Game director Raphael van Lierop provided further details on Twitter regarding the decision. Quite simply, Nvidia did not approach the studio asking for permission to include them in GeForce Now. When asked if they would like to remain part of the service they responded: “not at the moment.”
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While The Long Dark is an award-winning title with a large fanbase, it isn’t as significant a loss as the other development houses. That said, this is yet another sign that Nvidia doesn’t have a handle on securing partnerships. Over its three-year beta period, GeForce Now has had a great number of partners, but its success in carrying them over to the full service has, so far, been less than stellar. Companies like EA, Rockstar, Square Enix, Capcom, and Konami all fell away from the service as it moved out of beta with no deals in place. This was the same situation for Activision-Blizzard and Bethesda, although in those cases, Nvidia had thought that existing deals covered them through the 90-day free trial offered to users with a Founders membership. It’s entirely possible that we will see any or all of these games and publishers back on the service in the coming months, but GeForce Now will remain a tough sell until we start to see at least some of them return. We were impressed with the technical achievement of GeForce Now when we first saw it at CES 2017, but ultimately, the platform is only as good as the games it is able to deliver.