How do these steaming service contracts work for the publisher? Do they get a royalty for each user who plays a game, or for each instance of a game run? Is it a flat rate for the IP overall?

Geforce Now and Shadow are offering the same service an internet cafe is offering. Interesting how publishers are not now coming and expressing how they don't want their titles to run in specific internet cafes. For that matter Blizzard has been doing exactly that for around a decade in Korea, just reversed: specific internet cafe chains gaining unusual benefits in Blizzard games. Wishing all these publishers good luck in the next decade in the burger flipping business.

Maybe it´s better to simply cancel Geforce Now...

foxX:

Geforce Now and Shadow are offering the same service an internet cafe is offering. Interesting how publishers are not now coming and expressing how they don't want their titles to run in specific internet cafes.

GeForce Now and Shadow are not offering the same service as internet cafes.... They neither provide internet access, or direct physical access to a PC...as an internet cafe does. Steam actually offers a special licensing to internet cafes.... https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=3303-QWRC-3436

So what's the gamble here? Do the studios believe that there is tangibly more $ to be made forcing people to use only certain devices to play their games than there is selling games to people that will only buy them if they can play then on just about any platform?

Ofcourse epic is in, its like nv epic are dating it goes waay back to ue1, can't break a relationship like that. lol xD

-Tj-:

Ofcourse epic is in, its like nv epic are dating it goes waay back to ue1, can't break a relationship like that. lol xD

think that is pasted dating, more like living together but not will too become one yet 🙄

I dont think google is involved, otherwise Ubisoft for instance would be out as well.

This publisher greed is really pissing me off. Playing your game over some remote desktop VM? There should be LAW that I can play my damn games wherever I want.

Yogi:

How do these steaming service contracts work for the publisher? Do they get a royalty for each user who plays a game, or for each instance of a game run? Is it a flat rate for the IP overall?

In Google's case it seems to be upfront reward + per stream but you need to specifically develop the game for their platform. Nvidia is merely providing a VM and an enhanced conduit to play the game through. In the case of Blizzard, they updated their ToS in 2018 to restrict cloud play of their games on outside services -- so they probably have some legal case to argue not to be on the platform. I don't know about 2K games. The Long Dark though has no such thing - their EULA (which is steam's 3rd party agreement most indie games use) states nothing about it. I think Nvidia will pull requested games because they don't want ill will towards publishers but as far as I'm concerned I should get a refund for The Long Dark if they are changing their ToS after I purchased the game to such a degree. I don't support these companies pulling their games at all.. and honestly even in the cases of Blizzard I don't support game companies that are refusing to let me play games I purchase over other platforms because they want to double dip. At this point any company that pulls it's games off the platform I'm simply not going to buy games from anymore - which so far isn't hard because I don't feel like any of these companies have made a good game since SC2/Civ 5.

Denial:

In the case of Blizzard, they updated their ToS in 2018 to restrict cloud play of their games on outside services -- so they probably have some legal case to argue not to be on the platform. I don't know about 2K games

That change could probably be struck out of the tos by a court if anyone challenged it.

I think Nvidia is also partly to blame for this situation, by explicitly designing the GFN client app to look and behave like a game distribution service and as soon it was out of beta, with a price-tag stuck on, it triggered the whole industry. Instead, they should've marketed it as a remote game rendering service first and foremost, to avoid antagonizing publishers.

jbscotchman:

I still say this is somewhat of a coup by google to destroy Geforce Now. Developers have no reason for doing this because it doesn't cut into their sales in any way. If anything it would actually help sales because people with lower end PC's would now be able to buy and play more games.

I'd say it's exactly the other way around. The publishers were fine with stadia, because it forced it's users to buy the games again. But with Geforce now they don't and the publishers sees nothing from the service, so they would naturally have preferred if stadia was the dominant streaming service. It's just greed in the end and it seems to me that the only reason why nvidia is even removing titles is because of their goodwill. They are basically just a VM provider who shouldn't care what SW is run by users on their servers.

-Tj-:

Ofcourse epic is in, its like nv epic are dating it goes waay back to ue1, can't break a relationship like that. lol xD

tsunami231:

think that is pasted dating, more like living together but not will too become one yet 🙄

It's more like, they are the couple at the workplace pretending not to be, but everybody knows 😀 On a more serious note, now that Sweeny's on board with it, out of principle, I'd have to disagree with GeforceNow, since I'm opposed to Sweeney... right? 😀

Developus interruptus ?

Nvidia especially in their crushingly dominant position should not have backed up. My answer in their place : 1) we are only renting hardware to customers who have decided to not invest themselves 2) those are not your games, they are owned by the customers who bought them and who are free to decide where they want to play them 3) you do not have the legal right to impose customers a specific PC computer to play on and that is all geforce now provides (note: if not they should only do that) they have zero rights to impose what they want, geforce now is not a shop it doesn't sell games not rent them it provides hardware time sue all of them for billions

kakiharaFRS:

sue all of them for billions

Like that is going to help anything at all

Backstabak:

I'd say it's exactly the other way around. The publishers were fine with stadia, because it forced it's users to buy the games again. But with Geforce now they don't and the publishers sees nothing from the service, so they would naturally have preferred if stadia was the dominant streaming service. It's just greed in the end and it seems to me that the only reason why nvidia is even removing titles is because of their goodwill. They are basically just a VM provider who shouldn't care what SW is run by users on their servers.

I think it was probably a mistake to disable the games at developer request. I understand why they did it, from a goodwill perspective you're right, and its preferable to have the developers be on board with your project... But I think it may end up killing the platform or at least limiting its growth and will probably hurt them in a lawsuit, should it ever come.

Astyanax:

That change could probably be struck out of the tos by a court if anyone challenged it.

I don't see why, that kind of language exists in agreements. These are licensing agreements and what they say does have some bearing on how the software is used provided the requirements aren't ridiculous and that one isn't. The best they could hope for, I think, would be that people who purchased before the ToS was changed could still be allowed to stream... But then they would just say people are breaking the ToS for the launcher software and shut it down. If its explicitly forbidden, then it's probably the case that there's nothing to be done. But other studios have no such provisions but want to pretend they do. Those people should be punished, hard, for breaking their own ToS.

sykozis:

GeForce Now and Shadow are not offering the same service as internet cafes.... They neither provide internet access, or direct physical access to a PC...as an internet cafe does. Steam actually offers a special licensing to internet cafes.... https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=3303-QWRC-3436

These are differences in specifics that are irrelevant. If I rent a car it doesn't matter if it comes with fuel or doesn't, if its a Taurus or an Altima, none of this is relevant to the fact that it's a rental. The PC Cafe licensing steam offers allows the cafe to have a library of games anyone can play so people don't have to use their own accounts and their own licenses. In the case of Geforce Now Nvidia is just providing a PC, you're providing the licenses. The sticking point is that some developers are pretending your license isn't valid for the service. In the case of BLizzard, they're technically right (but morally wrong) but for others like 2k and Hinterlands they're lying and hoping no one challenges it legally

Reardan:

In the case of Geforce Now Nvidia is just providing a PC, you're providing the licenses. The sticking point is that some developers are pretending your license isn't valid for the service. In the case of BLizzard, they're technically right (but morally wrong) but for others like 2k and Hinterlands they're lying and hoping no one challenges it legally

If only more posts on Guru3D had the same level of infallible logic 🙂 This, ladies and germs, is why Stadia is failing - and let us be honest, were you even thinking about it before I mentioned it?

jitadasi:

Do they get a royalty for each user who plays a game, or for each instance of a game run? Is it a flat rate for the IP overall?

It's neither - Nvidia isn't paying anything for the IP and why would they? It's my license I'm just playing it on a rented computer.