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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cocochanel - Saturday, May 5, 2018 - link
What should really scare us is the cynicism behind Nvidia's thinking. Sure, it's nice to know that GPP failed. But I doubt that they won't try another devious scheme in the future. On the software side, they have been doing it for years:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7fA_JC_R5s
I really hope Intel will go after them. They have the financial muscle and the engineering needed. AMD doesn't have that.
Don't get me wrong, Nvidia makes good cards. But that is as far as it goes.
My next gaming machine will be AMD based. A Ryzen 2 with an AMD card and FreeSync monitor.
Hurt them where it counts.
MrSpadge - Saturday, May 5, 2018 - link
"The rumors, conjecture and mistruths go far beyond its intent."they may go beyond the "intent" of the program, but not against the facts in the contract, doesn't it? Otherwise it would have been easy to counteract the issue by publishing the contracts when first news arrived.
AnnonymousCoward - Saturday, May 5, 2018 - link
"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 yet you can't even support the VESA sync standard! Pathetic. If you actually wanted to dedicate your life to me, the gamer, you'd allow my GTX 1070 to output frames in sync with my 43" 4K monitor that supports VESA Adaptive-Sync.
wr3zzz - Sunday, May 6, 2018 - link
Before we all pad ourselves on the back for getting Nvidia to "listen", the likely reason that GPP is out is because companies like Asus showed how pathetic the idea was in the first place. Nvidia was basically paying for a few letters that Asus will just replace in their AMD boxes. Nvidia cannot legally force Asus not to build AMD cards.Peter2k - Monday, May 7, 2018 - link
The outcome of GPP to just rebrand AMD cards was so obvious I'm sure Nvidia knew.Maybe they didn't care, they do have the cash to burn, as long as it's just not the same brand as Nvidias.
Also
Nvidia can't force Asus from staying away from AMD, but they can make sure Asus doesn't get Nvidia hardware.
That was the crux of the GPP program.
Vendors would lose "first priority" status if they don't follow.
willis936 - Tuesday, May 8, 2018 - link
According to gamers' nexus it seems more likely that the actual goal of GPP was try to box Intel/AMD out of the laptop dGPU space since the new Intel/Vega package is very competitive. Companies don't care about gamers. They're a tiny, high margin segment. Companies make money on volume. GPP wasn't made for you or ASUS, it was made for Dell.just4U - Sunday, May 6, 2018 - link
Well.. we've seen similar stuff like this before out of Nvidia and I am sure it ticks them off to no end seeing Motherboard Manufacturers putting the emphasis on their built up brands rather than the chip inside.. Pretty sure they'd like it if there was more exclusivity like they have with Evga or Amd has with Sapphire.. but that was always a mixed bag as some of those partners no longer exist and big guns like XFX which used to be major players with Nvidia cards walked away or shut down.jwcalla - Monday, May 7, 2018 - link
What a big nothingburger.Gunbuster - Tuesday, May 8, 2018 - link
I see this as a severe blow to graphic designers who were hoping to design terrible new mascots for all the spin-off AMD gaming brands that were in the pipeline... RIP Arez chicken0ldman79 - Tuesday, May 8, 2018 - link
If Nvidia really wanted to make the video card industry less confusing to the victims... er, customers, why don't they change the names of the new 1030 with DDR3 and the 1060 3GB and 1060 6GB?