Nvidia trying a fast one with their bundled games!!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Picked up a copy of Tombraider and it was one of the download codes which comes with Nvidia cards. Unlike in the past where you would just register the code and get the Steam code in an e-mail,Nvidia has sunken to a brand new low:







It's basically market research by deception. Even the Valve privacy policy is vague with regards to third parties:

http://store.steampowered.com/privacy_agreement/

There is scant information on what Nvidia is collecting from this,what they are using it for,how long the data is being kept for and what third parties they share this data and what companies they will be using to do the analysis.

The thing is that at least with things like Google services and store cards there is generally more information available to know what they are doing regarding market research,but this is rather vague IMHO!!

When I bought Nvidia cards previously and got free games like Metro:Last Light and got the free station cash for PS2,never needed to do all this bullcrap.

Out of spite I am just going to open a dud account and put all the crap games I don't want in it.

Nothing on their website regarding the market research they are doing in the terms and conditions of the bundle:

http://www.geforce.co.uk/games-appli...r/bundle/terms
http://www.geforce.co.uk/games-appli...e-instructions

Oh,they want your name and address too.

[peterb]

As always, caveat emptor. There is rarely something that is genuinely 'free'. If a free code floats your boat, and you read the small print, then go for it.

Personally I buy on specifications and requirements, so a free game code is of absolutely NO interest to me whatsoever. But these marketing tricks aren't unique to any one manufacturer, so it's not worth getting hot and bothered about them.

If something seems to good to be true, it probably is.

[Tefno]

As they say, if something is free it means you are the product :-(
Surprised it took them this long to come up with this to be honest

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The problem is that there is no small print talking about what Nvidia gets from you,what companies they will share the data with,if they use external or internal companies to process the data or even an opt out method.

This is what is weird - there is virtually nothing mentioned regarding this on the Nvidia website!

If you look at most market research done in the UK,companies need to provide basic sets of information.

Since,Nvidia is not located in the UK it appears they don't feel bound by it at least with their game offers.

[Agrippa]

I'm fairly sure they're required by EU and most national laws to disclose what happens to the data they collect on you, so presumably the small print will be deployed the moment they receive an official complaint. After all, until someone complains it can't possibly be a problem, right?

[jigger]

Another reason Nvidia! It's all going down in the black book. I'm surprised publishers let Nvidia get away with this.

[Agrippa]

Not going in a book of any colour here. I hate these kinds of practises, but that's just today's morally bankrupt business practises for you. I have exactly zero doubts that Team Red would be happy to do the exact same thing if, like Team Green, they were big enough that pissing off a few customers didn't matter.

[Zak33]

I'm gonna side with Agrippa on this.

I agree that nothing in life us free. But historically a free game with a graphics card was to get you to buy THAT graphics card and not someone else's card.

Brand A was more money...better heatsink
Brand B was cheaper....noisier
Brand C was price of Brand A but came with a free game

You chose

Not at the expense of your gaming history, browsing data and full name and contact details

Ie the cost incurred was money. Yours. Countable. In pounds. Easily quantified. Spent and gone.

Now...thus new offer in my.opinion needs one thing PRIOR to purchase.

Full disclosure PRE spending money on the card.

Was it clear that the free game was at the expense of the steam data share?

If not then it's simply not cricket.

If it was clear... Pre purchase....then buyer beware is legit

Which is it?

[jag272]

Just to offer an alternative viewpoint, though I'm certainly not saying they aren't in fact gathering information, is it not also likely this is a response to the bundled games constantly being sold off cheap on reddit and such? People were selling off Unity for $15 or so for example when it got bundled with GPUs.

[spolsh]

Tend to think jag272 has hit the nail on the head. It's a response to the selling on of games.

[jim]

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't immediately see how this prevents the selling-on of games?

[jag272]

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't immediately see how this prevents the selling-on of games?

Well judging by the sceenshots alone here, it seems as if you have to log in to nvidia to get the link, which then force you to log in to steam and redeems it via the steam website. Its one of the steam website authentications rather than a straight key from what I can see. Therefore to give away/sell the key at the very least you'd have to give them the link that is hidden behind that sign in through steam button, but more likely the buyer would have to log in to your own nvidia account, sign in through their steam in order to get the game.

I may be completely wrong there, I'm judging by the screenshots alone, but it seems theyve moved away from steam keys to authorised redemption through steam itself.

Edit: What I don't know is whether when you authenticate a game like that you can register it as a gift or not. I guess if you can claim it as a gift then the point is moot and you just resell it as a steam gift rather than a key.

[jim]

Thing is, the purchase of the card won't be linked to an email address, NVIDIA account or anything like that. So whatever the URL / claim code etc is, you could give it to the buyer. The only thing I can think is that you might have to upload a PDF of an invoice / receipt to your NVIDIA account, which would mean giving the buyer an invoice of yours. But a lot of people would probably still be OK with that. And I doubt it's the case, anyway.

[jag272]

Ahhh I wasn't aware of how the initial activation goes, never taken part in any of these deals. In that case ye you could just give them the promo code rather than the actual game key.

Only thing they could really do against that is register your warranty under the same key, but then Nvidia themselves arent the ones that handle the RMAs, its whichever manufacturer made the card, so that isn't really in their control to do.

They may still stand to benefit in some of the multi-game promotions, if you wanted one game and not the other, but I haven't seen any of those for a while, they seem to be more AMD's thing.