ALL THE LATEST NEWS ABOUT THE BUSINESS OF PC GAMES

News

Nvidia axes GeForce Partner Program

Nvidia axes GeForce Partner Program

PC hardware giant Nvidia has pulled the plug on its GeForce Partner Program following bad press from rival AMD.

The firm announced the scheme's closure in a blog post in which it said that rather than combating "misinformation" in the wild, it would simply cancel the program.

The GeForce Partner Program was rolled out in March and was intended - per Nvidia - as a means of the firm working with its OEM partners to brand products to have greater transparency about what consumers were getting.

This did not go down well with GPU rival AMD, who saw the GPP as a means of incentivising consumers to exclusively use Nvidia hardware. This followed a post from HardOCP, which saw the scheme as impacting consumer choice.

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

"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.”

This isn't the first time that AMD and Nvidia have been locked into a war of words and nor is it the last. With the GPU market already facing price and demand pressures due to the burgeoning cryptocurrency market, we hope that the two market leaders can put aside their differences in the name of serving the sector. 


PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.