Valve is still distributing the games. The user is logging into the regular Steam client and installing them on hardware they are renting from NVIDIA.
Note: several minutes of installation were cut from this video (I should have left it in or figured out how to speed it up instead, since several people have tried to make the case that NVIDIA are just "pretending to install" the game).
i'm subbed to GFN so I've experienced the install process for multiple games. a few things about this interest me.
1) what if GFN is caching install files, this is
entirely possible to do and a reasonable thing to do if you're a steam user (but perhaps not a company). as the article notes CDNs can bandwidth cap. Does GFN approach the CDNs and ask them not to cap their connections? I've seen the speed at which things are ready to play. I'd posit that those files are being copied locally from a cache. are GFN allowed to do that? Does that mean they are no longer just a hardware service giving you rental space?
2) some game installs are "instant play", what does this mean? i've installed games (i think maybe darkest dungeon was one), where there was *no* install process you just clicked install and it instantly booted. again, how is this happening? are these games so simple to install that GFN can just copy a locally cached version or indeed launch multiple instances from that cached version? How does a game become instant launch, is that agreed with publishers?
3) what kind of deal does GFN have with valve? what kind of deals does valve offer to companies who are using their software service as the crux of their own service offering? if valve launches their own streaming service could we see valve tell GFN to pull steam from their service. The idea that valve are never going to object to GFN because it makes them money is kind of simplistic. valve isn't a neutral party in all of this. they have their own aims which may not align with GFN.
honestly i'd prefer to hear a legal view on whether what GFN is doing constitutes redistribution, most people here are arguing from the perspective of wanting GFN to succeed, that's fine, i get that, i do too. i have a stadia controller collecting dust, the moment GFN hit i was all over it, but pragmatically i think there's a whole lot of stuff going on here we should all be really careful of.
finally. if nvidia really was just a hardware rental service then there would be no limits on what we could install on there, the whole steam library would be available. clearly there are limits though. why do those limits exist? legal issues, technical? again, if GFN was a neutral service which was just hardware rental, then why is there a limit on what you can play on it?
