Survival game The Long Dark is facing backlash from its fans on Twitter after it was revealed that Hinterland Studio asked Nvidia to remove the game from their cloud streaming service GeForce Now.
“Sorry to those who are disappointed you can no longer play #thelongdark on GeForce Now,” Game Director Raphael van Lierop said in a tweet. “Nvidia didn’t ask for our permission to put the game on the platform so we asked them to remove it. Please take your complaints to them, not us. Devs should control where their games exist.”
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“They offered us a free graphics card as an apology, so maybe they’ll offer you the same thing,” he added in a follow-up tweet.
The response to The Long Dark GeForce Now controversy has been mixed to say the least. Some people agree with the developer, but others are less than fond of his stance on this issue. The situation was neatly summarized by the gaming personality Ryan “@Toadsanime” Brown in a tweet.
“I see both sides to this,” Mr. Brown began. “The platform simply streams your pre-existing PC games. Dangerous territory if companies need individual approval. However, it sells itself as a separate platform, with its library of games its selling point. Should devs have the right to opt out?”
“Totally support this move,” read a tweet from @Survival_Savvy supporting Hinterland Studio’s decision. “Now more than ever we need more ballsy moves like this to protect our media. If someone steals something to sell to you, then stops, you [don’t] go after the victim of the theft!! Intellectual property especially. Peeps be butthurt.”
“What…made them think they could just put a game on their service? No signed agreement? Nothing? They really aren’t handling this well,” stated another supporting tweet from @TheTickMS.
Most of the responses from fans on Twitter, however, are somewhat less balanced in their approach.
“How about customers who have purchased your game should have a say in where they play it?” stated a tweet from @tek312159. “Super [anti-consumer] move. Hoping to double dip with Stadia sales, or something?”
“Can we use Nvidia cards to render your game that we purchased?” began a tweet from @MizManFryingPan. “What about the CPU, should we use Intel or AMD? Are my JBL speakers okay? I have a [DualShock] 4, is that allowed? I don’t think you have the right to tell people on what hardware to run their already purchased games.”
The removal of The Long Dark from GeForce Now joins a growing list of developers who have requested that their games be removed from Nvidia’s service. Bethesda Games was one of the bigger companies that had their entire library removed. Now that an indie title has pulled the proverbial eject handle, we’ll probably see other indie developers follow suit, too.
Do you think The Long Dark’s developer should have pulled the game from GeForce Now? Let us know in the comments below.
