GeForce NOW's new Cloud Playtest feature is built for game developers

At the Game Developers Conference (GDC) currently underway in San Francisco, NVIDIA has announced a new developer-focused feature for its GeForce NOW cloud streaming service. Cloud Playtest gives developers and publishers a way to securely conduct internal, external, and even press-related playtests covering early internal tests, quality assurance, and hands-on media events.

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This is something NVIDIA has been developing for a while. During our pre-brief with representatives, Cloud Playtest is already being used by developers and publishers such as 2K, Activision, Bethesda, Frontier, Techland, Ubisoft, Warner Bros. Games, and even Xbox Game Studios.

NVIDIA has confirmed that the service is already being used for playtests for games that are still two or three years out from release, with Cloud Playtest democratizing the idea of testing and even quality assurance by giving testers access to ready-to-go builds playable on a wide range of GeForce RTX hardware, including GeForce NOW pods with up to GeForce RTX 5080 levels of performance.

In addition to offering developers and publishers a global tool for testing builds, the Cloud Playtest can also capture gameplay, webcam input, and data like controller input and rendering information. NVIDIA also confirms that Cloud Playtest could be used for optimization, with the GeForce team available to assist or collaborate early to enhance and optimize drivers ahead of release.

GeForce NOW Cloud Playtest is an impressive developer-forward feature of NVIDIA's cloud gaming platform, and it's likely to grow in popularity as remote work and development teams based in different cities and countries continue to collaborate. And with games set to use the platform that are years from release, NVIDIA is working with developers to ensure privacy and security concerns are addressed through measures like encryption and codenames.