Gamers using GeForce NOW to play Call of Duty are reportedly being banned

nanoUFO@sh.itjust.worksmod to Games@sh.itjust.works – 146 points –
Gamers using GeForce NOW to play Call of Duty are reportedly being banned - VideoCardz.com
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Doesn't the publisher of the game have to approve for a game to be put on GeForce Now?

I mean, don't get me wrong - I know anti cheat detection has never been perfect, but you'd think this would be something they heavily try to make sure they get right.

Banning people for playing a game that they are not cheating in does not constitute getting anticheat right. It is not enough to catch cheaters but you have to do that without catching players that are not cheating. Playing the game on a different platform should not in of itself constitute cheating.

Right, I didn't mean to imply that playing on GFN was cheating by any means - I probably should've worded that a bit better.

I meant more of "If Call of Duty explicitly allowed GFN to add the game, then players who play via GFN shouldn't have a chance to be banned just for playing through it"

Even if they didn't allow it, that seems more of a GFN issue than the player's fault. Most players are going to assume that if they can play a game via GFN that they are allowed to play via GFN.

Correct on all accounts. Just to be more precise, I'm not placing any blame on the players in my prior comments - the blame goes to GFN and Activision since the player expects to be able to play a game that they've paid for, on a service that they have paid for.

Yes and no, I don't know how GFN works, but as a Linux user I've heard enough stories of people being banned because they were using Linux because we get the game running in a "non-authorized" way, i.e. using something that's easier to describe as a windows emulator (even though it isn't an emulator). And the way to do this is enable the feature on steam for all titles, and click play on the game, so also people assume it's safe. This does not apply to CoD specifically, because it's designed not to work with that "emulator" purposefully, so I would assume that if GFN is in any way similar they would also have discouraged from using it.

You must have missed the top comment where it was stated that publishers need to agree to have their games on GFN. Activision not only told Nvidia that it was okay to put their game on GFN, they likely had developers work with Nvidia to iron out any issues in creating the VM that it uses.

Wine/proton are unauthorized tools - most publishers don't care, and some even encourage it and help to fix issues (i.e., No Man's Sky), but it's still not officially agreed to like GFN.

No, it's a CoD anti-cheat issue. It shouldn't matter what platform you play on, you should only get banned if you're actually cheating.

you’d think this would be something they heavily try to make sure they get right

eh, I don't think they've tried very hard at anything at all these last few cycles, except to make money

Activision was required to put Call of Duty on GeForce Now for the EU to approve the acquisition by Microsoft. Just pure incompetence

Doesn't the publisher of the game have to approve for a game to be put on GeForce Now?

Nope! It's probably the only cloud service that lets you use Steam/Epic/whatever.

Once I woke up a bit more I had another look at the article, and this phrasing certainly makes it sound like it needs approval at some point:

Due to a licensing dispute between NVIDIA and Activision in 2020, GeForce NOW lost access to all Activision-Blizzard games.

Perhaps though it's a case of "Better to ask for forgiveness than permission" and they just add games until someone tells them to pull it off, I'm not sure. It's been 4+ years since I looked into GFN, I tried it out during the beta period but I don't believe I've used it since then.

That's weird. I still have no fucking clue why devs have any say in this. It's literally just a cloud computer where you can play games you already own on a (approved?) launcher.

Two different managers that didn't bother talking to each other.