Cloud gaming, if we allow it to grow, will destroy the gaming itself, as we know it. Without having access to the game files there will be no mods and no fanpatches. Moreover, the games themselves will disappear as soon as it will become "unfeasible" to support them, or in case of copyright issues or for any other reason.

By playing via Geforce NOW, Stadia, or any other of these services, you are personally responsible for bringing this upon the entire gaming community.

https://www.gog.com/forum/general/boycotting_gog_2021

https://www.zoom-platform.com

Vote with your wallet. It's the only option you ever really have as a consumer to make your voice heard and the only thing that corpos are ever going to listen to.

Let's be honest...single (regular) users or even a few doing it achieves next to nothing beyond things like making a person feel better for sticking to their principles.

In order for voting with one's wallet to really count, one would need to convince a heckuva lot of people to join in, and many these days don't join into such things for one reason or another.

That said, I somewhat admire those who have the conviction to stick to their ideals.

nah we should vote but not with our wallets
fully agree
good to see some honest people do what they talk
it is just so ineffective way to make changes
when did slaver end in usa , not when boycotts were used ,but when government outlawed it , same with many other things

Can someone explain cloud gaming to me? Is it basically just playing a real-time video of the game which is being streamed from a central server?

Fair points. Some comments on them follow.

1. Even just the visible note would be great to have. Way better than having to check on GFN. Easy to implement on the part of GOG.

2. There is the option to link your accounts in GFN. I have not tried it, but maybe it works the way you want (now or eventually).

3. Guess what? Publishers do not have any reason for not wanting their games to be playable via GFN. All GFN does is giving an option for people who actually purchased their games in GOG or in the other two stores. No more, no less. This gives more exposure to the games and make them playable for a wider range of people, and to people in situations and moments where and when they would not be near the gaming computer of their dreams.

That's essentially how stuff like stadia works, more or less. A player plays the game from various supported devices and the data(game files and saves) are on some central server.

For stuff like this GeForce thing, it's near the same but the game can (afaik) be installed wherever/however the user wants/chooses....including on one's own pc.

(the better cloud gaming option would of course be stuff like that listed in this thread's op post....as users would have more control over the games themselves)

You connect to a server and you run your software remotely. Modern internet connections allow for this. It works better with a latency under 50 ms. If that is so, you really do not notice the difference. If you used internet in the 90's and shiver thinking about lag, well, you will have to try this to believe it. This computing paradigm is increasingly used for some professional applications. Like, it might be a good idea to keep a corporate database in the cloud, or to have a mixed system where you have a local copy in your machine or in a local server that stays in sync with the cloud database. NATO uses a pure online model for some applications, for example, due to security reasons. Your CPU will be very relaxed.

For some time it has been possible to hire computers online to run software. Even clusters of them if you need to. With or without graphic processing units. Microsoft Azure and Amazon are examples of these services, but not the only ones. They also started offering computers with software pre-installed, which is a neat idea, since in these services you normally pay by the hour. More can be said but this is enough for a start.

About games, they can also be run on the cloud. Nothing prevents you from hiring an Azure computer yourself, but why not making it easier?. So far two business models have appeared: The first consists of platforms where you pay to access the service, and there you can play seemingly everything the platform has to offer, as long as you keep paying. They offer some game exclusives. They rival with GOG, Steam, etc. That might be the model of Stadia. Think Netflix for games.

The second business model is that of Geforce Now. They essentially offer computers with good graphics processing units and a list of games preinstalled for select online game sites (so far, Steam, Epic, and recently GOG). You can play games from the list if you own then in, for example, GOG. This means that they do not rival with game sites. They just offer another way of playing the games that you already own (as long as they are listed in GFN for the site where you purchased the game). Yes, if you save the game, the saves will be there in future sessions. GFN offers free accounts that allow for sessions of one (1) hour. But when the session finishes, you can get in the queue again. At some times there will be longer queues than at others. GFN has several servers in the world so that the client installed in your device connects with the nearest one.

Example of case uses:

- If you cannot or would not want to install the game (or the Steam or Epic launcher) in the computer where you would play.

- If there are going to be times when you would not be near a computer that can run the game, but you will have an internet connection.

- You can use a potato computer, or a device running Linux, Mac OS, Android, iOS, whatever. You can play with your mobile phone or a tablet if you want to (for that it is better to have a controller that works, but there is an onscreen interface just in case).

About GFN, the maximum resolutions available so far are 1920x1200 and 1920x1080 pixels.

That is true.

But things change as time flies... look at the VHS videocassette (where are the video shops/rentals today?), or the DVD, Bluray market today. They still publish movies/documentaries on these, at least on optical mediums, but the sale is constantly falling back.

More and more people are subscribing to different VOD services (Disney+, Netflix, HULU, HBO, Apple+ etc. and of course other local VOD services in different countries).

Also the cable/satellite services are endagered in these situations. At least in the western countries, mostly people older than 50 years are watching the classical television programs, as they are presented to them. The younger generations don't.

Here is a study from almost 2 years ago. Some things have changed since then:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/dbloom/2019/07/12/traditional-tv-not-dead-yet-but-online-video-is-closing-fast-study/?sh=6360cc2c37bc

How the gaming will change, especially because of these cloud services? No one knows. But as the internet connections are becoming faster and faster, many things will change. And this seems unstoppable, except when there will be/happen some kind of catastrophy. Let's hope, there wont be anyting like that.

The issue with all this stuff is always the long term.

The more streaming gets normalized, the less anyone will likely make DRM-free builds of games (and it's not like developers/publishers are pumping them out in great supply to begin with). And yes, I am aware that this particular service is less bad than others like Stadia since on this one it's just -for now- providing a way to play games you already own with higher power; however, who is to say that in a few years that is the case?

Does anyone remember the period of time when you used to be able to rent physical discs through Netflix, or alternatively you could stream? Until you couldn't get the physical discs, and then before long there were exclusives, stream-only shows that did NOT get physical releases, and the direction of the industry changed. We don't even need to look outside PC gaming...Scheme's monopoly is enough. "Oh, but at least it's not a more intrusive DRM!"

No. Those saying this stuff should be nipped in the bud are correct, imo. If we lived in an ideal world it would be great for people to have the option to buy, to stream, etc with all choices on an equal playing field. In theory I am all for the options of stuff like this but that's only if there is an even playing field; not an industry that has tried to shift away from ownership of products at every possible turn.

It is embarrassing that within the span of a month or so, GOG apparently took down FCKDRM.com but are supporting game streaming services of any kind. For those of us boycotting GOG due to their shift away from DRM-free, they sure make it easy to continue that boycott. The only actual positive news in this topic is that the Connect program is not continuing, since people didn't need any more encouragement to shop on Scheme.

Indeed. It is yet to be seen. But we have PC vs consoles, and we have Stadia and the likes of it (that work like Netflix) vs services that just offer the computers, while allowing you the freedom to buy the games in a site that allows for downloading the game and playing locally.

If online computing is here to stay, it is to be expected that playing online will be here to stay as well. Then everyone can ask themselves which model would they choose, and how best to influence the future. By purchasing consoles that stream? Netflix for games? Or a service that supports traditional digital distribution sites?

this cant be compared to renting games
in this case you rent the machine to play the games on
not the games themself

Edit :
Actually
if the geforce service is free to use
and youre not paying anything to use it
youre not even renting it
then youre loaning a pc over the Internet,.

If i had to compare it to something its like loaning a computer in your local liibary but you bring your own games on a memory stick
The only diifrence is that you dont have to be physcally present at a physical pc

Not everybody needs it, maybe you don't. Perfectly fine.

Can you please explain to me why someone who needs/wants it should not have this option?

Great that GOG is coming to GeforceNOW! if slowly so.

I really hope more devs and gamer will learn that this is no freeloader-service or disownership of your games and they aren`t cut from anything by the service unlike that STADIO etc. crap.

This is the right way - this is one ONLY way - to do cloud gaming the right way.

This is by far the biggest singular drawback that streaming games of any kind will always have have and honestly kills any potential validity of any game streaming service to me. Especially FPS games. I can't imagine playing a single player shooter as if I were having a constant 50 or more ping. And this is a thing that will always be there with no way to go around it since it's based on your internet connection.

The other thing are the technical limitations. 1080p @60 FPS? Welcome to 2010.