In the stained halls of the GeForce NOW Subreddit, I posed an important question: “What do you love/hate about GeForce NOW?”.
I expected a couple of replies and a comment or two about how I am ruining GFN for everyone and murder and all that. Little did I know that opening Pandora’s Box held more in store than I had hoped for.
This is a true story about chaos, love, hatred, patches, happiness, and the occasional nervous breakdown over a laggy connection or a game that’s been patching for a decade.
So, buckle up, dear reader, as we embark on a journey through the highs and lows of cloud gaming, guided by the wisdom and wit of Reddit’s finest. Will GeForce NOW be the hero of our story, or will it fall victim to the dreaded villain known as “Unstable Wi-Fi” or “Patching; Will Be Ready Soon”?
Read it in past tense: See what I did there?
Fearful of downvotes or hate-OP responses, I braced for what I assumed was the inevitable downfall of my Reddit existence. But I breathed a sigh of much-needed relief when the responses began pouring in.
And when I say pouring in, I mean pouring in! The replies were curious to say the least…
“I hate how companies don’t understand what gfn is and will pull games from the service.”
“I am paying for the ultimate plan, having 110+ mbps speed every time I play, just to get s**tty experience based on whether the servers are in the mood… one day I get good performance and stream, the next three days I get 800×600 res, input lag that makes you feel as if you smoked whole kilo of joints with snoop dogg, and constant stutters and freezes… Here is an idea: MAKE SURE YOUR SERVICE IS UP TO A STANDART AND WITHSTANDS THE TRAFFIC OF USERS BEFORE YOU CHARGE PEOPLE, YOU BUNCH OF SOYDEVS…[sic]”
“Saddly [sic] right now servers and a lot of games on GFN are dead due to ‘weird’ things since yesterday with almost no info, I assure you that you don’t want to read what I hate about GFN.”
One user posted an image of Destiny 2 being offline, to which one really witty Redditor replied, “This is called ‘family time’”
“I love not having a fan noise.
I hate that there is no real competition.”
Internet speed: An unsolvable first-world problem
I guess we all have a love/hate relationship with something or someone. Isn’t that the entire reason for the “Frienemy” neologism? Can’t we all relate to this human phenomenon? For example, I hate my shower because it’s always out to get me – turn the cold left, the hot right, left, left, oh-god-I-am-burning-alive – yet I love pandas because, I mean, pandas…
I digress.
The most common “hate-it!” replies revolved around internet speed; the limited gaming library; games being patched ad infinitum; developers (I don’t know…); and random rants about not being able to play games I’ve never heard of.
(I upvoted the scary ones – I blame Stockholm Syndrome).
Love, love changes everything (sometimes)
Fearing clichéd verbosity, I shall keep this as succinct as possible:
Almost all the users loved the fact that they could play any GeForce NOW game without the need for an expensive rig.
Hey, I’ve been having love fests in Mass Effect at ultra NASA speed graphics and all!
In conclusion
Pandora feared that damn box back in the mythological era, which isn’t a thing because mythology is not real, except for unicorn tears and such.
(Just go with it, okay?)
The Box was supposed to release curses upon all mankind – a bit dramatic, but each to their own. However, much to my relief – or dismay? – the GeForce NOW Subreddit is either immune to the horrors of The Box, or it’s actually the same box Schrödinger used for his cat.
We’ll never know.
And that’s why I love it.
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It really winds me up when people complain about GFN (or XCloud, or PS Plus, or Boosteroid etc) being laggy. That’s like blaming a car manufacturer for the condition of the local roads! That problem dear gamer is yours NOT Nvidia’s or any cloud platform. I have had all of the above for as long as they have existed and not once, not even for a second, have I had a laggy or spotty connection. If you don’t have a quality network, improve it or give up. Don’t use your experience as definitive and make it your life’s work to convince others it’s an inferior solution!!