier at 2080, which, at 2024 was starting to age a bit. 

now, i understand that specifically in taiwan the cost was extramly low, and still a very good value. Ultrimate being a bit more expensive was still seemed like a good value, but there was a catch - it was limited to 30 hours a month, which i think we can all agree is a bit of a joke.

 

earlier this year, they started limiting premium users as well to 100 hours a month, luckily it didnt affect people who were already in a yearly contract, until the end of their contract.

 

Today: 

Taiwan Mobile has announced that my Platinum plan (and the Basic plan) will be completely discontinued. My service will officially terminate on October 31, 2025, forcing me to switch.

The "upgrade" they're offering is the "newly revised Titanium Plan (鈦金方案)," which is now essentially an "Ultra Hourly Plan." And this is where things get completely ridiculous for anyone who actually uses the service.

Here's the new pricing structure:

GeForce NOW Taiwan: New Ultra Hourly Plan Pricing

• Base Monthly Fee:

  • NT$200 (includes 5 hours of playtime)
  • Approx. US$6.80 (US$200 / 29.4 /month for 5 hours)

• Add-on Hours Pricing:

  • 5 hours: NT$200 (NT$40/hour) / Approx. US$6.80 (US$1.36/hour)
  • 10 hours: NT$400 (comes with 1 bonus hour, so 11 hours for NT$400)
    • Effective rate: approx. NT$36.36/hour / Approx. US$13.61 (US$1.24/hour)
  • 20 hours: NT$800 (comes with 5 bonus hours, so 25 hours for NT$800)
    • Effective rate: approx. NT$32/hour / Approx. US$27.21 (US$1.09/hour)

I play a fair bit, especially during weekends, and my girlfriend also uses this to play on her Macbook Air. I even moved to mac (a mac mini) because all the games i play were on GFN anyway.

So lets estimate my average gameplay at 150 hours a month (there are months where we play 50 hours, and when satisfactory game out i think i played 300 hours that month so lets just take a high but reasonable estimate)

 

• Old Cost (Platinum Yearly, unlimited playtime):

  • Roughly NT$1,800 per year / Approx. US$61.22 per year.
  • This is about NT$150 per month / Approx. US$5.10 per month.
  • For my 150 hours/month usage, this breaks down to about NT$1 per hour / Approx. US$0.034 per hour.

• New Estimated Cost (Titanium Ultra Hourly for 150 hours/month):

  1. Base fee (for 5 hours):

     • NT$200
     • Approx. US$6.80

  2. Remaining hours needed: 145 hours (150 - 5)

  3. Optimal Add-on Purchase (using "20+5 bonus hours" packs for 25 hours @ NT$800):

     • To get 145 hours most efficiently, I would buy 5 packs of the "20+5 bonus hours."
     • 5 packs * 25 hours/pack = 125 hours
     • Cost for these 125 hours: 5 packs * NT$800/pack = NT$4,000 / Approx. US$136.05

  4. Remaining hours after 5 packs: 145 - 125 = 20 hours.

     • I would need one more "20+5 bonus hours" pack to cover this.
     • Cost for 20 hours (from a 25-hour pack): NT$800 / Approx. US$27.21

  5. Total Monthly Cost:

     • NT$200 (base) + NT$4,000 (125 hours) + NT$800 (20 hours) = NT$5,000 per month!
     • Approx. US$170.07 per month!

  6. Total Yearly Cost:

     • NT$5,000/month * 12 months = NT$60,000 per year.
     • Approx. US$2,040.82 per year!

 

for service extending beyond the end date they say i will get a refund. not much of a yearly contract if you cancel the service mid way through)

Im sure you can all see how all at once, they absolutely killed the service. they mentioned that as of July 21st they will no longer be selling all you can play (or even 100 hour a month) memberships. I hope that this is a partners decision and not a sign of whats to come.

Edit:

added are the links to the website if any of you are interested about more details (yes its in Chinese, but the translate page features works well here)

https://gfn.taiwanmobile.com/portal/news/article/419
https://gfn.taiwanmobile.com/portal/news/article/417

 

[wasab]

*enshitification*

 

this is now my favorite word. 

 

[ItBoom]

15 minutes ago, wasab said:

*enshitification*

 

this is now my favorite word. 

 

I'm glad you like it, and i finally finished writing my rant.

[Poinkachu]

27 minutes ago, ItBoom said:

Im sure you can all see how all at once, they absolutely killed the service. they mentioned that as of July 21st they will no longer be selling all you can play (or even 100 hour a month) memberships. I hope that this is a partners decision and not a sign of whats to come.

Sell a service with cheap enough price to attract prey customers.

Set it at free if needed.

 

Gouge Increase price after getting enough.

 

Pretty standard practice IMO

[ItBoom]

2 minutes ago, Poinkachu said:

Sell a service with cheap enough price to attract prey customers.

Set it at free if needed.

 

Gouge Increase price after getting enough.

 

Pretty standard practice IMO

I did expect the price to creep up, but i expected to be with each gen of devices they will have a new premium, so if it started at 10$ for the 2080, it will be 15$ for the 3080, 20$ for the 4080, 25$ for the 5080, and with the rising costs of GPU's it would still make sense for people to use this service. hour caps also made sense to me, 100 hours a month - "this service if for casual gamers, if you plan on playing 24/7 get your own pc nerd". pay by the hour would have also been reasonable, if the prices made sense, but as i showed even for a casual kids after school play for a bit, on weekend you play for a bit, you still easily get to the cost of a new high end pc every 2-3 years. and for a casual gaming setup probably every year.

[Poinkachu]

2 minutes ago, ItBoom said:

I did expect the price to creep up, but i expected to be with each gen of devices they will have a new premium, so if it started at 10$ for the 2080, it will be 15$ for the 3080, 20$ for the 4080, 25$ for the 5080, and with the rising costs of GPU's it would still make sense for people to use this service. hour caps also made sense to me, 100 hours a month - "this service if for casual gamers, if you plan on playing 24/7 get your own pc nerd". pay by the hour would have also been reasonable, if the prices made sense, but as i showed even for a casual kids after school play for a bit, on weekend you play for a bit, you still easily get to the cost of a new high end pc every 2-3 years. and for a casual gaming setup probably every year.

NVIDIA & Pricing that makes sense doesn't really work well together.

NVIDIA & Out of touch pricing is more like it.

 

It could be they just gave up on trying to make people stop building PC and use their service, so now they just aim to focus on getting money from people that doesn't want to / can't build high end pc for ionno whatever reason or peoples who prefers to not lug around high end gaming laptop and can only play long hours if they are near wall socket.

 

For me personally the 100 hour / month thing wont work. There's month where I don't game at all, but then I will "revenge-game" on the month that I do, in which I might burn that entire 100 hours in less than a week & still need much more .

 

But yeah, there are services that increase their pricing slowly and there are those that increase the pricing using a rocket.

 

[ItBoom]

56 minutes ago, Poinkachu said:

NVIDIA & Pricing that makes sense doesn't really work well together.

NVIDIA & Out of touch pricing is more like it.

 

It could be they just gave up on trying to make people stop building PC and use their service, so now they just aim to focus on getting money from people that doesn't want to / can't build high end pc for ionno whatever reason or peoples who prefers to not lug around high end gaming laptop and can only play long hours if they are near wall socket.

 

For me personally the 100 hour / month thing wont work. There's month where I don't game at all, but then I will "revenge-game" on the month that I do, in which I might burn that entire 100 hours in less than a week & still need much more .

 

But yeah, there are services that increase their pricing slowly and there are those that increase the pricing using a rocket.

 

when it comes to hours i totally agree, i have months with less than 10 hours, and months with close to 300-400 hours (I'm not proud of that, but actually, I am)

[SansVarnic]

-= Moved to PC Gaming =-