Feb 03, 2017 05:21 AM EST By Jordan Pine, UniversityHerald Reporter

The GeForce Experience app has recently required a login and now adds hardware verification in redeeming game codes bundled in buying GTX 1070 or 1080 graphics cards. The GFE app has long been the subject of bashing and heated arguments because of various issues like install failure, crashes, and automatic optimization.

For every purchase of NVIDIA's graphics card, the consumer gets free codes for a particular game currently part of the promotion. The latest NVIDIA bundled game offers "For Honor" with the purchase of the GTX 1070 and "Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands" for GTX 1080.

Previously, buyers of the graphics cards were able to enjoy a tiny bit of discount from the resale of the game codes they received for free. Game codes resale has been a long-standing cottage industry in the gaming community where players often trade, give away or resell the codes.

Now, NVIDIA is putting a stop on these game codes resale by imposing stricter measures. Game codes can only be redeemed through the GFE app account, which will then direct it to the right third-party stores like STEAM or UPlay.

In addition, NVIDIA has imposed a hardware verification step to ensure that only the purchaser will get to redeem the code. In this way, the coupon is redeemed along with the qualifying GPU.

However, the code is not tied-in to a specific serial number, but to a wider product range. This could mean that players may still be able to sell the game codes to buyers with the same product, according to Engadget.

The reason that NVIDIA imposed this hardware check is to avert the recent fiasco where game codes were redeemed but the cards were returned. Now the codes can only be redeemed through the GFE app, the latest version of which requires a login.

 According to a NVIDIA spokesman, the login is what establishes the link between a particular user's system to the rest of the GeForce community. It is also the same connection that enables streaming from the PC to Shield as well as in redeeming rewards, Ars Technica reported.

The spokesman added that the app has nothing to do with spying, which is one of many complaints by the app users. To start, installing the app has been known to fail repeatedly. The app is slow, often crashes and takes a long time loading.

Redditors have found common issues on "Shadowplay" like hard to locate, its simple screen goes into full-screen mode, and streaming takes a heavy toll on the SSDs. For some gamers, the GeForce Experience app can be a nuisance, a weak link to an already strong line of hardware products.

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