Don't Rule Out Activision Blizzard's Games Coming to GeForce Now

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Nvidia officially launched its GeForce Now game streaming platform earlier this month. The company promptly had to remove titles published by Activision Blizzard from the service, but it seems like at least some of those games might return to GeForce Now after what Nvidia called a "misunderstanding" between the companies.

Here's what the company told Bloomberg last week:

"Activision Blizzard has been a fantastic partner during the GeForce Now beta, which we took to include the free trial period for our Founders membership. Recognizing the misunderstanding, we removed their games from our service, with hope we can work with them to re-enable these, and more, in the future.”

That statement doesn't exactly inspire confidence in GeForce Now's launch. It would be one thing if Nvidia included access to an indie game during the service's beta. This mixup concerned one of the world's largest video game publishers--Activision Blizzard publishes Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and many other titles--at launch.

Activision Blizzard wasn't the only publisher to pull its titles from GeForce Now after its official debut, either. Companies such as Electronic Arts, Capcom, Rockstar and Square Enix also pulled their games from the service right after it launched. Its game library was one of GeForce Now's selling points; now it's a cause for concern.

But at least it seems like Nvidia's hopeful that it will convince Activision Blizzard (and presumably other publishers) to return to GeForce Now after its launch mixup. We suspect that Nvidia's just hoping it won't end up like Google waiting around for companies to make their games available on its game streaming platform.

Nathaniel Mott
Freelance News & Features Writer

Nathaniel Mott is a freelance news and features writer for Tom's Hardware US, covering breaking news, security, and the silliest aspects of the tech industry.

  • techy1966
    So with Geforce Now! you have to still buy the games to be able to play them through the service. So what business is it of those companies if I chose to play them from the Geforce Now! service or off of my own hard drive. I paid for the right to play them which gives me the license and the right to play them as I see fit.

    My take is they have no real legal speak in the terms of service for this type of game play and once they get their legal departments fired up and put some more mumble jumbo legal speak in the new terms of service to cover this type of play we will see the games from these companies returning to the Geforce Now! service. I bet there will be a bit heftier price for those that want to play the games from Geforce Now! and other services like this as well. If they feel they can gouge more money from the end users of coarse they will do that.

    This is clearly a money thing to get more money out of it all as well as adding new legal speak into the terms of service to make sure they have more control over everything.
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