nVidia ends GeForce Partner Program

[WMGroomAK]

In a blog post today, nVidia has announced that they are ending the GeForce Partners Program (GPP) and 'leaning into GeForce'.  Essentially, nVidia is sticking with what they stated was the original goal of GPP as having been correct, however have recognized all of the 'rumors, conjecture and mistruths' about the program and decided to end it.  I have a feeling that this is their personal PR spin on the controversy and they may have also had some lawyers come back and say they were skirting too close to a grey legal area.

 

https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2018/05/04/gpp/

Quote

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.”

Hot Hardware Article:  https://hothardware.com/news/nvidia-ends-geforce-partner-program

 

I'm guessing that Kyle over at HardOCP will not be on nVidia's Christmas list anytime soon ...  Now the question will be whether some of the AIB card partners that were beginning to create AMD specific brands pull those back to add AMD cards back into their main gaming brands or whether they are kept separate.

[The Benjamins]

Good

[Notional]

And just after all vendors have either stripped their branding from AMD cards or made new branding outright. The damage is done you anticompetitive twats.

[dizmo]

Riiiight. They just got caught trying to jam their hand in the cookie jar, and now they want to try and save face. 

[Tieox]

 

That is all.

[Silentprototipe]

Oh shit! We did it bois! 

 

PS: This is definitely going to be the biggest news on the WAN show  

[AlTech]

Hooray .

 

Unfortunately we all know this is because Nvidia were getting bad press and cos the word was getting out as to exactly what kind of programme Nvidia was really running. The GPU mafia isn't over but now at least it's stoppable.

[Nowak]

We did it, Reddit!

[seon123]

14 minutes ago, WMGroomAK said:

GPP had a simple goal – ensuring that gamers know what they are buying and can make a clear choice.

And by this they mean

Quote

GPP had a simple goal – ensuring that clueless gamers know that they are buying an nVidia GPU

 

Unfortunately, they have already done some damage, with some rebrands. Nvidia is still on my naughty list. 

[Cheezdoodlez]

Gonna be interesting to see if Arez will be rolled out or if Asus is gonna silently revert the rebranding.

 

/tinfoil hat mode on

A part of me suspect this will mean nothing more than GPP is dead on paper but in reality it's still very much alive. I mean they did come to an agreement with the big brands, I have a hard time seeing that these agreements just went out the window..

[Anult]

Quote

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.

Some of those rumours must have been true if it was easier to bail out instead of fighting them, NVIDIA.

 

Pulling GPP won't stop the snowball effect from this debacle anyway.

[asus killer]

16 minutes ago, Notional said:

And just after all vendors have either stripped their branding from AMD cards or made new branding outright. The damage is done you anticompetitive twats.

yep, the damage is done in my perspective. Ending it for real was reverting the changes already made.

[DocSwag]

So what's gonna happen? Are people like MSI and Gigabyte going to re-roll out the branding? Is Asus gonna get rid of Arez?!?

[Starelementpoke]

Well, that was fast.

[Master Disaster]

[Master Disaster]

2 minutes ago, huilun02 said:

Let me guess, this is just to cover their ass from lawsuits they know they can't win. And companies who went with the program will still mysteriously not market AMD graphics on their gaming lineup.

They haven't covered their asses from anything, they still rolled the program out, signed up partners and enforced their policies.

 

Ending something illegal doesn't absolve you from doing the illegal thing.

[agent_x007]

Quote

Gamers want the best GPU tech.

True, however best GPU for gamers, isn't the best you can sell (GTX 1080 Ti < Titan XP).

The way it's meant to be played ?

More like : 
The way You are meant to be played.
(by NV)

[Bcat00]

We will see with time.

 

I personally feel like they got what they wanted already and the brands will segregate the two companies regardless of contract to get on their good side.

 

And Honestly, this should've been the way to go with from the get go in my opinion. No company likes to have their products mixed with another companies so instead of blaming nvidea, im blaming the AIB for this,

 

[Gullerback]

something tells me they'll try again in secret.  It already sorta worked, Asus isn't gona scrap this new line just cause GPP is gone

[Misanthrope]

This is better than not ending it don't get me wrong, but if the damage was done it's probably already done.

[Master Disaster]

36 minutes ago, Bcat00 said:

We will see with time.

 

I personally feel like they got what they wanted already and the brands will segregate the two companies regardless of contract to get on their good side.

 

And Honestly, this should've been the way to go with from the get go in my opinion. No company likes to have their products mixed with another companies so instead of blaming nvidea, im blaming the AIB for this,

 

So are you going to pay for the marketing required to split cards into separate lines? Think about it, AIBs would have to come up with separate brand names, design box art, advertising, pay for printing etc.

 

Plus AIBs probably don't want to split lines anyway, customers see ROG they know it's ASUS, Gaming is MSI, AOROS is Gigabyte. When customers go into shops and see new lines they might not associate the brand with the new name.

 

Brand recognition is everything.

[balderm]

They probably started soiling their trousers as the speculations around the GPP built up, plus the launch of 11xx series cards is closeish, so they stopped it before it got out of hand.

[Blackie Sheen]

58 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

They haven't covered their asses from anything, they still rolled the program out, signed up partners and enforced their policies.

 

Ending something illegal doesn't absolve you from doing the illegal thing.

However it does mean that GPP will quickly go in the abyss like it never existed for the typical consumer

[Delicieuxz]

@huilun02 is likely correct in saying that Nvidia is protecting itself from lawsuits. That GPP was already being reported as costing competitors opportunities and sales due to anti-competitive practices is a pretty big indicator.

 

 

[Master Disaster]

1 minute ago, Blackie Sheen said:

However it does mean that GPP will quickly go in the abyss like it never existed for the typical consumer

Yes your right, it's a win for consumers.

 

I'm wondering whether AIBs that have invested in splitting lines already might now keep it (at least temporarily) to see if it helps or not.

 

Like I said above, splitting lines wouldn't have been cheap and it COULD be good as easily as it could be bad. If it was me I'd want to keep it running as a test instead of writing off the entire investment but then, I'm not a corporate shareholder so maybe I'm wrong ¯\_(ツ)_/¯