Nvidia today announced that it's replaced the Founders membership option for GeForce Now, which offered various benefits over the free tier in exchange for $4.99 per month, with a Priority membership that raises the price to $9.99 per month.
Founders members won't have to worry about the price increase, however, because Nvidia said they would continue to be billed at the $4.99 monthly rate as long as their account remains "in good standing." But that might be harder than expected.
"If for any reason your paid Founders membership ends, you make a billing modification, downgrade or if there is a termination," Nvidia said in an FAQ article about the transition, "the benefit is forfeited and cannot be restarted."
Unfortunately that means Founders members can't switch to a new billing cycle, either, which seems a bit stringent. It would have been reasonable to expect the option to switch from annual to monthly billing (or vice versa) without any problem.
Nvidia said in the FAQ that the ability to switch from "a multi-month plan" to a one-month plan "is in progress," though, so it might simply be a matter of waiting for the option to become available. Founders members are effectively locked in until then.
The Priority membership is a Founders membership that costs twice as much. Nvidia said Priority members will receive "priority access to gaming servers, extended session length, and RTX ON" support for $9.99 monthly or $99.99 annually.
That compares to a Free membership that offers "standard access" to the GeForce Now servers for one-hour sessions. Remember that GeForce Now doesn't include access to any games; members have to purchase them from other storefronts.
GeForce Now Expansion
Nvidia said that it's expanding GeForce Now availability with a recent launch in Turkey and plans to debut in Saudi Arabia and Australia; adding "capacity in our busiest data centers"; and setting up servers in Phoenix, Arizona as well as Montreal.
The company also committed to adding "account linking for key games on the platform, coming in the next 1-2 months, as well as updates to game preloading that should cut load times by about half" to help streamline gaming via GeForce Now.
It's planning to increase the speed with which it supports new titles with GeForce Now, too, with a stated goal of onboarding and releasing up to 15 games per week by the end of the year. (This week saw the addition of seven titles, for reference.)
These expansions will be complemented by improvements to GeForce Now. Nvidia released version 2.0.28 this week with an adaptive V-Sync technology and "a new adaptive de-jitter technology" meant to improve performance on "choppy networks."
It's no surprise those plans were announced alongside the Priority membership price increase. Nvidia had to justify the added cost somehow; what better way to do that than to promise to improve pretty much every aspect of GeForce Now?
But most of the improvements aren't ready yet, which means people who sign up for a Priority membership today are paying $9.99 for a service they would've paid $4.99 for just a day earlier, and they won't see any of the benefits until later.
