Nvidia launched its cloud gaming streaming service just last week, and it’s already promising to be a strong competitor for both Google Stadia and Microsoft’s upcoming Project xCloud. GeForce NOW came out of the gate strong with a lineup of more than 1000 games already compatible with the service. Unfortunately, gamers hoping to play any Activision Blizzard titles on Nvidia’s platform are out of luck.
On Nvidia’s official forums today an announcement was made that all Activision Blizzard titles are being removed from GeForce NOW’s available games “per their request.” This includes all Call of Duty titles, Diablo III, Hearthstone, and Overwatch. The post went on to state that Nvidia hopes to work with Activision Blizzard in the future to make the games available again and reassured users that there are currently over 1500 games that developers have requested be added to the service.
There was no explanation given as to the reason for the abrupt removal of Activision Blizzard’s entire library of games only a week after the launch of GeForce NOW. The terms of the deals that Nvidia makes with various game publishers and developers have not been divulged, but it’s a possibility that the financial agreement was not appealing enough for Activision Blizzard to remain on the service. If that’s the case, hopefully terms that are attractive to both sides can be agreed upon in the future.
Understandably, many of the user responses to Nvidia’s forum post were not happy and much of the displeasure was aimed at Activision Blizzard. Others were angry that they had purchased games specifically to use with the service that will now no longer be available. However, GeForce NOW is merely a platform through which players can access games they purchase from PC digital storefronts such as Epic Games Store, Steam, GOG and, until now, Activision Blizzard. So even if the games will no longer be available on GeForce NOW, they still belong to the players.
The GeForce NOW cloud gaming service supports streaming at 1080p resolution and up to 60 frames per second. Gamers who sign up for a subscription to the Founders membership for $4.99 per month will benefit from priority access to game servers, play sessions that last up to six hours, as well as Nvidia’s RTX ray tracing capabilities. And despite the loss of Activision Blizzard’s titles, Nvidia provides weekly updates on new games that have been added to the GeForce NOW service.
GeForce NOW launched in February 2020.
Source: Nvidia Forums