ASUS Killing AREZ brand? ROG is Back? *UPDATED ARTICLE*

[jooroth18]

** this post has been edited. To see the original, a post has been made below.

*** at the time of writing this editorial, no news publisher reported on this. So I wrote an article myself, here you go...

 

GPP, also known as Geforce Partner Program, was a “voluntary” program by nVidia that promises to help gamers make the right purpose when buying a graphics card. On nVidia’s blog post it states:

Quote

The GeForce Partner Program is designed to ensure that gamers have full transparency into the GPU platform and software they’re being sold and can confidently select products that carry the NVIDIA GeForce promise.

However, Kyle Bennett, from HardOCP, wrote an article on the Geforce Partner Program, stating how it impacts consumer choice. In his editorial, he states:

Quote

I think it [GPP] is going to greatly, and negatively, impact consumer choice in the AIB and OEM computer market. Consumer choice is going to be decimated. Looking at the program guidelines, I truly think that is what will happen and is where my concern lies.

This was talked about in the press, and later in the article, Kyle conducts an interview with several AIB and OEM partners, and they have developed a similar consensus:

Quote

1.) They think that it has terms that are likely illegal. 2.) GPP is likely going to tremendously hurt consumers' choices. 3.) It will disrupt business with the companies that they are currently doing business with, namely AMD and Intel.

The quote above were just statements on an editorial, and even though Kyle has a reputation in the industry, these statements could be taken with a grain of salt. However, most of the press have chosen to accept these statements as true. On nVidia’s blogpost, they state it is voluntary, however at the time cryptocurrency was a big hit (it still sort-of is) and GPU supply was weakened. So, if an AIB partner didn’t sign up for the Geforce Partner Program, they wouldn’t be treated by nVidia as well as a brand who did sign up for GPP. If a new run of GPUs came off the process node, the AIB’s and OEM’s that have GPP would be favored and would probably have more share than those who didn’t sign up, therefore threatening their businesses overall which really affect manufactures who rely on GPU sales primarily.

 

                GPP affects AIB’s and OEM’s by forcing them to separate the branding that these manufactures like to use on their products. Say for example Gigabyte, they use Gaming X as their branding for both nVidia and AMD cards. With GPP, now they must remove the Gaming X brand with the AMD cards. This makes it so when a buyer types in Gaming X because he/she knows that is the high end for Gigabyte, that user will only see nVidia cards now.

 

                Now, nVidia had pulled the plug on GPP, in their blogpost stating:

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.

 

So, this is good right? Not so much. In the time GPP was active, Gigabyte was ripping the Gaming X brand off AMD cards, which is an easy fix, just put the Gaming X back on. However, for ASUS, they planned to launch a new brand called AREZ for their AMD products. Now that GPP is over, ASUS must decide to keep the AREZ brand or just use the ROG brand. Since ASUS already spent time and effort to market the new brand AREZ, and they already began removing ROG branded AMD graphics cards in place for AREZ, they have to choose to keep the branding, put back the ROG branding, or use both. I speculated that they would use both, where the AREZ branded cards would be the budget-oriented cards and the ROG branded cards would be the Premium cards.

 

It turns out, ASUS as it appears, has opted for the ROG branding only. In their twitter post recently, they stated:

Quote

Start your week off with an amazing deal! Purchase any #ROG #Radeon RX Vega #GPU and get #FarCry5 Free!

This looks great on the outside, however that has significantly impacted ASUS internally. This has now wasted the time and money that ASUS spent on marketing the new AREZ brand, stopping production of the newly branded cards, and restarting production with the old ROG branding, and now, ASUS has to figure out what to do with the AREZ branded cards. So far it looks like they aren’t selling any AREZ branded on the retail stores such as Amazon, NCIX, Newegg, Microcenter, Fry’s, and Memory Express, ( off topic side note: Memory Express doesn’t even have a mobile site. What!) are gone, so it’s up for debate on what they will do with the AREZ branded cards, let alone the money wasted on the brand.  ASUS has to deal with all this, all because nVidia wanted to get a little more market share, which they definitely needed. Overall, ASUS and Gigabyte have now effectively a way harder job on their hands thanks to the amazing Geforce Partner Program, brought to us by nVidia.

 

[Ginger_]

I wonder what's happening to any arez branded cards they already produced

[Nicnac]

kinda nice for amd to "keep" that branding or still being part of it.

On the other hand I was kinda looking forward to seeing new "brands" and designs  

[GrockleTD]

1 hour ago, Nicnac said:

kinda nice for amd to "keep" that branding or still being part of it.

On the other hand I was kinda looking forward to seeing new "brands" and designs  

you presume they would have changed their design?

[The Benjamins]

This just shows how wrong the GPP was.

[Nicnac]

Just now, Grockle88 said:

you presume they would have changed their design?

yea u right

[Sauron]

7 minutes ago, Ginger_ said:

I wonder what's happening to any arez branded cards they already produced

They'll probably just slap the ROG logo on them instead of the AREZ one - I would assume the heatsink designs are the same, and even if they went out of their way to design a different one they could just keep producing that, after all they are different cards and it would make sense for the heatsink to be different.

[Morgan MLGman]

20 minutes ago, Sauron said:

They'll probably just slap the ROG logo on them instead of the AREZ one - I would assume the heatsink designs are the same, and even if they went out of their way to design a different one they could just keep producing that, after all they are different cards and it would make sense for the heatsink to be different.

You're right, AFAIK the AREZ ones were exactly the same, the only difference was the branding and a bit different shades of grey on the heatsink

[Princess Luna]

Personally speaking I find silly a company with multiple brands of the same thing.

[Ryujin2003]

58 minutes ago, Ginger_ said:

I wonder what's happening to any arez branded cards they already produced

Limited edition run Collectors Edition?

[Doobeedoo]

I actually thought AREZ would stay or potentially make it a certain high end line. But oh well, whatever the name is in the end, a long as it's top quality card all good. 

[Ginger_]

18 minutes ago, Ryujin2003 said:

Limited edition run Collectors Edition?

That's what I was thinking. And get scalped on ebay 

[jooroth18]

3 minutes ago, huilun02 said:

Glad to see the damage undone, albeit at the cost to the AIB

It wouldn't make sense to keep AREZ anyway, as maintaining multiple brands incurs significant running costs.

At the very least the AIBs will be "once bitten, twice shy" and not allow themselves to be bullied by Ngreedia again

 

Also @jooroth18 please don't use short links. Not knowing where a link will take me is super not cool man...

Yeah, but the links were ridiculously long, and I didnt want to impede on people reading the article. I'll figure out a way around it

 

[Brooksie359]

3 hours ago, Ginger_ said:

I wonder what's happening to any arez branded cards they already produced

It would be cool to have one. I mean it would be rare and be represent a little piece of history. 

[jooroth18]

58 minutes ago, DildorTheDecent said:

<removed>

My phone lags like crazy on complicated websites like this one. Atleast you are informed with the current situation of GPP. I dont think anyone else would report on this, as this tweet has been out for a while...

[SpaceGhostC2C]

4 hours ago, Princess Cadence said:

Personally speaking I find silly a company with multiple brands of the same thing.

Exactly, why do they need a "Hero" and "Extreme" brand? I mean Crosshair and Strix. That is, ROG and TUF.

 

You know, I don't actually know why you are complaining, "Asus ROG Crosshair VI Hero" seems like a perfectly simple brand to me  

[Dabombinable]

Pretty much proving what Nvidia was doing with the GPP.

[8uhbbhu8]

Now I want Arez branded stuff just for that rarity factor  

[Shreyas1]

8 hours ago, Ginger_ said:

I wonder what's happening to any arez branded cards they already produced

Collectible that some YouTuber will make a video on 10 years from now

[Notional]

And here I thought GPP had nothing to do with vendors suddenly scrapping ALL AMD cards from their primary gaming brands (that the news said it would). So how can that be? Are you telling me the GPP actually usurped the branding from the vendors against the vendors wishes? But many forum users in here said that was not the case, and utter impossible. Are you telling me they are wrong? SHOCK /s.

[Dabombinable]

36 minutes ago, Notional said:

And here I thought GPP had nothing to do with vendors suddenly scrapping ALL AMD cards from their primary gaming brands (that the news said it would). So how can that be? Are you telling me the GPP actually usurped the branding from the vendors against the vendors wishes? But many forum users in here said that was not the case, and utter impossible. Are you telling me they are wrong? SHOCK /s.

Anyone who wasn't blind could see that the GPP was having a negative impact.

[jooroth18]

***************************************

Posts from here on should coordinate with the updated post.

**************************************

For archival reasons, here is the original post:

It appears after the revocation of the Republic of Gamers branding that coincided with all of ASUS's premium gaming products  on AMD GPU's, it appears that ASUS has chosen to stick with the old ROG branding. AREZ was originally intended to be a new brand for ASUS after nVidia, a compeditor to  AMD and their GPU's, unveiled a new program called GPP. Standing for Geforce Partner Program, this new "volentary" program was intended according to nVidia to "help gamers know what they are buying when shopping for Graphics Cards." Kyle from HardOCP, a reputible publisher, has uncovered the true hidden details in the contract not stated in nVidia's blog post. This was part speculation, but started to become true when asus unveiled the AREZ branding for AMD GPU's. Since all the public backlash for this potentially illegal contract, nVidia decided to kill the Geforce Partner Program, stating that "it was all because the media/press spread misleading information." ASUS has now already created the AREZ brand, so it was up to ASUS's decision weather to keep the brand or to get rid of it. As per my speculation, I suggested that ASUS use the AREZ brand for more budget products, since they already spent the marketing efforts to bring the brand out, but it looks like asus plans to get rid of it, as ASUS recently posted a marketing AD on twitter mentioning their ROG Radeon RX Vega cards. ( https://twitter.com/ASUSUSA/status/996179635158339586?s=09 ). Also on Amazon, all the AREZ branded cards are gone and there are no other cards branded AREZ. ( https://goo.gl/xQZxP4 ). This also repeats on other retail stores as well: NCI... err.... Newegg ( https://goo.gl/LXoRkN ), Fry's ( https://goo.gl/jhkDPE ), Memory Express ( https://goo.gl/u7aJ7t ) (off topic note: Memory Express dosent even have a mobile site...), Microcenter: ( https://goo.gl/5oaTJ7 ). All of the listed sites no longer have AREZ branded cards, and it appears that ASUS will be scraping the brand, even though they spent money on marketing and rebranding the products. This does have a negitive effect on ASUS as they now effectively spent money on nothing and now have to recoup that cost wasted.

[IamBored]

dumpster diving at ASUS factories anyone?

11 hours ago, Ginger_ said:

I wonder what's happening to any arez branded cards they already produced

 

[leadeater]

14 minutes ago, VegetableStu said:

probably only fan shrouds or, at the very least, stickers ._.

Be funny if there are a few cards out in the wild double stickered on the fans, take off the ROG and find an Arez one lol.

[AlwaysFSX]

AREZ...

 

Spoiler

 

ARES...

 

Spoiler

 

 

Oh yeah look, branding ASUS used in the past for AMD before GPP ever existed.