The Long Dark removed from GeForce NOW after NVIDIA "didn't ask permission"

Exploration-survival game The Long Dark is the latest game to be removed from GeForce NOW, as it turns out that NVIDIA simply didn’t ask for permission.

Developer Raphael van Lierop took to Twitter to apologise to any fans who were disappointed by the game’s removal. Raphael said that the game’s removal was due to NVIDIA not asking permission to put the game on GeForce Now, so the team behind The Long Dark asked them to remove it.

“Please take your complaints to them, not us,” Raphael wrote. “Devs should control where their games exist.”

They offered us a free graphics card as an apology, so maybe they'll offer you the same thing.

— Raphael van Lierop | Exploring Apocalypses (@RaphLife) March 1, 2020

Raphael also said that NVIDIA offered the team at Hinterland Studio a free graphics card as an apology.

However, Raphael also emphasised that there was “nothing newsworthy or shocking” about Hinterland Studio asking for the game’s removal.

He added that NVIDIA admitted it had made a mistake by not asking for permission, apologised, and asked if the team wanted The Long Dark to remain up on GeForce NOW. The developers ultimately decided “not at the moment.”

Responding to people criticising Hinterland Studio’s decision to pull out of GeForce NOW, Raphael stressed that the devs “have the choice whether to be in that library or not. Our distribution agreement is with Valve, not with Nvidia.”

Because they sell this service based on access to a library of content. We have the choice whether to be in that library or not. Our distribution agreement is with Valve, not with Nvidia.

— Raphael van Lierop | Exploring Apocalypses (@RaphLife) March 1, 2020

The Long Dark’s removal from GeForce NOW comes shortly after both Activision Blizzard and Bethesda Softworks opted to pull their game libraries from NVIDIA’s game streaming service.

While Blizzard chose to remove its entire library, saying that the company only agreed to participate in GeForce NOW’s beta test and not its launch, Bethesda did leave Wolfenstein: Youngblood on the service.