Nvidia may have withdrawn from Russia back in Oct. 2022, but its cloud-based game streaming service GeForce Now continued to operate through a partner company — GFN.ru — or it will, until Oct. 1, 2023, according to a recent announcement. The service will stop accepting new registrations on Sept. 1, 2023, and will shutdown entirely by Oct. 1.
According to the announcement, the decision comes amid concerns that the team is unable to meet their preferred standards of quality in current conditions. But some — specifically, Overclockers.ru — believe the political climate and current sanctions against Russia are what's fueling the shutdown.
If you’re not familiar, GeForce Now is Nvidia's game streaming service, which offers games for users to play in a cloud-based environment. You can also link existing libraries to the service from other platforms such as Steam, Epic Games, and (later this year) Microsoft Game Pass. GFN.ru made its debut in the Russian market back in Oct. 2019, and also currently operates in Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan.
Without delving into too much detail, the blog post states that the team is unable to offer the service quality they would like to given “current circumstances”. As such, the GFN.ru division will no longer allow new users to register starting Sept. 1, 2023. They will also stop selling 30-, 180-, and 365-day subscriptions at this point.
The shutdown will continue until Oct. 1, at which point the GFN.ru servers will shut down. Any member who has a subscription active beyond this date will automatically receive a refund. The team asks that users to allow up to two weeks for the refund before contacting support.
The official blog post doesn’t give a clear reason for the move to shut down operations in Russia, but Overclockers.ru has speculated the reason is a combination of both political sanctions and the lack of popularity for cloud gaming services. Nvidia stopped selling products in Russia in March 2022, and closed its Russian offices in Oct. 2022.
If you’d like to read more about the GeForce Now closure in Russia, you can check out the official blog post detailing the announcement.
