Report: Nvidia Game Ready Drivers To Force Registration

Published: October 15, 2015 1:21 PM /

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PCWorld is reporting that starting in December, Nvidia's Game Ready Drivers will require an email registration before you can use them. In a call with other journalists, PCWorld is also reporting that  this is in an effort to make Nvidia's GeForce Experience a one stop shop for PC gamers.

Nearly every major game of the past two years has seen a new driver go out with it on launch, which Nvidia calls Game Ready Drivers. They are geared specifically towards optimizing that specific game, sometimes enhancing/offering other graphical features for that game. These have always been available to all right at release on the Nvidia website if you like.

According to PCWorld, that will be changing sometime in mid-December. The Game Ready Drivers will now only be downloadable and installed via their GeForce Experience software; you'll also need to register a verified email address with Nvidia as well. The drivers that will still be available on the website will be released quarterly for bug fixes, security updates, and other related items.

GeForce Experience so far has allowed anyone to use the service without giving any information whatsoever, downloading and installing drivers for you, as well as sending you notifications for when new drivers are available. The reason for this change, according to Nvidia's Sean Pelletier that PCWorld spoke to on a conference call with other journalists was:

We kind of have two camps in terms of gamers. On one hand you have the gamer that’s just casually playing things here and there, using their system for daily use and gaming on the side. They don’t want to be inundated with these drivers  ... On the other side of the equation you have enthusiast gamers, who get excited about preloading a game, who want to play a game the day it comes out with all the bells and whistles ...

He goes on to say that the second type of gamer is the one they are obviously targeting. It seems the rationale is to try to avoid annoying one type of gamer, while trying to cater to and ingratiate another into their service. In other words, this is just one step in a larger one to cater to a specific audience, so many more changes should be expected..

https://twitter.com/PellyNV/status/654691716964876288

We reached out to Sean Pelletier who confirmed that there will be required registration, including other details in the PCWorld report. "We'll have some great reasons ..." also seems to imply that more information will becoming out regarding the registration.

One of the reasons many may be concerned with this shift likely stems from the Nvidia's privacy policy

We may from time to time share your Personal Information with our business partners, resellers, affiliates, service providers, consulting partners and others in an effort to better serve you ... 

We may, from time to time, share your Personal Information with third party business partners, vendors, affiliates, and other service providers that perform services on our behalf, in order to carry out their work for us, which may include identifying and serving targeted advertisements, e-commerce, content or service fulfillment, website operations, email communications management, customer service, analytics, manufacturing, integration, delivery, support, payment, and servicing processes. NVIDIA's policy is to prohibit these companies from using your Personal Information for any purpose other than to provide the services expressly requested by NVIDIA ...

We may share your Personal Information with business partners who offer a service jointly with us, for example, when running a co-sponsored contest or promotion, or offering a co-branded product or service ... 

The privacy policy goes on from there, and the link above gives you the specifics. To summarize this, Nvidia does indeed share personal information around to business partners and other services owned by Nvidia.

TechRaptor has reached out to Nvidia for more details. When and if we do receive information from Nvidia, we will update this article.

What do you think about Nvidia's plans for the GeForce experience? Does it matter to you whether or not you have to register an email?

Have a tip, or want to point out something we missed? Leave a Comment or e-mail us at tips@techraptor.net


Andrew Otton
| Editor in Chief

Andrew is the Editor in Chief at TechRaptor. Conned into a love of gaming by Nintendo at a young age, Andrew has been chasing the dragon spawned by Super… More about Andrew