Nvidia’s GeForce Now, which launched earlier this month, is already facing controversy after Activision Blizzard titles were suddenly taken down from the game streaming service.
Nvidia announced the removal of the Activision Blizzard games through a post on its official forums, with the titles disappearing from GeForce Now on the same day. “Per their request, please be advised Activision Blizzard games will be removed from the service. While unfortunate, we hope to work together with Activision Blizzard to reenable these games and more in the future,” the post said.
The list of games removed from GeForce Now includes 10 Call of Duty games, ranging from 2007’s Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare to its reboot, 2019’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Activision-published Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice was also taken down, along with Blizzard games such as Overwatch and Hearthstone. The full list of affected games is as follows:
Activision
- Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 3
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 4
- Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019)
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
- Call of Duty: World at War
- Call of Duty: WWII
- Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy
- Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
- Spyro Reignited Trilogy
Blizzard Entertainment
- Diablo 3
- Hearthstone
- Heroes of the Storm
- Overwatch
- StarCraft Remastered
- StarCraft 2: Legacy of the Void
- World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth
- World of Warcraft Classic
The initial speculation was that the sudden departure of Activision Blizzard games from GeForce Now shortly after the service’s launch was due to the multi-year partnership with Google, which includes the exclusive streaming of the Call of Duty League and the Overwatch League on YouTube.
Nvidia, however, later clarified that it was all just “a simple misunderstanding,” Bloomberg reported.
With Activision Blizzard participating in the beta test of GeForce Now, Nvidia assumed that the agreement between the companies would extend to the initial 90-day trial period after the service’s launch. Activision Blizzard, however, wanted a commercial agreement in place, and without it, Nvidia had to remove the games from GeForce Now.
Nvidia is hoping that it will be able to work with Activision Blizzard to again add its games to GeForce Now in the future, but a timeline was not provided.
GeForce Now’s Founders subscription offers priority access, session lengths of up to six hours, access to RTX raytracing, and a free 90-day introductory period for $5 per month for 12 months, half that of main rival Google Stadia’s price of $10 per month. However, with the sudden removal of Activision Blizzard games, GeForce Now apparently carries the risk of suddenly disappearing games.
