Nvidia has begun locking games bundled with its GeForce graphics products in an effort to prevent customers from trading or reselling them. Nvidia has moved to stop its customers giving away or selling bundled games, adding technological measures to back up its existing terms and conditions forbidding such activity.
When you buy a high-end graphics card, it’s usual to get a game or two thrown your way by way of reward. For the graphics card manufacturers, it’s a way to differentiate themselves from the competition and piggyback on popular game launches; for the game publishers, a means of increasing units sold at zero effort — albeit at a lower profit than retail would bring. For some customers, though, the bundled games aren’t a mere bonus but a discount waiting to happen: Game codes are frequently split out from the hardware with which they were supplied and traded or sold for a profit, especially in the cases of buyers picking up multiple GPUs for an SLI/CrossFire setup — because who needs three copies of a game?
Previously, both AMD and Nvidia have largely turned a blind eye to such activity: It’s expressly forbidden in the terms and conditions of the offer, but it’s a rule that has never been enforced — up to now.
