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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ToTTenTranz - Friday, May 4, 2018 - link
"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. "Not really. Asus' US and UK website has already taken down the "Arez" graphics cards and Radeon cards can already be found inside the ROG branding.
Within the last few hours, people have been getting ads for the new "Vega ROG" cards.
Gigabyte's website has also reinstated Radeon cards within their Aorus brand.
Kepe - Friday, May 4, 2018 - link
So, instead of "battling misinformation" by showing what the GPP agreement is like, they just canceled the whole thing. This is a clear sign that GPP would've been found illegal.Then they talk about wanting people to be "crystal clear on what they buy". Well then, why does Nvidia have multiple versions of the GTX 1060 with different numbers of cores and two Titan XPs? That doesn't exactly give customers a crystal clear image of what they are buying.
Nvidia also says they spend billions on R&D to keep new tech coming to gamers. If they want to keep new tech coming, then why do they just sit on their asses instead of releasing new architectures? They could've released Volta-based gaming cards last year, but skipped that. Now they're just waiting, doing nothing with Ampere/Turing/whatever. Because they don't have to and all the GPUs they can produce are bought by cryptocurrency miners at ridiculously marked-up prices. How does this show love for the gamers? They couldn't care less who buys their stuff as long as it just sells.
I really wish AMD and Intel could come up with some real competition in the high-end gaming GPU market.
euskalzabe - Saturday, May 5, 2018 - link
Yup.HStewart - Friday, May 4, 2018 - link
This is smart move by NVidia, with the bad press of this program and more important if they loose vender support - they can use their existing support based to continue without loosing customers.They know they have a good based of customers and support for their products - they also aware that they have competition and even though they are the leader in high end - that could change one day especially if venders don't like the policies or even appearance that they wrong.
Tams80 - Friday, May 4, 2018 - link
Great.Really pathetic behaviour by NVIDIA though. Post something general, that seems anti-competitive. Then complain that there is 'mis-information' or even 'lies' going around about it. They only have themselves to blame. The they have/had the cheek to claim they were and are being 'transparent' and care about the consumers.
Utter greedy cretins.
Arbie - Friday, May 4, 2018 - link
How could Mr NVidia Teeple write all that text without a single sincere word? It's quite an accomplishment and may help restore what must be a seriously tarnished reputation. Personally, I hope they fire him.jtd871 - Saturday, May 5, 2018 - link
Like this was all one person's doing - unless that person is Jen-Sen.Arbie - Sunday, May 6, 2018 - link
Like Jen-Sen would take the fall.PeachNCream - Friday, May 4, 2018 - link
Oh gosh that announcement combined with the vague way the program was described initially really does seem to validate a lot of suspicions about why GPP existed. The cancellation was almost akin to a little kid throwing his toys down and saying, "Well, I never wanted to play this stupid game anyway so there!"WereCatf - Saturday, May 5, 2018 - link
"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." -- "You were all right about the GPP and what we were trying to do with it, but we failed and now we'll just try to sweep it all under the rug as quickly and unceremoniously as possible."