nVidia GeForce Partner Program: Well Intention Marketing or Anti-Competitive

[pas008]

8 minutes ago, XenosTech said:

As a company you can not engage in practices that will hurt or block the sales of your competitors. I.E You can't offer incentives that will cause retailers or AIB to only sell your products etc. Pretty sure your country has laws against that kind of practices 

so great valu branded products are illegal too?

along with wal-xxxx stuff from walgreens?

 

having a brand name divided from your competitors isnt the same

and what are the incentives? please list them oh cross communication that is what a partnership is lol

[hobobobo]

44 minutes ago, pas008 said:

they arent holding hostage they just dont need to be part of the program

wow can you read?

Well, they are. There is a list of things they are holding hostage, they are clearly written in the part describing what is refused to the partners opting out of the program, i.e high-effort engineering engagements -- early tech engagement -- launch partner status -- game bundling -- sales rebate programs -- social media and PR support -- marketing reports -- Marketing Development Funds (MDF), most of them are currently provided in some form or another to the partners

[XenosTech]

2 minutes ago, pas008 said:

so great valu branded products are illegal too?

along with wal-xxxx stuff from walgreens?

 

having a brand name divided from your competitors isnt the same

and what are the incentives? please list them oh cross communication that is what a partnership is lol

Things like offering a larger discount to a company A instead of company B because company B is selling products from your competitor along side yours whereas company A is just out right selling your product only because of the larger discount you are giving them.

 

Offering priority support to companies because one sells exclusively your products while the other sells your and the competitors.

 

All of that kind of stuff is illegal.

[pas008]

1 minute ago, XenosTech said:

Things like offering a larger discount to a company A instead of company B because company B is selling products from your competitor along side yours whereas company A is just out right selling your product only because of the larger discount you are giving them.

 

Offering priority support to companies because one sells exclusively your products while the other sells your and the competitors.

 

All of that kind of stuff is illegal.

read up on partnerships please do

they have option to be one or not

 

wow

remember they are distributing a nvidia product

[XenosTech]

Just now, pas008 said:

read up on partnerships please do

they have option to be one or not

 

wow

[hobobobo]

40 minutes ago, pas008 said:

they arent holding hostage they just dont need to be part of the program

wow can you read?

Oh yeah, and another thing. Imagine Asus joining the program and making ROG their AMD line-up and making some new brand name for NV products. Sadly, without the text of the program its hard to say for sure, but based on what ive read so far its not gonna fly. NV wants Strix/ROG/whatever to be basically a subbrand of GeForce

[pas008]

8 minutes ago, XenosTech said:

no you think all products should be labeled the same

all doritos and knock offs shall have the same name

same with brake pads/etc

nvidia is offering a partnership for their own sub brand name big fucking deal

8 minutes ago, hobobobo said:

Oh yeah, and another thing. Imagine Asus joining the program and making ROG their AMD line-up and making some new brand name for NV products. Sadly, without the text of the program its hard to say for sure, but based on what ive read so far its not gonna fly. NV wants Strix/ROG/whatever to be basically a subbrand of GeForce

you can jump to conclusions but they are manufacturing a nvidia based product

and read above

 

wow I find it funny you guys are getting your panties in a bunch over a gaming label change if they want to be part of the program

 

in all this nvidia could just say fuck it and drop anyone not in the program

its their product

[hobobobo]

1 minute ago, pas008 said:

you can jump to conclusions but they are manufacturing a nvidia based product

and read above

 

wow I find it funny you guys are getting your panties in a bunch over a gaming label change if they want to be part of the product

The problem is not offering partnership for their gaming line of GPUs, its exclusivity clause for the partners gaming line-up, which turns the partners brand into nvidias subbrand. Chips is shitty analogy, its reversed. Its not kwik stating to the factory which produces shittons of other crunchy potato circles that all of them henceforth gotta be name kwik, its the factory telling kwik that if they want to retain current level of service, and gain some additional perks, they gotta rename all their products into "Factoryname" Kwik chips, and, god forbid, they find another manufacturer for the potato circles, they are not allowed to be called Kwik.

[pas008]

Just now, hobobobo said:

The problem is not offering partnership for their gaming line of GPUs, its exclusivity clause for the partners gaming line-up, which turns the partners brand into nvidias subbrand. Chips is shitty analogy, its reversed. Its not kwik stating to the factory which produces shittons of other crunchy potato circles that all of them henceforth gotta be name kwik, its the factory telling kwik that if they want to retain current level of service, and gain some additional perks, they gotta rename all their products into "Factoryname" Kwik chips, and, god forbid, they find another manufacturer for the potato circles, they are not allowed to be called Kwik.

lol nvidia wants their own gaming brand from each vendor there is nothing wrong with that plain and simple

they have a right to, its their product

not sure if you work in manufacturing but when we build something for another company that isnt ours we dont own shit of that product its their design specs name etc

and its made here right where their competitors shit is made too

 

wow

 

[leadeater]

45 minutes ago, pas008 said:

what are you talking about many companies force vendors and manufacturers to use their label even when made in same fucking building as the competitor

That sounds like you are talking about a manufacturer making products by production contract for a company i.e. Gaming chairs. There's a lot of brands selling the same chair, literally the same chair. The manufacturing company is fulfilling an order of a product for a company and part of that order is to put the branding of said company on said chairs.

 

This is not the same thing as what is being proposed by GPP.

 

This would be a chair design company creating a design for a chair and allowing multiple manufacturing companies to produce the chair, licensing that design to those companies. But wait there's a partnership program you can join, by choice, that gets you access to the designs as they are being created and the design company provides you assistance in making sure your automated production line can produce the chairs correctly ahead of product release. However the requirements to be part of the program are that if you manufacture any other companies chair designs you cannot put any premium branding on those chairs or you cannot be part of the partnership program.

 

Ok so you decide not to be part of the partnership program, the design company releases a product and sends you the designs. You aren't ready to fulfill any production orders for any company that wants that product off you but other competing manufacturing companies can because they are members of the partnership program, well guess what you just lost a contract to another company, one that will likely be renewed and you many never get that client again unless other partner manufacturers cannot fulfill production orders.

 

That partnership program is directly effecting your business either by forcing you to be part of it, there by hurting your business relationship with other design companies or you are not part of it meaning you lose out on both manufacturing orders for that companies designs and you don't get the same support as others are. You lose out with either option.

[hobobobo]

7 minutes ago, pas008 said:

lol nvidia wants their own gaming brand from each vendor there is nothing wrong with that plain and simple

they have a right to, its their product

not sure if you work in manufacturing but when we build something for another company that isnt ours we dont own shit of that product its their design specs name etc

and its made here right where their competitors shit is made too

 

wow

 

Honestly, im not sure wether you are intentionally dancing around the problem or just plain refuse to see it. It is a problem that they want their own line-up from other manufacturers, after they sell the chip to OEM they got no say in what happens to it after. If Asus wants, although theyll probably have to revise their contracts, they can name GeForce 1060 whatever the fuck they want, Asus ROG MEGAVIDEOCARD FOR GAMES BUT NOT SO MEGA, for example. NVidia already got their own brand, which is reference cards. Now they want all of oems gaming brands to be their own subbrands, which is not ok, esp when they hold hostage most of support currently provided to the vendors. Sprinkling new names for the already existing services and adding some other minor perks and calling it a program doesnt magically make it ok.

 

And another thing, imma try to make it as clear as day:

 

IT STOPS BEING THEIR PRODUCT AFTER THEY SELL IT TO OEM OR AIB

[XenosTech]

15 minutes ago, pas008 said:

no you think all products should be labeled the same

all doritos and knock offs shall have the same name

same with brake pads/etc

nvidia is offering a partnership for their own sub brand name big fucking deal

you can jump to conclusions but they are manufacturing a nvidia based product

and read above

No, I think companies like Nvidia shouldn't be tell me how to brand my products to make me money and they shouldn't be leaving me out in the cold just because I don't want to exclusively sell their product under my premium brand.

 

[pas008]

5 minutes ago, leadeater said:

That sounds like you are talking about a manufacturer making products by production contract for a company i.e. Gaming chairs. There's a lot of brands selling the same chair, literally the same chair. The manufacturing company is fulfilling an order of a product for a company and part of that order is to put the branding of said company on said chairs.

 

This is not the same thing as what is being proposed by GPP.

 

This would be a chair design company creating a design for a chair and allowing multiple manufacturing companies to produce the chair, licensing that design to those companies. But wait there's a partnership program you can join, by choice, that gets you access to the designs as they are being created and the design company provides you assistance in making sure your automated production line can produce the chairs correctly ahead of product release. However the requirements to be part of the program are that if you manufacture any other companies chair designs you cannot put any premium branding on those chairs or you cannot be part of the partnership program.

 

Ok so you decide not to be part of the partnership program, the design company releases a product and sends you the designs. You aren't ready to fulfill any production orders for any company that wants that product off you but other competing manufacturing companies can because they are members of the partnership program, well guess what you just lost a contract to another company, one that will likely be renewed and you many never get that client again unless other partner manufacturers cannot fulfill production orders.

 

That partnership program is directly effecting your business either by forcing you to be part of it, there by hurting your business relationship with other design companies or you are not part of it meaning you lose out on both manufacturing orders for that companies designs and you don't get the same support as others are. You lose out with either option.

oh cause they wont change the name of a product they dont own?

lol

what do you think corsair does, buys chips/ip/etc and produces products where competition gets theirs

but they get to put their name on it according to their contract

if these companies want that same right they could offer a contract too

simple as that

to me it seems like nvidia just wants to be separated under the same gaming sub brand

 

[pas008]

8 minutes ago, hobobobo said:

Honestly, im not sure wether you are intentionally dancing around the problem or just plain refuse to see it. It is a problem that they want their own line-up from other manufacturers, after they sell the chip to OEM they got no say in what happens to it after. If Asus wants, although theyll probably have to revise their contracts, they can name GeForce 1060 whatever the fuck they want, Asus ROG MEGAVIDEOCARD FOR GAMES BUT NOT SO MEGA, for example. NVidia already got their own brand, which is reference cards. Now they want all of oems gaming brands to be their own subbrands, which is not ok, esp when they hold hostage most of support currently provided to the vendors. Sprinkling new names for the already existing services and adding some other minor perks and calling it a program doesnt magically make it ok.

 

And another thing, imma try to make it as clear as day:

 

IT STOPS BEING THEIR PRODUCT AFTER THEY SELL IT TO OEM OR AIB

depends on the contract and i dont think nvidia has ever given up any rights cause we would be seeing asus drivers for xx product

 

im not sure but many people seem to love their rog/strix/etc here

like its end of the world if another god damn sub brand comes out

[leadeater]

9 minutes ago, pas008 said:

oh cause they wont change the name of a product they dont own?

lol

what do you think corsair does, buys chips/ip/etc and produces products where competition gets theirs

but they get to put their name on it according to their contract

if these companies want that same right they could offer a contract too

simple as that

to me it seems like nvidia just wants to be separated under the same gaming sub brand

 

You didn't actually understand what I wrote or the issue. You can't violate a contract, to be part of GPP you have to sign a contract and part of that contract restricts the branding you can use for competitors product designs.

 

Only Nvidia products can carry any branding that contains the words gaming, so you can't have an AMD gaming GPU.

 

You can't just do what ever you want when you have contractual obligations you must meet. You also cannot sign contracts that violate another meaning you can't sign one that stipulates that you must name the products with gaming in the name if you have already signed one with a clause in it requiring you to only use the word gaming on their product.

 

You seem to be under the impression companies can just do what ever they like regardless of contracts the have signed.

 

Edit:

Not that this has actually been proven to be true, this is if it were true.

Edited March 12, 2018 by leadeater

[XenosTech]

1 minute ago, leadeater said:

You seem to be under the impression companies can just do what every they like regardless of contracts the have signed.

I think they're trolling at this point

[pas008]

3 minutes ago, leadeater said:

You didn't actually understand what I wrote or the issue. You can't violate a contract, to be part of GPP you have to sign a contract and part of that contract restricts the branding you can use for competitors product designs.

 

Only Nvidia products can carry any branding that contains the words gaming, so you can't have an AMD gaming GPU.

 

You can't just do what every you want when you have contractual obligations you must meet. You also cannot sign contracts that violate another meaning you can't sign one that stipulates that you must name the products with gaming in the name if you have already signed one with a clause in it requiring you to only use the word gaming on their product.

 

You seem to be under the impression companies can just do what every they like regardless of contracts the have signed.

where does it say amd cant have a gaming product?

they jsut dont want the same gaming sub brand

What would it mean to have your "Gaming Brand Aligned Exclusively With GeForce?" The example that will likely resonate best with HardOCP readers is the ASUS Republic of Gamers brand. I have no knowledge if ASUS is a GPP partner, I am simply using the ROG brand hypothetically. If ASUS is an NVIDIA GPP partner, and it wants to continue to use NVIDIA GPUs in its ROG branded video cards, computers, and laptops, it can no longer sell any other company's GPUs in ROG products. So if ASUS want to keep building NVIDIA-based ROG video cards, it can no longer sell AMD-based ROG video cards, and be a GPP partner.

[hobobobo]

3 minutes ago, pas008 said:

depends on the contract and i dont think nvidia has ever given up any rights cause we would be seeing asus drivers for xx product

Drivers are part of the product sold to oem/aib, without they the die is just useless piece of silicon and metal. And partners do have their own software for the gpus, like aorus graphic engine or rog gpu tweak.

 

Another good example to what you are saying is Qualcomm. If QCOM suddenly tells all the oems that their new phones gotta be exclusively part of their branding if they want access to their latest and greatest, ie samsung cant make Galaxy phones with anything but QCOM chips in them, a shitshow gonna ensue

[pas008]

Just now, hobobobo said:

Drivers are part of the product sold to oem/aib, without they the die is just useless piece of silicon and metal. And partners do have their own software for the gpus, like aorus graphic engine or rog gpu tweak.

 

Another good example to what you are saying is Qualcomm. If QCOM suddenly tells all the oems that their new phones gotta be exclusively part of their branding if they want access to their latest and greatest, ie samsung cant make Galaxy phones with anything but QCOM chips in them, a shitshow gonna ensue

oh wow qualcomm isnt offering the complete design on the galaxy phone

wow

[leadeater]

6 hours ago, pas008 said:

where does it say amd cant have a gaming product?

On 3/9/2018 at 11:04 AM, WMGroomAK said:

The crux of the issue with NVIDIA GPP comes down to a single requirement in order to be part of GPP. In order to have access to the GPP program, its partners must have its "Gaming Brand Aligned Exclusively With GeForce." I have read documents with this requirement spelled out on it.

Here from the original post and article. That being said we can't see the source documentation by Nvidia to confirm exactly what is said on it.

 

Any gaming aligned branding that Asus, EVGA, MSI etc have can only be used for Nvidia products if they are a GPP member if this is true. These companies already have gaming brand aligned products for AMD and other companies, not just Nvidia. 

[hobobobo]

Just now, pas008 said:

oh wow qualcomm isnt offering the complete design on the galaxy phone

wow

well, nvidia is not offering the complete design of gpu either. All the OEM and AIB gpus are different in alot of ways, the most basic one being power delivery, others are interaction with all the other system parts

 

And btw, QCOM also produces reference devices, which can be considered a complete design on offer, like this thing QRD 845 https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Processors/Qualcomm-Snapdragon-845-Mobile-Platform-Performance-Preview

[pas008]

2 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Here here from the original post and article. That being said we can't see the source documentation by Nvidia to confirm exactly what is said on it.

 

Any gaming aligned branding that Asus, EVGA, MSI etc have can only be used for Nvidia products if they are a GPP member if this is true. These companies already have gaming brand aligned products for AMD and other companies, not just Nvidia. 

yes must name nvidia products with own sub name

 

wow is everyone getting butthurt over a new naming scheme that should have happened long ago

[leadeater]

6 minutes ago, pas008 said:

I have no knowledge if ASUS is a GPP partner, I am simply using the ROG brand hypothetically. If ASUS is an NVIDIA GPP partner, and it wants to continue to use NVIDIA GPUs in its ROG branded video cards, computers, and laptops, it can no longer sell any other company's GPUs in ROG products. So if ASUS want to keep building NVIDIA-based ROG video cards, it can no longer sell AMD-based ROG video cards, and be a GPP partner.

You don't see this as an issue and anti competitive. You don't see how that can directly impact other companies and the product perception making anything not Nvidia appear as a less quality product?

 

You exactly nailed the issue right there but then say it's not a problem. Nvidia should not be able to dictate how another company markets it's own products like that. 

[pas008]

1 minute ago, hobobobo said:

well, nvidia is not offering the complete design of gpu either. All the OEM and AIB gpus are different in alot of ways, the most basic one being power delivery, others are interaction with all the other system parts

 

And btw, QCOM also produces reference devices, which can be considered a complete design on offer, like this thing QRD 845 https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Processors/Qualcomm-Snapdragon-845-Mobile-Platform-Performance-Preview

yes they have reference design always first everyone knows this, then they allow others to do what they wish

titan is clear example of this

 

[pas008]

Just now, leadeater said:

You don't see this as an issue and anti competitive. You don't see how that can directly impact other companies and the product perception making anything not Nvidia appear as a less quality product?

 

You exactly nailed the issue right there but then say it's not a problem. Nvidia should not be able to dictate how another company markets it's own products like that. 

but its a nvidia product though plain and simple