Games only come on Nvidia GeForce Now after developer opt-in

Nvidia is changing its terms and strategy of its GeForce Now streaming service. Until now, many games can be played without explicit permission from publishers and developers. A new opt-in process puts an end to that.

Developers and publishers must indicate before May 31 whether they want their games to be available via the streaming service. If they don’t opt-in, the games will be removed. According to Nvidia, two hundred publishers have now chosen to make their games playable via the service. This would make the library more than two thousand games.

New games are also only added if developers and publishers indicate that their work may be playable via GeForce Now. Nvidia has put online lists of games that are available and games that are coming soon. There are also dozens of games on the list that will disappear after May 31. These include Assetto Corsa, Torchlight II and Yakuza 0.

So far, Nvidia has added games to its streaming service itself. Players still have to buy that game through another route, for example on Steam, but can then play it via streaming on Nvidia’s servers. GeForce Now came out of beta in February and soon after, the likes of Blizzard, Bethesda, 2K and Microsoft pulled their games from the service.

By adding games via an opt-in, Nvidia probably wants to prevent games from suddenly disappearing, as has happened in recent months. Publishers have not said why they are removing their games from the streaming service, but this probably has to do with the companies’ own streaming plans, for example.