Nvidia's Killer Gaming App Is About To Be Far Worse

It may not be a great time to be a gamer. As cloud gaming has become a popular option for those without a high-end rig, at least one company is making changes that many hope won't become a trend among other services offering similar services. For those who use it, Nvidia's GeForce NOW can be good for playing Fortnite on your iPhone, but the company is finally applying an old policy to most of its users, which may make things harder for those who love staying glued to the screen.

Released all the way back in 2018 as a beta streaming service for slower machines, Nvidia's GeForce NOW is a cloud gaming platform that lets gamers play hardware-intensive titles on an assortment of potentially underpowered devices. In 2024, the company announced that new subscribers would have a 100-hour time limit each month, and now this rule is essentially being applied to all subscribers at the start of the year, with one exception for certain accounts.

Though customers on the platform before the 2024 news were given over a year to prepare, Nvidia's timing couldn't be worse for some, as it arrives at a time when AI is making it quite difficult for many to build a new computer. While Nvidia claims this will only affect a fraction of active users — and likely casual gamers won't be affected — it nonetheless has many people across the internet searching for alternatives.

Nvidia is no stranger to making changes to its cloud-gaming service, GeForce NOW. In February 2024, the company began showing ads to free users before they started playing, with Nvidia claiming this would help support the service while reducing the time free players had to wait. Now, the company is making another change.

Unless you have a Founders membership — that is, a special account purchased before March 17, 2021 — both the $9.99 per month Performance tier and the $19.99 Ultimate tier accounts will have 100-hour limits starting January 1, 2026. Users who exceed this limit can purchase additional time in 15-hour increments, priced at $2.99 per block for Performance users and $5.99 for Ultimate users. Unused hours carry over to the next month, but max out at 15. Founding Members who cancel their account will no longer have unlimited access. Those with free accounts will continue to be limited to 1-hour time limits.

Given that the price of RAM is already going to make your next computer cost a lot more thanks to AI, it really doesn't help things that Nvidia has discontinued support for some of its most popular graphics cards as well, which are also likely to increase in price alongside solid-state drives (SSDs) in 2026. It's a sticky situation for those looking to game, yet Nvidia claims the new 100-hour cap will affect only 6% of its user base. However, many may still be looking for cloud gaming alternatives, such as Xbox Cloud Gaming, Amazon Luna, or Shadow PC, which at least give gamers options.