CEO and founder of Epic Games, Tim Sweeney, has declared that Epic is standing behind Nvidia’s GeForce Now cloud streaming service, calling it “the most developer-friendly and publisher-friendly of the major streaming services”.
This support comes at a challenging time for Nvidia’s service; since leaving its beta period only a few weeks ago, GeForce Now has seen dozens of games from big publishers like Activision Blizzard, Bethesda and, most recently, 2K, withdrawn from its catalogue.
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In a recent thread of tweets, however, Tim Sweeney has confirmed that Epic Games will not be following the trend. Not only will Fortnite be staying on Nvidia’s service, Epic will offer support for Epic Games Store titles (including exclusives) if developers are willing, with plans to improve integration even more over time.
Epic is wholeheartedly supporting NVIDIA’s GeForce NOW service with Fortnite and with Epic Games Store titles that choose to participate (including exclusives), and we’ll be improving the integration over time.March 7, 2020
Sweeney support
According to Sweeney, GeForce Now is “the most developer-friendly and publisher-friendly of the major streaming services, with zero tax on game revenue”, and he believes that “Game companies who want to move the game industry towards a healthier state for everyone should be supporting this kind of service!”
Sweeney goes on to say in his tweets that he thinks cloud streaming services like Nvidia’s will play an important role in ending what he calls "the iOS and Google Play payment monopolies and their 30 per cent taxes", adding that "Apple has decreed that these services aren’t allowed to exist on iOS, and therefore aren’t allowed to compete, which is megalomaniacal and won’t stand.”
“Just waiting till later this year", he concludes, "when Google is lobbying against Apple for blocking Stadia from iOS, while Google blocks GeForce NOW, xCloud, and Fortnite from Google Play, and this whole rotten structure begins collapsing in on itself.”
After so many high-profile publisher departures, support like this is likely to be at least a small amount of relief for Nvidia. Whether it’ll be enough remains to be seen. As we pointed out in our hands on review, “Nvidia GeForce Now is the best game streaming service around right now, but only because its competition is so weak”, so lasting success isn't guaranteed and its next steps remain crucial.
