The Verge: Nvidia's GeForce Now is controversial among developers

Kittens McMittens · Mar 2, 2020

Pargon said:
Nope. It's not pre-installed or pre-configured.

Note: several minutes of the install process were cut to shorten this video (which I now regret, after the responses from some people).
Installs are usually quick due to caching, but the games are still installed by the end-user, not copied by NVIDIA.
And to get it out of the way: anyone trying to make the case that this caching counts as "redistribution of game files" doesn't understand how computers or the internet works. It's irrelevant to this discussion.

Please post the EULA which prevents this usage forThe Long Dark.
Also explain why that would be an issue for NVIDIA when the EULA is an agreement between the end-user and the developer/publisher.
EULAs are often considered to be not legally binding anyway.

NVIDIA aren't redistributing games though.

The main reason they don't will be allocation of resources.
Not every game needs an RTX GPU with a lot of RAM and many CPU cores.
Their servers are not all running the same hardware, and the resources split per VM can vary based on the game.

NVidia are redistributing. They are broadcasting the game to you. Any time anything is sent across the internet a copy is being made.

Also, their business model is the same as Areo. Aereo gave each customer their own ariel and their own DVR. Each customer could record stuff to their own DVR and watch it on any device. Each customer's recording were private to that customer. The courts ruled that their business model constituted a public performance.

I think you really need to come up with a good argument as to why what Nvidia is doing isn't a public performance.

Horned Reaper · Mar 2, 2020

Alucardx23 said:
Game companies could even be sued by regular game owners. I would really like to see a game company justify in a court room how you cannot rent a PC to play a game you purchased.

True that. As long as the gamers win, I'll hope it it'll happen.

dragonbane · Mar 2, 2020

Conkerkid11 said:
Where are they advertising games they don't have permission to advertise on their homepage?

Do you know? I felt like I saw some games being promoted/having splash screens that ended up being pulled. But maybe not.

xJavontax said:
Do you honestly think Nvidia has gone and customized every game on Steam to give them this message?

No. It means they are hooking into Steam to see what you are clicking on. That means Steam is modified or has process hooks running on top. There is no other way for NVIDIA to detect what you are doing in Steam. This might be more of an issue though between Valve and Nvidia than the pubs and Nvidia, so not as relevant to the topic as the advertisement of game streaming

alexlf · Mar 2, 2020

Kittens McMittens said:
NVidia are redistributing. They are broadcasting the game to you. Any time anything is sent across the internet a copy is being made.

Also, their business model is the same as Areo. Aereo gave each customer their own ariel and their own DVR. Each customer could record stuff to their own DVR and watch it on any device. Each customer's recording were private to that customer. The courts ruled that their business model constituted a public performance.

I think you really need to come up with a good argument as to why what Nvidia is doing isn't a public performance.

They are not sending a copy of the game, as has been stated many many many times already in this thread, they are sending you a video stream. Unless you are arguing that every time you watch a stream on twitch you need to buy a copy of the game you are watching?

twdnewh · Mar 2, 2020

I'm on the dev/publisher side here

I think the the problem devs/pubs have with this is that nvidia is charging users for it and making direct revenue; not really that the customers who already bought the game are playing it a different way.

It will be interesting to see where this goes

LewieP · Mar 2, 2020

alexlf said:
They are not sending a copy of the game, as has been stated many many many times already in this thread, they are sending you a video stream. Unless you are arguing that every time you watch a stream on twitch you need to buy a copy of the game you are watching?

are you forgetting that publishers grant (or chose not to) grant people permission to stream their games on Twitch, and can get games pulled from Twitch if they don't want them on there?

You don't need to buy a copy of the game to watch a stream, but you need permission from the publisher to stream it. At least on Twitch, because Twitch is set up to comply with this stuff (although plenty of stuff, especially old games and such, is just more of a blind spot).

TheChrisGlass · Mar 2, 2020

Alucardx23 said:
I'm waiting for the first developer to say "Yes, if I could stop you from playing the games you purchased from me on a rented PC I would do it. That company has to ask me for permission". This is basically the same thing that is happening with Nvidia, but it really makes you look like a POS if you say like that.

Yeah. Really, this just shows how many devs have contempt for the fact that Steam lets us re-install the games on new PCs.

Wolfapo · Mar 2, 2020

dragonbane said:
No. It means they are hooking into Steam to see what you are clicking on. That means Steam is modified or has process hooks running on top. There is no other way for NVIDIA to detect what you are doing in Steam. This might be more of an issue though between Valve and Nvidia than the pubs and Nvidia, so not as relevant to the topic as the advertisement of game streaming

It's pretty easy to create a website that launches Steam games including some error messages if needed.
Just type

Code:

steam://run/271590

in any browser to start GTA V for example. If you don't have it, it just goes to the steam page where you can buy it.
Steam is not modified in this case.

Delusibeta · Mar 2, 2020

LewieP said:
are you forgetting that publishers grant (or chose not to) grant people permission to stream their games on Twitch, and can get games pulled from Twitch if they don't want them on there?

You don't need to buy a copy of the game to watch a stream, but you need permission from the publisher to stream it. At least on Twitch, because Twitch is set up to comply with this stuff (although plenty of stuff, especially old games and such, is just more of a blind spot).

Gonna ask for a citation here. I don't think there's a recorded case of a game getting pulled off Twitch.

alexlf · Mar 2, 2020

LewieP said:
are you forgetting that publishers grant (or chose not to) grant people permission to stream their games on Twitch, and can get games pulled from Twitch if they don't want them on there?

You don't need to buy a copy of the game to watch a stream, but you need permission from the publisher to stream it. At least on Twitch, because Twitch is set up to comply with this stuff (although plenty of stuff, especially old games and such, is just more of a blind spot).

That has almost nothing to do with the argument the person I responded to was making but regardless:

Revoking streaming rights of videos games on twitch technically have no legal basis as far as I know, aside from companies covering their butts for potential lawsuits coming from grey areas of the law. That said, the grey area exists in regrads to third parties accessing things they don't have the rights to, which is irrelevant in this situation.

Conkerkid11 · Mar 2, 2020

twdnewh said:
I'm on the dev/publisher side here

I think the the problem devs/pubs have with this is that nvidia is charging users for it and making direct revenue; not really that the customers who already bought the game are playing it a different way.

It will be interesting to see where this goes

Yeah, how's Nvidia getting away with charging for a cloud-based streaming service that uses their own hardware? They should offer it up for free, and allow users to use their own hardware as a host.

JiyuuTenshi · Mar 2, 2020

dragonbane said:
This message appears if you click "play game" on the virtual NVIDIA Steam and the game is not supported:

That means the Steam version is either customized by NVIDIA or they have hooks in it to detect what you are doing in Steam and clicking on. That alone can constitute a license breach I suppose, as this message alone goes above what Steam normally does and what the pubs licensed their titles for.

You don't need to hook into Steam to know that a Windows process has been started. Nobody's arguing that they're using customized Windows VMs here.

I haven't actually seen that error since the GeForce Now beta. Is that still used? As far as I know every game that isn't supported can't even be downloaded anymore since the service went officially live.

Nateo · Mar 2, 2020

twdnewh said:
I'm on the dev/publisher side here

I think the the problem devs/pubs have with this is that nvidia is charging users for it and making direct revenue; not really that the customers who already bought the game are playing it a different way.

It will be interesting to see where this goes

So the same would apply if I lease/rent a PC right?

Csr · Mar 2, 2020

Kittens McMittens said:
The thing you highlighted is literally what copyright is. Copyright is a monopoly on how a particular work is reproduced - a copyright holder has the sole right to copy a work. There are lots of exemptions for copyright, like fair use or fair dealing, but nobody has presented an argument as to why GFN is exempt. Instead we have lots of posters claiming outright that GFN doesn't need a license.

Like I said a few posts back, this GFN situations was niggling at my brain cos it reminded me of something. Aereo was a company that rented out DVRs across the internet. They provisioned an arial for each customer. That customer chose what to record, and the recordings they made were just for that customer. The courts found what Aereo was doing constituted a public performance.

In order for GFN to work, they have to reproduced and transmit the stream of the game to their customer. If anyone wants to claim that they don't need a license, they need to construct a really good argument as to why that scenario is exempt from copyright.

I am not sure GFN is copying, reproducing or broadcasting a copy of a game.
Also in your example people didn't buy a license. I think renting cloud pc hardware for personal use is something that would and should be judged by different standards.

spam musubi · Mar 2, 2020

twdnewh said:
I'm on the dev/publisher side here

I think the the problem devs/pubs have with this is that nvidia is charging users for it and making direct revenue; not really that the customers who already bought the game are playing it a different way.

It will be interesting to see where this goes

Nvidia isn't charging users for the game. They are charging users for the virtual hardware time and bandwidth. They do not provide a storefront to buy the games. You need to already own the games.

LewieP · Mar 2, 2020

Delusibeta said:
Gonna ask for a citation here. I don't think there's a recorded case of a game getting pulled off Twitch.

Loads of people get banned for playing games early, for example.

Edit: first example that google returned

Twitch Banned Aussie For Streaming Pokemon 'Early'

Australian streamer Mark McKenzie, aka Werster, copped a temporary ban from Twitch.tv yesterday while streaming Pokemon Ultra Sun. Twitch prohibits the streaming of unauthorised pre-release content. Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon were not released in America at the time of the ban. The games...

www.kotaku.com.au

dragonbane · Mar 2, 2020

JiyuuTenshi said:
You don't need to hook into Steam to know that a Windows process has been started. Nobody's arguing that they're using customized Windows VMs here.

I haven't actually seen that error since the GeForce Now beta. Is that still used? As far as I know every game that isn't supported can't even be downloaded anymore since the service went officially live.

This message actually appears over the Steam "downloading files" splashscreen. I suppose you can detect that as its own window? Not sure if the game process has been started at that point. But it might be Beta stuff as well.
Either way the biggest weakness is probaly the fact that "games are supported". If it was a 100% generic VM there would be no real angle for anyone to even attack NVIDIA with, but I guess the branding and customization for convenience might the issue. Ofc publishers are still shitty for doing this, wouldn't surprise me if quite a few of them are simply thrown off by the packaging without understanding the tech behind it

Tya · Mar 2, 2020

Kittens McMittens said:
NVidia are redistributing. They are broadcasting the game to you. Any time anything is sent across the internet a copy is being made.

Also, their business model is the same as Areo. Aereo gave each customer their own ariel and their own DVR. Each customer could record stuff to their own DVR and watch it on any device. Each customer's recording were private to that customer. The courts ruled that their business model constituted a public performance.

I think you really need to come up with a good argument as to why what Nvidia is doing isn't a public performance.

Different laws apply to different things. There a ton of laws that apply specifically to broadcasting television. When it comes to software, I don't think we know what would happen if this went to court. There could be major implications for businesses that have nothing to do with video games.

Giolon · Mar 2, 2020

twdnewh said:
I'm on the dev/publisher side here

I think the the problem devs/pubs have with this is that nvidia is charging users for it and making direct revenue; not really that the customers who already bought the game are playing it a different way.

It will be interesting to see where this goes

PC/hardware manufacturers are making money when I buy the hardware from them to play the games on.

Some companies allow you to buy computers/hardware on monthly installments. Now they're making monthly revenue off me while I play games.

There are also companies that only rent PCs. What if I rent a PC to play games on?

Now what if I rent some server time in the cloud instead of a physical PC to play games on?

At what point does this become not ok? When it jumps to the cloud? Why?

Wolfapo · Mar 2, 2020

Kittens McMittens said:
NVidia are redistributing. They are broadcasting the game to you. Any time anything is sent across the internet a copy is being made.

Actually, there is no copy of the game made. The files and code are still on the hardware in the server center.
The only thing that gets transferred is the output that is displayed on your PC. No copy of the game is being made so there would be no copyright infringement perse. The work stays where it is and you can play with the output by inputting commands which is the intended way of interacting with the work.
That's why it's also different to TV and cannot be compared.

Conkerkid11 · Mar 2, 2020

LewieP said:
Loads of people get banned for playing games early, for example.

Edit: first example that google returned

Twitch Banned Aussie For Streaming Pokemon 'Early'

Australian streamer Mark McKenzie, aka Werster, copped a temporary ban from Twitch.tv yesterday while streaming Pokemon Ultra Sun. Twitch prohibits the streaming of unauthorised pre-release content. Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon were not released in America at the time of the ban. The games...

www.kotaku.com.au

Literally the second line of that article, "Twitch prohibits the streaming of unauthorised pre-release content."

This isn't a case of Nintendo specifically going after someone, but someone breaking a rule Twitch has in place because they likely don't want to get in between devs and people potentially breaking NDAs.

TAoVG · Mar 2, 2020

sqwarlock said:
This confuses me. How are they redistributing the game when I'm using my Steam account to log in on their virtual machine and download the game. Steam is distributing the software that Steam licensed me. I just don't see the difference between this and downloading that game on a second home machine—ignoring that money is changing hands if I use the paid GeForce Now service, of course.

Because it's not every game on Steam, it is select games on Steam. This means that GFN is using the games as branding/library to entice people to sign up. This also means that the games they chose have inherent value in promoting the service. If that is the case, then the dev should have a say in it. If the service was just, "Here is your steam account, have at it." then that would be different. But that's not how it is structured.

nVidia needs to revamp how they are doing this.

Deleted member 2620 · Mar 2, 2020

love to get into legality weeds on something that is morally crystal clear

LewieP · Mar 2, 2020

Conkerkid11 said:
Literally the second line of that article, "Twitch prohibits the streaming of unauthorised pre-release content."

This isn't a case of Nintendo specifically going after someone, but someone breaking a rule Twitch has in place because they likely don't want to get in between devs and people potentially breaking NDAs.

"Unauthorised" by who?

It's Nintendo.

Conkerkid11 · Mar 2, 2020

TAoVG said:
Because it's not every game on Steam, it is select games on Steam. This means that GFN is using the games as branding/library to entice people to sign up. This also means that the games they chose have inherent value in promoting the service. If that is the case, then the dev should have a say in it. If the service was just, "Here is your steam account, have at it." then that would be different. But that's not how it is structured.

nVidia needs to revamp how they are doing this.

It's literally because of devs pulling out that they have to provide users with the ability to search for which games are compatible.

If they didn't allow users to find compatible games before subbing, that would be anti-consumer.

If every game were available on the service, this wouldn't be an issue.

JiyuuTenshi · Mar 2, 2020

dragonbane said:
This message actually appears over the Steam "downloading files" splashscreen. I suppose you can detect that as its own window? Not sure if the game process has been started at that point. But it might be Beta stuff as well.
Either way the biggest weakness is probaly the fact that "games are supported". If it was a 100% generic VM there would be no real angle for anyone to even attack NVIDIA with, but I guess the branding and customization for convenience might the issue. Ofc publishers are still shitty for doing this, wouldn't surprise me if quite a few of them are simply thrown off by the packaging without understanding the tech behind it

Have you gotten that with many games? Just curious, because I've seen it a lot during the beta, but haven't seen it once since the service went live. All I get is this error here as soon as it tries to download the files to the virtual C: drive if the game is blacklisted.

Conkerkid11 · Mar 2, 2020

JiyuuTenshi said:
Have you gotten that with many games? Just curious, because I've seen it a lot during the beta, but haven't seen it once since the service went live. All I get is this error here as soon as it tries to download the files to the virtual C: drive if the game is blacklisted.

Yup. This is the message I got when trying to launch Monster Hunter World directly through Steam.

JiyuuTenshi · Mar 2, 2020

TAoVG said:
Because it's not every game on Steam, it is select games on Steam. This means that GFN is using the games as branding/library to entice people to sign up. This also means that the games they chose have inherent value in promoting the service. If that is the case, then the dev should have a say in it. If the service was just, "Here is your steam account, have at it." then that would be different. But that's not how it is structured.

nVidia needs to revamp how they are doing this.

It used to be every game on Steam. The only reason why it isn't anymore is because publishers/devs are asking them to blacklist their games. The games are still there in your Steam library, they just block you from installing them on their VM. I played quite a few games during the beta that now aren't supported anymore.

ghostcrew · Mar 2, 2020

Pargon said:
Nope. It's not pre-installed or pre-configured.

Note: several minutes of the install process were cut to shorten this video (which I now regret, after the responses from some people).
Installs are usually quick due to caching, but the games are still installed by the end-user, not copied by NVIDIA.
And to get it out of the way: anyone trying to make the case that this caching counts as "redistribution of game files" doesn't understand how computers or the internet works. It's irrelevant to this discussion.

I know we've had this discussion before in these threads so I've just jumped onto a Macbook that hasn't used GeForce Now before, installed the app and loaded up a game. I loaded up Assassin's Creed Syndicate and there was zero installing, zero setup. I hit play and it started the game. Took about 35 seconds to load into the game after entering my Ubisoft username and password. Nvidia clearly has these games already installed as the state they do. I dunno what happened with your Dark Souls stream but they definitely don't need to install every game.

Teamocil · Mar 2, 2020

twdnewh said:
I'm on the dev/publisher side here

I think the the problem devs/pubs have with this is that nvidia is charging users for it and making direct revenue; not really that the customers who already bought the game are playing it a different way.

It will be interesting to see where this goes

Yes, because Nvidia is providing them hardware to play the game. If the devs want to set up their own service similar to GFN, go for it. I bet they won't.

piratethingy · Mar 2, 2020

Tain said:
love to get into legality weeds on something that is morally crystal clear

Exactly. Who gives a shit. I'm sure a company could release a game on Steam that was only legally playable on Tuesdays. They would be ridiculed and it would fail, as it deserves. Hopefully the market will take care of the greedy developers who try to dictate how I can play the games I purchased.

mordecaii83 · Mar 2, 2020

I wonder if some publishers got sour due to Nvidia having marketing agreements with some games for the service, so those publishers got money from the service but not them?

At this point I just want Nvidia to turn this completely into a "rent a VM" service where every game on every storefront is playable, and see how things shake out in court if necessary.

Maeros · Mar 2, 2020

I get that consumers already payed for the product through steam so they should have a right to stream it on a virtual machine.... However it feels off too mee that Nvidia gets payed while advertising that they have x-game on their service without paying the dev.

alexlf · Mar 2, 2020

ghostcrew said:
I know we've had this discussion before in these threads so I've just jumped onto a Macbook that hasn't used GeForce Now before, installed the app and loaded up a game. I loaded up Assassin's Creed Syndicate and there was zero installing, zero setup. I hit play and it started the game. Took about 35 seconds to load into the game after entering my Ubisoft username and password. Nvidia clearly has these games already installed as the state they do. I dunno what happened with your Dark Souls stream but they definitely don't need to install every game.

I assume the files are cached in their data centers after they are first downloaded, which is 100% legal. (Anyone who wants to start arguing that caching data violates anything should do a tiny bit of research on how the internet functions first).

Conkerkid11 · Mar 2, 2020

Maeros said:
I get that consumers already payed for the product through steam so they should have a right to stream it on a virtual machine.... However it feels off too mee that Nvidia gets payed while advertising that they have x-game on their service without paying the dev.

Where are they advertising specific games that don't want to be advertised?

Once again, the only reason they even need a search feature that informs users whether or not a game is available to play on their service is because of greedy devs that are pulling out. If no devs were pulling out, one would be able to pay for the service assuming every single game they've bought is available to play.

ghostcrew · Mar 2, 2020

alexlf said:
I assume the files are cached in their data centers after they are first downloaded, which is 100% legal. (Anyone who wants to start arguing that caching data violates anything should do a tiny bit of research on how the internet functions first).

I'm not disputing what's legal and what's not, I'm pushing back on the idea that the user needs to install every game themselves on the service. It doesn't seem to be the case in my experience.

K' Dash · Mar 2, 2020

I can't believe people are defending this shit.

karnage10 · Mar 2, 2020

its sad when devs are trying to restrict where ic an install my games. What's next? I need to buy the game every time i change a PC component?

Holundrian · Mar 2, 2020

Everyone arguing the advertising angle. Clearly the solution is just to not advertise the game at all but still allow it on their service. *eye roll*
We all know that's not what this is about it's just about cashing again and nothing else.

Dreams-Visions · Mar 2, 2020

K' Dash said:
I can't believe people are defending this shit.

Yes, It is.

thisismadness · Mar 2, 2020

Honestly... fuck any devs and publishers who are against this.

It doesn't impact their business at all, and if I decide to give Nvidia a few dollars to stream MY game library to a 2012 Macbook then that should be my perogative. This all reads to me like the controversy surrounding jailbreaking. Apple tried to insist that it still owns the software on the device and we have no right to jailbreak.. and thankfully the courts rules against that non sense. Hopefully, this will spark something similar within the game industry.

In fact, the only ones impacted by this are the hardware manufactures. Someone subscribed to Geforce now is still going to buy games the way they always have. But they might not buy a new graphics card.

LewieP · Mar 2, 2020

karnage10 said:
its sad when devs are trying to restrict where ic an install my games. What's next? I need to buy the game every time i change a PC component?

In the past games have been sold with limited activations, and changing your hardware configuration would consume an activation.

People still bought those games.

thisismadness said:
Honestly... fuck any devs and publishers who are against this.

It doesn't impact their business at all, and if I decide to give Nvidia a few dollars to stream MY game library to a 2012 Macbook then that should be my perogative. This all reads to me like the controversy surrounding jailbreaking. Apple tried to insist that it still owns the software on the device and we have no right to jailbreak.. and thankfully the courts rules against that non sense. Hopefully, this will spark something similar within the game industry.

In fact, the only ones impacted by this are the hardware manufactures. Someone subscribed to Geforce now is still going to buy games the way they always have. But they might not buy a new graphics card.

Square Enix, EA, Ubisoft, Bethesda and others already have their own streaming service available or planned. Of course it affects their business. I don't think anyone would be surprised if they wanted to make their games exclusive to their service, or be financially compensated for allowing that not to be the case.

Lump · Mar 2, 2020

I don't really get it. It's basically renting hardware to play an already purchased game. Devs aren't losing anything (in fact, they can only be gaining customers) through the way Geforce Now works.

alexlf · Mar 2, 2020

ghostcrew said:
I'm not disputing what's legal and what's not, I'm pushing back on the idea that the user needs to install every game themselves on the service. It doesn't seem to be the case in my experience.

It's difficult to say exactly what going on, but I can almost guarantee that the ~35 seconds where it has a blank screen is the launcher configuring/decrypting/checking the license for files, which I'd consider installing. If the files exist in a locally accessible directory already (do they?) I guess it would depend on whether or not someone views decrypting/configuring key files and license verification as installation or not.

Minsc · Mar 2, 2020

The one thing I think is they made a mistake doing it the way they did.

There's clearly interest for this, and there's clearly a market. In basically no way is this not a win-win for nearly any developer. They should have just let the game's community and fanbase request it from the devs and let the devs approve it, and then add the approved games to their service. They could probably be adding 10-50 games/week, maybe more, all with the support of the devs/pubs behind them.

Then the devs look like heroes to the fans and they get more sales etc etc.

But even still, the way the did it is fine with me, it just makes the devs look like fucking assholes for removing their game, and I'm gonna blacklist every last one of them that tells me I can't install my purchased software on another machine. Fuck that.

ghostcrew · Mar 2, 2020

alexlf said:
It's difficult to say exactly what going on, but I can almost guarantee that the ~35 seconds where it has a blank screen is the launcher configuring/decrypting/checking the license for files, which I'd consider installing. If the files exist in a locally accessible directory already (do they?) I guess it would depend on whether or not someone views decrypting/configuring key files and license verification as installation or not.

I dunno. Nvidia do say themselves on their website that users need to download and install the games but then on another page they say that they have 'hundreds' of instantly available games and then 'around 1,000' other games that need to be installed.

I don't know what's going on behind the scenes. I just tried PUBG on my Steam account on GeForce Now and it needed to download about 100mb to play. All I can say is that the two most recent things I've played on it (AC Syndicate - as seen in the video - and MechWarrior 5) don't require any obvious installing (like I had to with PUBG) or setup. There's no uPlay window where I have to hit install. No nothing. I just log in and the game loads. There are those ~30 seconds where it says 'loading game' or whatever but from memory my local copy of the game does that kind of thing too. I figured it was just literally loading the game, not installing it.

Pargon · Mar 2, 2020

ghostcrew said:
I know we've had this discussion before in these threads so I've just jumped onto a Macbook that hasn't used GeForce Now before, installed the app and loaded up a game. I loaded up Assassin's Creed Syndicate and there was zero installing, zero setup. I hit play and it started the game. Took about 35 seconds to load into the game after entering my Ubisoft username and password. Nvidia clearly has these games already installed as the state they do. I dunno what happened with your Dark Souls stream but they definitely don't need to install every game.

There is no reason to think that the instant-access games are like that without a deal in place with the publisher/developer.
They mostly seem to be free-to-play or non-Steam games. In fact, trying to play the Steam version of Assassin's Creed: Syndicate for the first time took me to the store page to buy/install it, while selecting the Uplay version launched the game directly with no installation.
The majority of games on GFN are not instant-access titles.

You also don't have to install the games every time; only the first time you launch them on your VM (not the first-launch on a new client device) or if you have removed/uninstalled the game from your VM and try to play it again.

Holundrian · Mar 2, 2020

LewieP said:
In the past games have been sold with limited activations, and changing your hardware configuration would consume an activation.

What games are those? I still own a sizable bunch of old pc games and non of them are like that. I can still install them all on machines, that is if I had a machine running XP. Is this a US thing?

RROCKMAN · Mar 2, 2020

Minsc said:
The one thing I think is they made a mistake doing it the way they did.

There's clearly interest for this, and there's clearly a market. In basically no way is this not a win-win for nearly any developer. They should have just let the game's community and fanbase request it from the devs and let the devs approve it, and then add the approved games to their service. They could probably be adding 10-50 games/week, maybe more, all with the support of the devs/pubs behind them.

Then the devs look like heroes to the fans and they get more sales etc etc.

But even still, the way the did it is fine with me, it just makes the devs look like fucking assholes for removing their game, and I'm gonna blacklist every last one of them that tells me I can't install my purchased software on another machine. Fuck that.

Pretty much we're I'm at. It's absurdly petty.

ghostcrew · Mar 2, 2020

Holundrian said:
What games are those? I still own a sizable bunch of old pc games and non of them are like that. I can still install them all on machines, that is if I had a machine running XP. Is this a US thing?

Pretty sure most GFWL games had activation limitations. 15 activations maybe?

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