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NVIDIA Announces New Game Bundle, Requires GeForce Experience to Activate

Soldato
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A graphics card-game bundle is always a reason to cheer, though not this time, if you loathe GeForce Experience. The company's latest "Prepare for Battle" game bundle lets you choose between two of the season's hottest game releases - "For Honor," and Tom Clancy's "Ghost Recon: Wildlands" on purchase of new GeForce GTX 1080 or GTX 1070 graphics cards. The only catch here is that you need GeForce Experience to redeem or activate your free game. This further requires you to create a GeForce Experience login, which adds to the list of startup apps, as GeForce Experience dials home to sign-in and sync your game settings.

https://www.techpowerup.com/230249/...undle-requires-geforce-experience-to-activate

Dangling a carrot for jumping on a 1070/80 if you've been waiting almost a year for Vega:p, anyone going to get one now or still holding off for Vega?

Being a Shield owner, GFE is mandatory for streaming, so I wouldn't be fussed, but anyone here think it's a step too far with the GFE login for game redemption being a requirement?

Hoping it's a step too far...

hopefully grab a cheap Ghost Recon: Wildlands key in the mm Ghost Recon: Wildlands:D
 
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I'm waiting for Vega, but I expect i'll end up getting a Ti (not optimistic).

Silly money no doubt, but its been so long since I bought a graphics card I feel I can justify it!
 
The only catch here is that you need GeForce Experience to redeem or activate your free game. This further requires you to create a GeForce Experience login, which adds to the list of startup apps, as GeForce Experience dials home to sign-in and sync your game settings.

Thats last bit is not quite true. It doesnt "sync your game settings". It optimises the display settings if you activate the Optimise button. You dont need it running at startup either. Plus there is nothing to stop someone creating a login activating game, then thats it. Dont have to use GE and could even uninstall it afterwards.

Personally I have GE installed and only use it for driver notifications. Doesn't bother me.

Bit of a non news story.
 
I guess they aren't farming enough personal data from people, so are trying to nudge people in to installing it.

But install, register with throw-away email address, get games, remove :D
 
No I nearly got a 1080 around Christmas but it's just not future-proof enough for the price plus I'm worried about Dx12 performance and future performance in general. Planned obsolescence etc. and as for all the registration stuff ugh! no thanks. Do you know what they're doing with all your information?
 
Another interesting tidbit from the FAQ is that the games are now tied to the hardware itself.
Q: Why is GeForce Experience required to redeem a coupon code received along with a GPU purchase?
Game coupon codes offered as part of a qualifying GPU or PC purchase are intended for use by the purchaser. As part of the coupon redemption process, NVIDIA uses GeForce Experience to perform a hardware verification step to ensure the coupon code is redeemed on the system with the qualifying GPU.
In theory that could mean just the model of GPU, so anybody with a 1070 or 1080 could redeem them, but the next bit suggests that it goes deeper than that and will be tracked at a more specific level.
Q: Why must game bundle code redemptions be completed with a qualifying graphics card, desktop or laptop?
Game coupon codes offered as part of a qualifying GPU or PC purchase are intended for use by the purchaser. Redeeming the code on a qualifying system helps NVIDIA verify the game is redeemed by the purchaser. Please note that only one game copy can be redeemed per qualifying GPU.
This potential error message suggests that it won't be done via GFE account either.
You have already redeemed a coupon for {Coupon Code Name} on this gpu.
Our system indicates that your have already redeemed this coupon on your GPU through a different GeForce Experience account. Please switch back to that account to continue.
So I guess they'll be using serial numbers or something. It'll be interesting to see whether the codes are generated and tied to one specific card at the point of purchase, or whether the codes are generic and you just get to redeem one code on any qualifying card and are then locked out that way.

Either way, seems like they're really cracking down on people reselling the bundled games.
 
I would assume it wouldn't go any further than confirming the model is eligible, possibly with a way to check the card isn't older than the bundle offer. Tracking serial codes would be a bit of a logistics nightmare with RMAs etc.
 
I would assume it wouldn't go any further than confirming the model is eligible
But they seem to have a way to check whether you've redeemed a code with your specific card before, even if you try to use a different GFE account, based on that error message. Clearly some unique identifying factor from the hardware itself is being tracked, or that wouldn't be possible. Unless it's being handled by something like setting a registry key at the point of redemption, but that'd be so easy to bypass as to be pointless.
 
But they seem to have a way to check whether you've redeemed a code with your specific card before, even if you try to use a different GFE account, based on that error message. Clearly some unique identifying factor from the hardware itself is being tracked, or that wouldn't be possible. Unless it's being handled by something like setting a registry key at the point of redemption, but that'd be so easy to bypass as to be pointless.
That's not the same as requiring a certain code be used with a certain card though, they are likely just taking the serial number (or whatever unique id) of the card when you redeem the code keeping it.

They might be able to force all games in a bundle to be redeemed on the same card though.
 
Pfft, they already "required" steam/origin/uplay/whatever.

Don't really see a problem, "if you sign up we will give you a free game with your GPU" seems pretty good to me.
 
I don't know if anyone else has posted this but it's interesting to see yet another Asus range, Personally I thought ROG covered all the gamers needs but apparently not because they now have the Expedition range.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/11090/asus-launches-expedition-gpu-2x-lifespan

ASUS has launched five new GPUs and a B150 motherboard that belong to its Expedition family of products. The Expedition video cards promise to wed durability for sustained long-time use with reasonable prices: the boards are made using ASUS’ latest automated production process and feature components with enhanced lifetime ratings over the standard components (albeit with standard cooling and near-reference frequencies).
 
Meh, I don't get people still being frustrated by any farming of data. There is already huge amounts of that going on. This isn't anything more and people wanting/saying otherwise are living in a bit of a bubble in honesty.
 
I don't think that the farming is the biggest issue here. One of the best things about these promotions is the ability to sell the game on.. this effectively puts a stop by, at best, reducing the pool you can sell it to and at worst making it impossible.
I can see why they're doing it... i just like using these new games as an extra "discount" on the card.
 
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