The Publisher’s Blessing
Please Sir, May I Stream Your Game?
For a game to arrive on GeForce NOW (even in the Install and Play category), it first needs to opt-in on Steam and other PC stores. Many game publishers do opt their games in, but other publishers are surprisingly very reluctant.
In the high-stakes world of cloud gaming, getting some publisher’s approval is about as easy as beating Dark Souls with a dance pad. Picture this: Cloud gaming execs, sweating profusely, trying to convince publishing bigwigs that allowing people to buy and play their $60 games in more places is actually brilliant. “Please, let us help you find more customers for your games with no effort required on your part!”
Unfortunately, it’s often like trying to sell ice to penguins, if penguins were massive corporations with armies of lawyers.
The resulting contracts likely have more clauses than Santa’s employment agreements. By the time everyone’s signed on the dotted line, half the negotiators have developed carpal tunnel and the other half have forgotten why they started this process in the first place.
Technical Compatibility: Teaching AAA Games New Tricks
Once the legal labyrinth is navigated, the real fun begins. GeForce NOW has to put each game through a testing process. They want to make sure the game works well on their cloud-servers, has optimal settings and doesn’t crash half-way through or ban your username for cheating because you are playing on cloud based systems.
QA is the unsung hero of cloud gaming, the digital equivalent of those brave souls who taste-test new flavors of Mountain Dew. It’s an endless cycle of updates, patches, and fixing things that weren’t broken until you tried to fix something else.
This whole process takes some time. So, not every game that is opts-in is greenlit for release in the library.
NVIDIA recognizing this challenge, has deployed a solution, though. “Install and Play” – which lets you play any and all unsupported game that opts in even if it hasn’t been tested. But as they way, “Your mileage may vary.”
What About Boosteroid?
Most of the above appears to be true as well for games in Boosteroid’s official “Library” of titles. But, Boosteroid additionally offers it’s own “Install and Play” selection of titles which is a littler different than GeForce NOW’s. For Boosteroid, “Install and Play” allows users to install their own private copies of games in their own private cloud drives – these are titles which don’t appear to have publisher support for managed cloud gaming. This allows Boosteroid to support top games like Grand Theft Auto V which GeForce NOW doesn’t have.
Conclusion: To Infinity and Beyond (As Long As Your Internet Doesn’t Crash)
So there you have it, intrepid gamer. The next time you’re effortlessly playing Assassin’s Creed on your phone while pretending to pay attention in a Zoom meeting, spare a thought for the unsung heroes who made it possible. They’ve battled legal Krakens, tamed technical Balrogs, and sacrificed their sanity to the gods of QA, all so you can raid virtual monasteries on a device primarily designed for scrolling through cat memes.
