Shadow was just a remote computer. Unless you put some explicit clause against running it in a VM, I can’t see what copyright claim could be made. Especially to attribute fault at a tool, as opposed to the owner/licensee, that is completely agnostic to what you do with it and probably doesn’t even know. Which is certainly not the case for GFN, even if I can’t tell what laws if might break in any of the legislatures they have to check.
GFN is a remote computer too, they just have a launcher and whatnot. There’s effectively very little difference.
That isn’t a little difference.
It’s a shell on top of a computer. I disagree.
I don’t understand the difference either. In both cases I am being provided a streaming service to play games I “own” on Steam. Neither company is making money off the sale of games, they are just providing a machine for me to use my license.
Off the top of my head, it’s curated, they know what you are running, specific games are used to promote the service, additional software is used to jail the games.
In other words, it doesn’t fit the spirit of “common carrier” that gets a free pass. Whether that matters anywhere… Well, it’s at least their job to make sure all games don’t have a license forbidding it, while someone supplying a raw os doesn’t have to care without a complaint.
Yeah, it’s a really different approach. Weren’t they also subverting Steam installers somehow by not actually installing your copy of the game but rather one that was local to them somehow and allowing you to log in?
Again, I think this is all solutions in search of a problem that doesn’t exist. It’s a waste of time and money, much like most of the Cloud BS that has permeated every day IT life for the last ten years.
I remember reading that the license is the issue - I always forget that technically you don’t own the game, just the license to use it, and there are conditions in there for how it is used. It’s like the headaches like “you can run it on one machine at a time” or “only install it one two machines” that happen a lot for productivity software and my Netflix account - I guess games aren’t a special case. It’s not like a did a deep dive but I saw some folks outright don’t want cloud gaming explicity (I think Blizzard is a notable heavyweight here) but there’s also boilerplate language to prevent people from sharing the game (putting the game on a cloud machine and letting others use it there is disallowed) and maybe a bit of greed in terms of please license our game for this other application separately.
They made installs faster but again, I don’t see why that’s any different from Shadow. They aren’t selling games, they’re letting you play games you already own on a computer in their datacenter. That’s the key differentiation.
In order for someone to use your games, you’d have to give them access to your account. Same with the Netflix sharing and all the other streamers. Now some people share their accounts with just anyone and the streamers limit number of streams to minimize it. Some of the customers also wind up on Am I the Asshole topics because there are people out there that shouldn’t have access to anyone’s accounts but theirs.
For MP games, i don’t see an issue. I mean you can’t play with multiple streams of your one copy, and maybe you want to play it yourself. Steam also lets other people play with your copy if you let them but they have some hoops to get that right.
I was thinking it was Shadow is too small, but maybe the interface actually is the issue. It looks like you have to download and install the games as per normal store interfaces - if so, they could argue that they just rented the hardware and maybe their usage included “don’t use software illegally on our systems”. Since all the usual EULA stuff gets shown to the user, if you violate terms its your fault not theirs. GeForce Now was probably too user friendly - that launcher could be interpreted to mean that nVidia is helping you with the install so is a knowing/willing/intentional participant especially if they refused to remove the software when asked. They probably went with “oops we misunderstood the EULA we’ll take that down right away” for anyone who complained.
Anyways, I went looking for examples and was reminded that while reading that most EULAs have Vader-style “we reserve the right to change the deal whenever we want” clauses so even if they didn’t before they can just say “we’re adding it now”.
Because there’s a difference between blanket and blind caching of whatever goes through your network, which is a practical necessity of providing a service, and keeping a copy specifically because it’s handy for having higher profits.
There is no effective difference. There’s no reason the content creators should be permitted to control where or how I run the game I purchased.
Obviously this is the sort of thing that needs to get tested in the courts, and I’m sure it eventually will be.
I don’t know when install limits were all the rage and phoning home to some day will be defunct servers to beg permission to use your software didn’t trigger someone taking them to court, not sure about that. I’m sure when our benevolent champions for consumers are done fighting the good fight for digital store freedom, their next step will be to throw out the bs agreement they themselves created.
FWIW - Before I left, Shadow was working on a simple launcher-style interface, mostly for mobile (since trying to navigate a 1080p Win10 desktop on a phone is a PITA), but the idea was that you could simplify things rather than force people to use the Win10 desktop. I have no idea if it actually came out.
Yeah - Shadow announces new plans for its cloud gaming platform | TechCrunch
In other news, Shadow is launching a new interface specifically designed for TVs and mobile devices. The launcher now lists all your games. You can tap on a game to launch the game directly without going through the regular Windows interface. The update is available on Android TV, iOS and Android. The tvOS update should land next week.
That fact that seconds-long install of specific software they don’t own is a fundamental part of GFN is the very definition of an effective difference, and the kind of things on which fair use (and similar) decisions are made. On which the burden of proof is always on the accused.
If you want to say that you don’t see a moral/ethical problem, and that, in fact, like many EULA clauses, it’s a cost on consumer rights and/or innovation, then, sure, I’m inclined to agree with you, unless there’s some real cost to the creator I’m not seeing. My view on current copyright laws (not the concept in general) isn’t high, because, yeah, it’s too often a burden. But until it’s tested, everywhere where the service exists, it’s legally a risk because of the differences. Enough that a huge company backed down.
It’s possible they lost money on developing software and infrastructure expecting to dilute it on a bigger number of customers, but had to eat it when they couldn’t buy the hardware. It makes more sense than charging less than the cost of amortizing the hardware alone. But who knows.
Nvidia backed down because they’re in the business of selling gpus and can’t risk their relationship with game studios. GFN is a vanishingly small business for them. They did not back down because they thought they would lose in court.
We’ll never know. I find it hard to believe that the best selling, by far, most stable, and most supported manufacturer would be in risk of being dropped, though. The competition can’t even scale anytime soon.
And it would be multiple courts.
Note that some games have control mechanisms beyond just the installation - if they have an online component they can just ban you from playing by not letting you to log into their servers/deactivating your account with them. I think it’s 30-day account ban if you’re caught using a cloud machine for a Blizzard game, for example. I think Nvidia decided to try “they’ll come around eventually” - while they’ve got the discrete graphics market tied up, the numbers are still overwhelmingly in Intel’s onboard graphics being the clear market leader overall, and AMD is would be ecstatic to grab anything it can get.
I wonder if the tech might have had a better shot as a replacement for the productivity remote desktop software, fighting in the space of Citrix and the like for all the work at home.
Stadia’s take on this, reading from the Hitman 3 situation, is that it’s treated as an independant platform. I guess that’s ideal from game licensing terms to force us to fork out extra for a cloud gaming license to play on a cloud machine - they might not care about whether it’s nVidia/Google who pays this or the consumer, but I think they want extra pie from somebody…
God I hate Citrix. I would love a virtual machine experience that wasn’t utter shit (granted part of that is corporate data protection policy that to call unwieldy and difficult would be positively gushing praise).