Nvidia set hopes for a hot man earlier this month when a leaked database of GeForce Now “unveiled” games including Titanfall 3, Half-Life 2 remaster, and the PC version of God of War.
Nvidia quickly shot it all, however, saying the topics in question were considered, “tracking and internal testing.”
It may be, in other words, developers need local operators to test a variety of performance and decide to have fun with them.
Using internal jokes for internal auditing purposes is a risky business – there is a popular article in a local newspaper published in one of the “dirty” jokes you might think is a basic lesson on the dangers of such things – but in this case, it all seemed harmless: Nvidia explained the situation, 343 Industries told us (again) that Halo 5 does not come to the PC, and that was the end of it.
But now the interest continues again thanks to Ubisoft, which issued a notice to downgrade the DMCA to SteamDB operator Pavel Djundik, who had a copy of the list at Github.
Djundik removed the list as requested, however many copies of the list were sent elsewhere on the site, with links shared soon after Djundik’s removal.
Because Ubisoft is the only publisher that makes audio, attention quickly shifted to Ubisoft’s topics in the list.
Most of them are released games, but a few are very surprising:
- Project Meteor
- Project Q
- Project Over
- Project Orlando
These are far from the only “Project” name codes in the list in fact, they appear more than 300 times, although most of the entries are duplicates. 505 games have something called Project Pugwash, for example, while Bohemia Interactive has Project PadThai and Microsoft has Project Holland, Typhoon, and Woodstock.
But it is an effort to bring down the list that is really interesting, as it has led some to wonder why Ubisoft is so eager to leave. It’s a very close example of the Streisand Effect – where you’re trying to hide something, that’s where people know – and people are talking about it now.
Projects Over and Q remain a mystery, but according to Reddit (via Eurogamer), Project Orlando could be Drew 2 for Crew 2, while Meteor appears to be Assassin’s Creed Valhalla DLC.
In general, a reduction notice can be seen as confirming at least some of the topics in the open database: Why bother asking the DMCA to deal with a non-existent list? Plus, it also makes sense (for me, at least) to wonder why the list will have codenames in the first place.
After all, when I’m having fun with a “imaginary” list of games that no one will ever see, I sharpen the fence: Half-Life 3, Left 4 Dead 3, Portal 3, Team Fortress 3 – well, you get the idea.
I contacted Ubisoft to inquire about the DMCA reduction notice, and I will review it when I get a response.
