By Sagar V. Mankar Nvidia has confirmed that starting March 5, 2024, free users of its popular GeForce Now cloud gaming service will begin seeing ads as they wait in the queue for an open server.
The ads will be up to two minutes in length and will not appear during actual gameplay sessions.
This change only applies to the free tier of GeForce Now.
Paid subscribers on the Priority and Ultimate tiers will not see any ads.
Why is Nvidia Adding Ads to the Free Version?
Nvidia says the goal is to monetize the free users in a way that could potentially reduce wait times.
The idea is that the ad revenue will allow them to expand server capacity, which should result in shorter queues and less downtime for non-paying gamers.
What to Expect
When free members go to launch a game, they will see ad spots while matchmaking to a server.
Again, the ads will not appear once you are actually in a game session.
Nvidia promises they will not affect gameplay.
As per rumor, Xbox also aims to start a similar model for their cloud services – Game Pass.