Cloud gaming might not have seen the boom in popularity that was predicted by Google right before the launch of its Stadia platform, but Nvidia is enjoying success with its GeForce Now program. The company is even expanding it to become a multi-tier subscription service to help you play the games you already own. If you don’t pay, however, your experience is about to change, because ads are coming to GeForce Now very soon.
If you want to play some of the best PC games, but don’t have one of the best gaming PCs to run them, Nvidia GeForce Now offers a great way to bridge that power gap and still enjoy the gameplay.
The free tier of GeForce Now has existed since the platform launched, but it’s not pulling its weight in the revenue department, so Nvidia is making some changes.
Up to two minutes of ads will soon start playing before you start streaming a game if you play via a free GeForce Now account. The change is being made on Tuesday, March 5, and will see ads play while you are queuing for a spot to open on one of the gaming servers.
This move was confirmed in a statement made by Nvidia to The Verge but there is no further elaboration on how this will potentially impact free users. For instance, what happens if machines are readily available, but you haven’t sat through the required ad period? Could the ads interfere with your position in the queue at busy times? We have questions here, but the ad implementation itself is an understandable move.
There are, however, some questions over this move coming so soon after a GeForce Now price hike, which excludes the US. Plus, with the top tier of GeForce Now costing $20 a month with no trial periods available, it’s tough to ask people to commit to such an expense.
It’s hard to say that the free membership of GeForce Now is getting ‘worse’ when it’s already so limited, but the ad period not interfering with live gameplay is the key to this being a non-issue for most players.
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