NVIDIA Terminates GeForce Partner Program
by Ryan Smith on May 4, 2018 8:00 PM EST
Just as quickly as it came into being, NVIDIA’s GeForce Partner Program has come to an end.
In a short article posted to their website today, NVIDIA’s Director of Product Marketing, John Teeple, announced that the program has been cancelled. In making the unexpected decision, Teeple stated “The rumors, conjecture and mistruths go far beyond its [the GeForce Partner Program’s] intent. Rather than battling misinformation, we have decided to cancel the program” and that “today we are pulling the plug on GPP to avoid any distraction from the super exciting work we’re doing to bring amazing advances to PC gaming.” No further information was provided on just what canceled entails, and what this means for existing program partners.
NVIDIA’s GeForce Partner Program is been divisive, to put it lightly. After news of it broke in March and was confirmed by NVIDIA, the program quickly attracted a good deal of negative attention out of concerns over what it meant for the competitive market, and a general degree of mean spiritedness. Adding fuel to the fire, few details of the program were ever confirmed by NVIDIA – with the company seeing little benefit in doing so – which left a great void open for rumors and unsourced reports of all kinds.
Ultimately NVIDIA’s goal with the program was to more thoroughly isolate its partner ecosystem, in the process ensuring that GeForce-aligned brands were just that: GeForce aligned, and that non-GeForce products weren’t sold under the same brand. NVIDIA cited this as a means of transparency so that consumers could be confident that they were buying GeForce products. In practice, the program left NVIDIA with a credibility problem, and the lack of details means that we’ll likely never know for sure the true extent of NVIDIA’s motivations with the program.
Even with this change, NVIDIA is looking to portray it as a positive (or at least neutral) change, noting that “This is a great time to be a GeForce partner and be part of the fastest growing gaming platform in the world. The GeForce gaming platform is rich with the most advanced technology.” Still, the lack of transparency means that it’s not clear what happens next for NVIDIA, or for that matter their partners who were already participating.
Some partners, particularly industry juggernaut ASUS, had already realigned their brands and had launched their AMD-specific brands, in ASUS’s case the new-yet-old Arez brand. The termination of the GeForce Partner Program presumably leaves the door open to ASUS folding these products back into their existing brands. However what they’ll actually do remains to be seen. It does no doubt bring a sigh of relief to AMD themselves, as AMD stood to be the biggest (corporate) loser as a result of the program, and has been ramping up their own “Freedom of Choice” advertising program.
Ultimately at the end of the day this means that the video card market returns to a state of status quo, at least for however long the newly revived status quo lasts.
Pulling the Plug on GPP, Leaning into GeForce
A lot has been said recently about our GeForce Partner Program. The rumors, conjecture and mistruths go far beyond its intent. Rather than battling misinformation, we have decided to cancel the program.
GPP had a simple goal – ensuring that gamers know what they are buying and can make a clear choice.
NVIDIA creates cutting-edge technologies for gamers. We have dedicated our lives to it. We do our work at a crazy intense level – investing billions to invent the future and ensure that amazing NVIDIA tech keeps coming. We do this work because we know gamers love it and appreciate it. Gamers want the best GPU tech. GPP was about making sure gamers who want NVIDIA tech get NVIDIA tech.
With GPP, we asked our partners to brand their products in a way that would be crystal clear. The choice of GPU greatly defines a gaming platform. So, the GPU brand should be clearly transparent – no substitute GPUs hidden behind a pile of techno-jargon.
Most partners agreed. They own their brands and GPP didn’t change that. They decide how they want to convey their product promise to gamers. Still, today we are pulling the plug on GPP to avoid any distraction from the super exciting work we’re doing to bring amazing advances to PC gaming.
This is a great time to be a GeForce partner and be part of the fastest growing gaming platform in the world. The GeForce gaming platform is rich with the most advanced technology. And with GeForce Experience, it is “the way it’s meant to be played.”
Source: NVIDIA
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Dragonstongue - Saturday, May 5, 2018 - link
they wouldn't want to openly support anyone else's work especially if they have to take a knee to follow AMD way of doing it, if they cannot screw with the software/hardware to give themselves an advantage they want none of it.so many things I can point at to prove what am saying, but they (Nv) as a company are not worth it.
GPP should have never been brought up seeing as they had the program before it was announced under the GPP branding, but, if you didn't sign it and basically give your "gaming brand" Ngreedia exclusivity you lost out on everything they used to give for "free" as a "thank you for helping us to sell our brand"
they really are a POS corporation that takes everyone else's hardwork to pass it off as their own, if it was not for AIB and consumers, they would not even exist, they seem to forget this everytime they sell a more inferior product then they do
(build quality, drive quality control, screwing with software/hardware that equally screws with someone else's product (namely AMD) etc etc etc)
GPP might be "dead" but I seriously doubt the way they do thing (and have always done them) are even remotely close to being over.
Dr. Swag - Friday, May 4, 2018 - link
It's still possible the damage has already been done though. Who knows, Asus may end up continuing with the Arez brand instead...Simon_Says - Friday, May 4, 2018 - link
My gut tells me that seperate branding may actually be a good thing in the long run.JasonMZW20 - Saturday, May 5, 2018 - link
Why?AIB vendors spent time and money building their enthusiast gaming brand image through sponsorships of gaming events (Nvidia believes it's solely because of their GPUs given their narrative - having majority marketshare/mindshare makes that an easy claim to make). Asus was going to align ROG, their most well-known enthusiast brand, with Nvidia. Hijacking an AIB's brand like that with GPP is highly anti-competitive and monopolistic behavior. Nvidia obviously sweetened the pot with priority resources, marketing support, and well, money.
Asus should have given Nvidia cards DOG branding. Dictatorship of Gamers. That's essentially what they represent with GPP and their closed-source middleware like GameWorks, which has almost always negatively impacted AMD GPUs' performance. PhysX could be accelerated on AMD GPUs, but Nvidia will never allow it. G-sync didn't gain standardization from VESA like Freesync did via VRR in HDMI 2.1.
Dividing brands creates a Premium/Generic type of issue and pushes mindshare further into Nvidia's territory. AREZ is unknown; granted it's a few new stickers on the card and a different name on the box as they're currently just renamed from previous ROG offerings; imagine things further down the road when new cards need to be designed. I'd bet AREZ would take a back seat to ROG in build quality. What do most people buy? What they know (or whatever reviewer or tech friend recommends).
Dragonstongue - Saturday, May 5, 2018 - link
I almost agree with this sentiment only for the fact that if Nv wants to play a big douche the AIB should come up with an AMD specific branding for graphics cards and an Nv specific branding for them as well, this way here (possibly) they can really go to town on making them the best they possibly can be to support the companies design as best as possible.Knowing the way Nv has done things since they came into business it would not have surprised me AT ALL if they had in the fine print a specific "branding" such as Asus ROG could not be "better" if it were using Radeon technology than if it were to use Geforce, the proof, look at the crud the pull with every game that comes attached with the "powered by Geforce...the way it is meant to be played" BS.
Sttm - Friday, May 4, 2018 - link
I still do not understand what damage that causes. Its branding! Who buys a GPU because its a ROG, and not because of the chip/cooling?WorldWithoutMadness - Saturday, May 5, 2018 - link
Why do people still buying fancy luxury watches for lots of money when there are better performing watches? and why do people keep on buying one brand rather others? Some still like coke more than pepsi when they can't even tell the difference when blindfolded.Now you ask again that question of yours to yourself.
Peter2k - Saturday, May 5, 2018 - link
If it were a nigliable part of the market then why do other manufacturers feel they need to have a gaming brand, Aorus comes to mind, MSI Gaming SeriesROG is a bit older already
BurntMyBacon - Monday, May 7, 2018 - link
I imagine people buying discrete graphics cards are a little more informed and consequently less effected by branding than those buying gaming laptops/desktops/etc. For this reason, I consider the larger issue the fact that the associated branding could be used to lock out AMD from products beyond just discrete GPUs. ROG branded desktops, laptops, or any other product where nVidia competes were out of bounds for AMD GPUs. Granted AMD didn't have much traction in gaming laptops lately, but it seems particularly questionable to be able to lock them out of ROG branded laptops. ROG actually has a fair amount of traction with people looking for gaming laptops.Tams80 - Friday, May 4, 2018 - link
I hope they don't and then get some compensation from NVIDIA.