Update (1/6): After about a 3-week absence, FIFA 23 (along with FIFA 21 & 22) has returned to Boosteroid’s install and play category!
Update (12/21): Ark: Survival Evolved has been returned to production but CoD: Black Ops Cold War has now been removed from the “Install” category all together along with FIFA 23.
Update (12/15 00:00 PT): Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 has returned to the service after about 15 hours of unavailability – pointing to the downtime indeed being due to the game’s title update (as suggested by Vet Cloud Gaming in the comments). Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War remains “Under Maintenance” for the time being. FIFA 23 has been completely removed from the list of games. We’ve updated the text and continue to monitor the situation.
When using Boosteroid, there are two categories of games you can play on the service: 1. Those that live on Boosteroid’s shared server storage (similar to GeForce Now’s model) and 2: Those that the user must install manually into their own private cloud storage drive and manage space and updates etc. themselves (similar to Shadow’s model). As we noted in our review, games on Boosteroid (particularly in category 2) may be removed (temporarily or permanently) at any time.
We previously made the editorial decision here to not include games from category 2 in our list of cloud games. Doing so would basically require us to also list every PC game available via Shadow.
In category 2 (and potentially for some case 1 games), Boosteroid doesn’t appear to actually have a full agreement with the publishers to maintain the game on their service, and the publishers could take action (legal and/or technical – both intentional and not) that prevent the game from continuing to be available.
This appears to have happened with CoD Black Ops Cold War and Modern Warfare 2 which are now listed as “Under Maintenance” (the latter game was just added recently) and FIFA 23 – probably the most popular game on the platform. Boosteroid chose to clarify what has happened today in a Tweet (which judging by the comments doesn’t have a lot of folks particularly happy):
Ark: Survival Evolved is another game in the “install” category that we’ve noted has been stuck in “under maintenance” for an extended period of time.
Unfortunately, this appears to be a risk when using Boosteroid, and we’d recommend treating games under the category 2 release model (those under the “install” category) with caution. You do at least still ultimately own the game on the underlying platforms like Steam or Epic, even if they do leave Boosteroid.
So, I saw this tweet from Boosteroid as well. The issue with the FIFA games is due to switching to the EA app launcher now that the Origin app is no more. They are working on trying to get a compatibility issue resolved with EA and their remote cloud-based desktop service. As for Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2/Warzone 2, that game has not left the service. It is under maintenance due to the 27gb update that was released for the game today. Maybe, and this is just a suggestion, before you write these articles, I don’t know, but reach out to the service or at least if you are going to act like a news outlet, FACT CHECK your information before you continue to decide to keep posting a lovely false narrative.
Hi Vet. Thank you for your comment! We really do appreciate it and take it seriously. Your information does provide additional value – we’ll keep an eye on CoD. However, I don’t agree that the article is factually incorrect.
The situation remains that games can be made unavailable on the service because of actions from the publisher, whether intentional or not, because no agreements (that would provide a commitment toward keeping games consistently available on the service at least) appear to be in place.
I use Boosteroid for 1.5 years already and yes, games get under maintenance sometimes. Usually it’s like a few hours, not a big deal. ARK Survival is back btw. MW as well. Games are fixed and get back, but titles of the articles remain….. 🙂
I buy a game, I should be able to run it via cloud. if I use Google Cloud vm to run AutoCAD, will Autodesk be against that? Nope. Why some publishers are so annoying when it comes to cloud gaming? they are blocking progress. Millions of gamers don’t have computers powerful enough, cloud is the only way for them to enjoy the titles. But, who cares.
totally agree with the comment above, I believe gamers community should speak out. games are made for gamers, why we are then limited to playing only on actual desktops and aren’t allowed to play on remote desktops. That’s insane