Cloud platform GFN.ru will be closed from October 1 and sells equipment

The GFN.ru service, which is part of the SFI holding, which allowed you to run video games without a productive computer, announced its closure. The holding told Kommersant that the servers on which the gaming platform was running have grown in price since they were purchased and now they are planned to be sold. Market participants recognize the relevance of infrastructure expansion, including with the expectation of former GFN.ru users, but doubt the demand for used equipment, sharpened to work with Nvidia software that is currently unavailable in Russia.

Cloud gaming platform GFN.ru (using Nvidia technology) has announced that it will stop working from October 1st. Registration of new customers and sale of subscriptions lasting from 30 to 365 days will cease from September 1st. According to the official statement of GFN.ru, the decision is due to the fact that the company “in the current circumstances cannot provide the quality of service that it has established for itself.”

The service management is considering the possibility of selling server equipment on the company’s balance sheet, SFI told Kommersant: “It is in great demand on the market today, and its current price significantly exceeds the cost at which the equipment was purchased.”

A Kommersant source familiar with the situation connected the closure of GFN.ru with the inability to switch to new software (software) necessary for streaming games using GeForce NOW technology. Such a transition, according to him, is provided for by the agreement between Nvidia and Microsoft, which was announced in February and which implies the publication of Xbox games in similar services: “The new software is not available to GFN.ru, and the technology will not work with the old one.”

The SFI press service clarified that the decision to close GFN.ru “came from the management of the service and was due to the reasons indicated in their statement.” GFN.ru did not respond to Kommersant’s request, Pavel Troitsky, the executive director of the service, declined to comment.

GFN.ru began operations in 2019, 51% of its legal entity (Region Estate LLC) belongs to SFI, 49% to Mr. Troitsky. The net loss of the company for 2022 amounted to 411.6 million rubles, the proceeds from the sale – 248.3 million rubles. Nvidia announced the cessation of deliveries of its equipment to Russia shortly after the start of the military operation in Ukraine (see “Kommersant” dated March 6, 2022), and later stopped renewing server software licenses (see “Kommersant” dated July 1, 2022).

The demand for cloud gaming services in Russia is growing, says Roman Epishin, head of marketing for VK Play Cloud: “Our plans are to increase the user base and hardware capacities of VK Play Cloud. But it is still premature to talk about the need for GFN.ru equipment.”

MTS Cloud Gaming Director Ilya Tselikov expects an overflow of users to MTS Fog Play and is working on expanding computing power: “But we are focusing on the sharing model (using the power of user computers.— “b”), which means that you need ordinary gaming hardware. ”

GFN.ru equipment is designed to work with technologies that Nvidia no longer licenses in Russia, Loudplay founder Vitaly Starodubov explains the doubts of potential buyers: “It is possible to use it without Nvidia software tools, but not very effective.” According to him, in the event of a sale, the owners of GFN.ru can take advantage of the fact that the equipment is already physically located in Russia, and at the same time set a price based on goods imported through parallel imports.

However, adds Mr. Starodubov, the question of depreciation and obsolescence of equipment arises: “The depreciation rate for such equipment is usually three years. GFN.ru proceeded from the fact that, since it was sufficiently high-performance at the time of purchase, its useful life could be set at five years. Questions may also be caused by the suitability of equipment for use in the industrial sector, says Pavel Kulakov, CEO of the Oxygen cloud provider. According to him, “usually such solutions are not popular.”

Yuri Litvinenko, Yulia Tishina