Published , by Charles Singletary Jr
Published , by Charles Singletary Jr
The game streaming market is gaining momentum via efforts from companies like Sony and NVIDIA but a popular name is scooping their hat up out of the ring. GameFly is set to shut down its streaming service on August 31, 2018.
Variety reported the news, stating that GameFly Streaming accounts will no longer be charged after the closure date. Disc-based game rentals will continue through the mail and there doesn't seem to be any concerns about that business model at the time. GameFly's major competition for physical rentals is GameStop, who did a soft launch of their rental service late last year. Gaming is aggressively moving toward larger hard drives and digital consumption, but there's still a market out for physical content.
EA acquired GameFly's cloud gaming technology assets and personnel, but not the GameFly streaming service directly. In a statement to Variety, an EA spokesperson said, "We acquired the team in Israel and the technology they’ve developed, we did not acquire the Gamefly streaming service. We have not been involved in any decisions around the service."
Sources told Variety that the decision to close the streaming service happened before EA's purchase. Stay tuned to Shacknews, the incredible website that GameFly owned at one point, for more news updates.