Steam Store Illegal Sales on NVIDIA Sheild

[[EW] Mitsie]

My girlfriend owns an NVIDIA shield, she purchases her games from Steam. Recently NVIDIA has restricted the play of the majority of games on GeForce Now stating "sorry this game isn't supported on GeForce Now" this is from within the steam app.

You have allowed the restriction of certain games on the Steamworks platform, but continue to sell games that are then unplayable by these customers.

This is Illegal in the UK to offer products for sale that are unusable to customers. With out forewarning the customer that this game is unplayable, you allow the purchase of these games.

You should either.

A) block the purchase of unsupported Steam Games

Or

B) restrict the steam store completely on the NVIDIA shield.

My girlfriend is furious and so am I and we will be in touch with trading standards on Monday.

You should not be selling digital products on a platform that does not allow the user to play them. Especially without giving written notification that the games we are purchasing are unplayable.

[[EW] Mitsie]

Originally posted by brian9824:

Originally posted by Mitsie - DigitalAssassins.co.uk:

Yes but if you purchased an Android Phone and you bought a App of the Google Play store and opened the app and it said "Sorry this app is restricted to IOS devices only ? You would say, yes that is fine ?

I can do exactly that. I can go into the android store and buy apps that I can't run from the device i'm buying them for, but can run on another android device.

I can log into amazon and buy digital games that redeem via uplay or steam while on my phone. So I guess amazon should not sell any games to people on their phone then because its not playable on the platform I bought it on.

Just because you can buy a game from a device is in no way guaranteeing that device is capable of playing it, just like you can buy steam games from tablets, on cheap computers that don't meet specs, etc.

https://imgur.com/a/YQAaXWb

And no because the places you purchase from alert you to which platform and the recommended specifications of the games so when you purchase them you can make an educated decision on if you have a Uplay account and the relevant pc with high enough specs you can make a decision on if to purchase it or not.

[Satoru]

Again for the love of god

1) NVIDIA IS NOT STEAM
2) STEAM IS NOT NVIDIA

3) STEAM does not guarantee anything will work on GeForce Now
4) Steam does not run GeForce Now
5) Steam has nothing to do with GeForce Now

Your utter and total ignorance and willingness to ignore basic facts pointed out to you is astounding

[Zaskar]

When you buy a game, it is your responsability to make sure that your device can run it. Also, if you find out that your device can't, Steam has a refund policy that you can use.

You can't expect Valve or any other company to constantly hold your hand and make the pre-purchase research for you.

Like you've been told several times, there's absolutely nothing illegal here and if you absolutely want to blame somone(Let's be honest, it is still 100% your mistake), blame Nvidia. You'll be told the exact same thing if you still decide de talk to a lawyer.

[Zekiran]

Dude, you've even had time to sleep on this, and you're STILL slamming your head into that "but but steam!" wall.


It is not now, nor has it ever been, Steam's responsibility to monitor the activities of a non-steam platform.

Nvidia is that platform that is at fault.

Nvidia is the only company that you should be addressing here.

Steam games that you own, are in point of absolute and total FACT, PLAYABLE ON YOUR PC.

When you install steam on the PC of your choice, provided it too has the right bit type? You will be able to play every one of your steam-purchased games.

End of.

Nvidia is not allowing you to access your games.

Steam, however, DOES allow you to. When you're on a device that those games can run on, and you've installed Steam on, IT WILL DO WHAT IT IS SUPPOSED TO.

You're putting a 3rd party blockade between you and your steam games.

That third party:

is

.... drumroll please....





NVIDIA.

[GordonRamsMe]

they should have power over steam

[Darren]

Originally posted by Mitsie - DigitalAssassins.co.uk:

Originally posted by Kargor:

Funny thing is: while I would have tried to get a Steam client onto that Streaming service that marks "compatible" games in one way or another, the blame is STILL on NVidia: it's clearly their job to negotiate with Valve to get their hands on a client with a suitable API for them to cross-check things with their list of games.

Steam COULD add such an API into their general client, so pretty much everyone could use it. But even then: there is no requirement for Valve to provide such an API on the client, and it would STILL be NVidias job to make use of it to communicate which games are compatible with their platform, and which are not.

However you want to look at it, it's always NVidia needing to do something... it's their platform, and it's their job to provide seamless interactions with services such as Steam. And if they can't do it on their own, it's still their job to call Valve and start discussing things with them.

Yes I understand, I find it hard to believe in such a cut throat Industry you have a company like Valve who have dotted all of their I's and crossed all of their T's from a legal stand point but your saying they let competitors in the industry run their software in a way that wasn't intended to upset their client base. And how on the ball Valves team is with the steam API and Streamworks distributable. That they have overseen a legal and security issue.

So I could literally set up a similar service as NVIDIA streaming games, have 3 online stores and allow people to buy games from them all and but deliberately block all the steam games but allow the other market places to thrive. On purpose to maliciously upset steam customers and cause Valve a customer service nightmare.

You saying that Steam is not used under licence from NVIDIA?

I find that very hard to believe in a cut throat industry with shareholders at the helm.

And if this is a oversight, why isn't Valve doing anything about it to protect their interests.

The problem doesnt lie with the way NVIDIA have set up their library. It lies in the fact they advertised that you can play any of your steam games, and even people like me who have been using steam since 2009, bought games from the Steam store on a platform that used to play all Steam games, and without warning from NVIDIA or Steam became restricted after you had went through the shopping cart, so I bought some games to play on the couch. Only to find I can't play them. Then my Girlfriend bought some games, only to find she couldn't play them.

Imagine a kid, his mother buys him a new sheild, he isn't very tech savy but NVIDIA sell their Sheild as being easy to use and his mother can't afford a PC.. He goes on the Sheild, clicks on the Steam app from the home menu.

He sees lots of games for sale gets excited. Adds £100 worth of games to his account, goes through the checkout and pays with his mams card.

Clicks install on steam, "Sorry you can't play these games, they are Restricted"

So his mother phones Valve, yeah I know you bought some games on the Sheild for your son, but they will work on a PC so it's not our fault..

I can see where your coming from that it's NVIDIAs fault but there is definanately something that needs sorting, as there will be lots of people who own a sheild that will have the same problem.

Like I say I'll speak to trading standards on Monday, because either Nvidia or Valve need to sort the problem. If they removed steam app or at least warned customers on the store, something needs to be done.

If they has a. Cfg text file that Nvidia could put in a text file with a list of allowed games in the steam config folder where you could put in the ID numbers of each game that would be allowed to be sold on the store. This would also solve the problem for Cloud developers, it isn't really an excuse on Valves part. This could have been easily implemented.

I know this is a new industry, but these problems need ironing out for the benefit of future gamers so they don't fall into the same legal loop hole.

Valve does not support, endorse, or recommend these streaming service (and GeForce Now isn't the only one, https://parsecgaming.com is another although because it's from PC to PC they don't restrict games) and again they rely on you knowing the system requirement and capabilities of the system on which you are executing the game in ALL cases. You can buy Windows-only games on a Mac, you can buy games that require a broadband internet connection if you are on dialup, you can buy games that require a faster CPU, more memory, or a newer GPU and in all cases Steam will let you do it. They provide you information on the system requirement and leave it up to you to work out whether that does or does not match your specifications.

Nvidia then runs their GeFroce now basically the same as a cybercafe with a locked down PC and I assume at least some of the support games restrictions are because those games do not run well on the service (or they are worried they might not) and it's part of trying to give a qualify experience. But that is all on them Valve has nothing to do with it nor does Nvidia give them any money as part of the program (you do when you buy games from Valve, but that allows you to run the game on any machine you want not just GeForce Now).

[Muppet among Puppets]

Originally posted by Mitsie - DigitalAssassins.co.uk:

The problem doesnt lie with the way NVIDIA have set up their library. It lies in the fact they advertised that you can play any of your steam games, .

Today was the first time i checked the nvidia site about gforce now. They dont advertise it.
Steam does not advertise that for nvidia now as well.

After i took a short look for the first time on nvidias site, i knew there is a list of supported games.


Even if your conclusion was right, and it had been advertised from nvidia you could play all steam games, but you cant........ Who made false advertisement?
........But no one did........

[rawWwRrr]

So if all of the Steam games could be played before via GeForce Now, what's to say they wouldn't be able to be played later in the future? That's not for Valve to decide. They are not in charge of the Nvidia Shield, the GeForce Now service, or the list of games that they sell that are or are not restricted. There's nothing that Valve could do to stop Nvidia from blocking other games or releasing games from being blocked later.

Say you buy a game from Valve and GeForce Now today says you can't play it with their service. Ok. Your two options are: 1) keep it in the hopes that GeForce Now allows it later, or 2) ask Steam for a refund which you are allowed to do, no questions asked within the first two weeks and if you haven't played it for more than 2 hours. They'll even give exceptions, on a case by case basis, to that rule if the game is "unplayable" and to the sounds of this predicament it falls under that exception.

It's aggravating, yes, but still not Valve's issue.