Earlier this month, Activision pulled its games from Nvidia's GeForce
Now game streaming service, which was later attributed to a "
misunderstanding":
Basically, Nvidia misunderstood the terms of the deal that granted it
access to the games for the GeForce Now beta. Now it appears that
another misunderstanding may have taken place, this one involving
Bethesda Softworks.
"Please be advised most Bethesda Softworks
titles will be removed from the GeForce Now service today. Wolfenstein
Youngblood will remain for all members," Nvidia announced in the
GeForce Now forums.
Nvidia declined to comment on the reasons for the removals or the possibility of Bethesda's return, but a
blog post that went up yesterday implied that further withdrawals could be coming.
"Earlier this month, we passed a milestone on our cloud gaming
journey by removing the waitlist and opening our doors to more gamers.
Over 1 million new gamers have taken to the cloud by signing up for a
free plan or upgrading to the Founders membership, which includes a
90-day free trial," Nvidia wrote. "This trial is an important
transitional period where gamers, developers and publishers can try the
premium experience with minimal commitment while we continue to refine
our offering."
"As we approach a paid service, some publishers may
choose to remove games before the trial period ends. Ultimately, they
maintain control over their content and decide whether the game you
purchase includes streaming on GeForce NOW. Meanwhile, others will bring
games back as they continue to realize GeForce Now's value."
Nvidia cited CD Projekt's recent announcement that
Cyberpunk 2077
will be available through GeForce Now on launch day, and said that it
has another 1500 games in its "onboarding queue, from publishers that
share a vision of expanding PC gaming to more people." But while GeForce
Now got off to a fairly
strong start,
the withdrawal from the platform of major publishers like Activision
and Bethesda creates damaging uncertainy for potential subscribers: The
loss of entire publisher libraries, without warning or reason, isn't the
sort of thing that's going to encourage people to sign up.
I've
reached out to Bethesda to ask about the removal of its games (except
Wolfenstein: Youngblood, for some reason), and will update if I receive a
reply.
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