NVIDIA's New GPP Program Reportedly Engages in Monopolistic Practices

[cowie]

he did not bring anything new to the table..clickity clickty
but he was not "the sky is falling "unlike kyle or the shills on youtube
remember they get money for that with ads and advertising that we can't choose and they don't have a ad free channel or media.
1 of the same crappy things they claim what's so wrong with gpp

why not have gaming cards go to way of the games themselves and all that bullcrap involved with the gaming industry...we have a lot of restrictions when how and where we can play the game right?
no one stopped ngreeda on the way to the top,as a matter of fact amd basically did nothing to protect the market share
its your chance now brainiacks you can be the new number 2 gpu maker(that's for you intel just buy them already)

like I said put up or shut up AT this point we can not even reseasonably find arguments.

 

[ensabrenoir]

...so Nvdia wants their specialty product like a strix 1080ti to look different and have an exclusive name so it won't be identical to a vega 64 strix..... and will reward aib partners who do this.....from that stand point i see no evil.

 

[Valantar]

...so Nvdia wants their specialty product like a strix 1080ti to look different and have an exclusive name so it won't be identical to a vega 64 strix..... and will reward aib partners who do this.....from that stand point i see no evil.

That's a very oversimplified understanding. Not only do they want demand that, they demand that AIB partners bar AMD from their established gaming brands (which, like ROG, carry a heck of a lot of brand value and consumer goodwill), and if AIB partners don't comply, they'll withhold early access to parts (launch partner status), engineering support and financial support in terms of advertising - all of which they're already getting, without these new demands. In other words, Nvidia is (alleged to be) saying "If you want to maintain the status quo, kick AMD out of your best gaming brand." How is that not anticompetive, when the company saying it has a market share of >70%?

 

[bug]

That's a very oversimplified understanding. Not only do they want demand that, they demand that AIB partners bar AMD from their established gaming brands (which, like ROG, carry a heck of a lot of brand value and consumer goodwill), and if AIB partners don't comply, they'll withhold early access to parts (launch partner status), engineering support and financial support in terms of advertising - all of which they're already getting, without these new demands. In other words, Nvidia is (alleged to be) saying "If you want to maintain the status quo, kick AMD out of your best gaming brand." How is that not anticompetive, when the company saying it has a market share of >70%?

No, they don't. Or at least that's not what the GPP say.
GPP says there has to be a gaming line exclusively dedicated to Nvidia.

 

[rtwjunkie]

That's a very oversimplified understanding. Not only do they want demand that, they demand that AIB partners bar AMD from their established gaming brands (which, like ROG, carry a heck of a lot of brand value and consumer goodwill), and if AIB partners don't comply, they'll withhold early access to parts (launch partner status), engineering support and financial support in terms of advertising - all of which they're already getting, without these new demands. In other words, Nvidia is (alleged to be) saying "If you want to maintain the status quo, kick AMD out of your best gaming brand." How is that not anticompetive, when the company saying it has a market share of >70%?

No, they don't. Or at least that's not what the GPP say.
GPP says there has to be a gaming line exclusively dedicated to Nvidia.

You both are saying the same thing, just from different directions. If AMD is already in a gaming line, then they have to be barred from it in order to have it be exclusively Nvidia.

 

[bug]

You both are saying the same thing, just from different directions. If AMD is already in a gaming line, then they have to be barred from it in order to have it be exclusively Nvidia.

I believe you meant ROG, not AMD.
And if Asus can do "ROG Green" (Nvidia) and "ROG Red" (AMD), I believe everyone will be happy. I'm not 100% sure that will be possible, but from what I have understood from GPP, it will be.

More to the point, I don't expect unlawful clauses to be written as such directly into GPP (it would make it far too easy to shoot it down in the court). So inserting quotes from the GPP won't shed much light on the subject atm. We need on the record input from more parties involved, imho. Until then, we're just pretending to be in the know.

 

[cowie]

wow that's really old school to wait on real information
not saying true or not(as for any anti consumerism) but I have my rags soaked in lamp oil, sticks and the pitch forks ready

 

[rtwjunkie]

I believe you meant ROG, not AMD.

Lol, yes, you are right. That’s what I get for not proofreading that post.

 

[bug]

Lol, yes, you are right. That’s what I get for not proofreading that post.

No worries, happens to the best of us. As long as it's understandable, we're ok.

 

[ensabrenoir]

You both are saying the same thing, just from different directions. If AMD is already in a gaming line, then they have to be barred from it in order to have it be exclusively Nvidia.

......whhoops there it is....... never mind........ found the evil. If they modify their demand into create a line called "blah blah" exclusively for us then i could almost understand their point but to pillage an establihed brand excusively for them is a major no no.

 

[GhostRyder]

I believe you meant ROG, not AMD.
And if Asus can do "ROG Green" (Nvidia) and "ROG Red" (AMD), I believe everyone will be happy. I'm not 100% sure that will be possible, but from what I have understood from GPP, it will be.

More to the point, I don't expect unlawful clauses to be written as such directly into GPP (it would make it far too easy to shoot it down in the court). So inserting quotes from the GPP won't shed much light on the subject atm. We need on the record input from more parties involved, imho. Until then, we're just pretending to be in the know.

That is true and seems like a decent solution but the question remains (at least to me) how far does this go (I don't think there is enough info one way or another to completely judge)? For Instance:

-Are they allowed to use similar names (Like say ROG STRIX even with an additional word at the end like green or red)
-Will the cooler have to be different and if so how much?
-Will colors be a part of this (Doubtful one as I find that a bit extreme but you never know)

A lot of this sounds like it is up to Nvidia's discretion which I think is a bit of a problem. Mostly because that can be as easy as just a slight name adjustment to crazy demands about design and color.

Wow. It happened. Jay made a video on it.

Mentions when he tried to talk to anyone about GPP they wouldn't.

Did research on this and looked at the legalities of this program. It seems very likely that it is a very carefully crafted attempt at a loophole in antitrust laws. However there are clauses within the antitrust laws that explicitly prohibit deliberate attempts to circumvent the theory, technicality and ethics of these laws. Nvidia is crossing a line and it seems they are getting attention from government regulators. This program is blatantly unlawful and is very likely to gain prosecution in every country that has anti-trust laws. Even the government of China is looking into this(and that is never a good thing).

How often does Jay do serious videos like that and has a seemingly genuine tone of worry in his voice?

This is one of many instances in the latest trend from tech companies to push the boundaries of the law by blatantly breaking them. This is a very troubling trend..

Now the question is does this violate anti-trust laws... Even if people find it unethical that does not matter in the long run compared to the law. In some ways I am leaning towards "It crossed the line" because it was so secretive and no one wants to talk about it. However, Nvidia is not stupid and would not do something without consulting its lawyers first (Then again I could have said the same about Intel in this regard).

Either way, this is going to be interesting.

 

[bug]

That is true and seems like a decent solution but the question remains (at least to me) how far does this go (I don't think there is enough info one way or another to completely judge)? For Instance:

-Are they allowed to use similar names (Like say ROG STRIX even with an additional word at the end like green or red)
-Will the cooler have to be different and if so how much?
-Will colors be a part of this (Doubtful one as I find that a bit extreme but you never know)

A lot of this sounds like it is up to Nvidia's discretion which I think is a bit of a problem. Mostly because that can be as easy as just a slight name adjustment to crazy demands about design and color.

What's not explicitly included in an agreement can and will be interpreted in favor of the party that didn't draft it.

So the answers to your questions would be yes, no and no. But it all depends on what other pressure Nvidia will put on manufacturers and of that we know next to nothing atm.
Think about this: if you were Nvidia and investing money in promoting brands, would you pay to promote ROG if ROG was made up of both Nvidia and AMD products? I'm sure Nvidia didn't come up with GPP out of goodness of their hearts, but at the same time I realize there can be legit reasoning behind those clauses.

 

[mouacyk]

What's not explicitly included in an agreement can and will be interpreted in favor of the party that didn't draft it.

So the answers to your questions would be yes, no and no. But it all depends on what other pressure Nvidia will put on manufacturers and of that we know next to nothing atm.
Think about this: if you were Nvidia and investing money in promoting brands, would you pay to promote ROG if ROG was made up of both Nvidia and AMD products? I'm sure Nvidia didn't come up with GPP out of goodness of their hearts, but at the same time I realize there can be legit reasoning behind those clauses.

No way... no! The internet is a digital place filled with digital people and their binary views, 1 for good and 0 for bad. Superposition is only coming with the quantum internet.

I agree with your sentiment. Right now, NVidia is so far ahead in performance that it doesn't make any sense for uneducated consumers to see the same branding for such different performance levels. Hey, my RoG isn't performing as well as your RoG! WTH! RoG is a lie!

 

[GhostRyder]

What's not explicitly included in an agreement can and will be interpreted in favor of the party that didn't draft it.

So the answers to your questions would be yes, no and no. But it all depends on what other pressure Nvidia will put on manufacturers and of that we know next to nothing atm.
Think about this: if you were Nvidia and investing money in promoting brands, would you pay to promote ROG if ROG was made up of both Nvidia and AMD products? I'm sure Nvidia didn't come up with GPP out of goodness of their hearts, but at the same time I realize there can be legit reasoning behind those clauses.

That is where I am a little worried about it, I doubt a lot of what I said would come to fruition but who knows and with Nvidia's power they can influence pretty easily. My point was just that they could and not that I know they are going to.

No way... no! The internet is a digital place filled with digital people and their binary views, 1 for good and 0 for bad. Superposition is only coming with the quantum internet.

I agree with your sentiment. Right now, NVidia is so far ahead in performance that it doesn't make any sense for uneducated consumers to see the same branding for such different performance levels. Hey, my RoG isn't performing as well as your RoG! WTH! RoG is a lie!

You would be surprised how much people will buy something off just a name alone without realizing which one they are buying. Losing those names all the way (Not saying they are just IF) would turn off many consumers who buy cards. I know plenty of people who buy cards just based on decorations on the box. Just "OC" letters make people think its amazing and the other names like STRIX, Lightning, etc can really make a difference to some. I agree with you that right now Nvidia is so far ahead it can confuse people having names like that across boards, I have had one recently accidently buy an AMD card without realizing it because he thought it was something else under a brand he likes (Gigabyte actually).

 

[Xzibit]

I believe you meant ROG, not AMD.
And if Asus can do "ROG Green" (Nvidia) and "ROG Red" (AMD), I believe everyone will be happy. I'm not 100% sure that will be possible, but from what I have understood from GPP, it will be.

Highly doubtful. Red & Green would be sub-branding of ROG, ie like Strix is to ROG. If the idea of the GPP is to have Nvidia align exclusively with their gaming brand any sub-branding of the "Gaming Brand" would be a no.

 

[jabbadap]

Geh Asus, now they are selling Geforces under brands and sub-brands like ROG Strix Gaming, ROG Poseidon Gaming, Expedition, Cerberus, Dual, Phoenix and Turbo. If GPP forces them to shrink that under one major brand I'm all over with that change.

 

[Xzibit]

Geh Asus, now they are selling Geforces under brands and sub-brands like ROG Strix Gaming, ROG Poseidon Gaming, Expedition, Cerberus, Dual, Phoenix and Turbo. If GPP forces them to shrink that under one major brand I'm all over with that change.

It will dilute their branding.

Reference base air blowers AIB cards never make it to Gaming Brands. Asus ROG, Gigabyte Aorus, MSI Gaming, those will be "Gaming Brand". What is more likely to happen is those current Non-gaming brand products get consolidated with the "Gaming Brand" with their own sub-brands or similar.

Or they simply wont sell them and Nvidia boxes them (AIBs/OEMs) out and sells more reference Founders Edition directly

 

[bug]

Highly doubtful. Red & Green would be sub-branding of ROG, ie like Strix is to ROG.

highly doubtful based on what? Red and Green were just my dumb suggestions, the idea is nothing I have seen so far prevents a manufacturer from having two gaming brands.

If the idea of the GPP is to have Nvidia align exclusively with their gaming brand any sub-branding of the "Gaming Brand" would be a no.

Big if. Again, only based on your assumption that there can be only one gaming brand.

 

[Valantar]

highly doubtful based on what? Red and Green were just my dumb suggestions, the idea is nothing I have seen so far prevents a manufacturer from having two gaming brands.

Big if. Again, only based on your assumption that there can be only one gaming brand.

The funny thing here is that you seem hell-bent on not actually tackling the question of "what constitutes a brand", all the while putting forward your self-proclaimed "dumb suggestions" as explanation on why this isn't problematic. I'm not denying that you might be right, but would you mind reading my first post in this thread, where I attempt to focus on this, and respond to it? My reason for disagreeing with you is that I don't see any variation of "ROG X" and "ROG Y" as complying with the "gaming brand exclusively aligned with Nvidia" terminology, due to ROG itself (regardless of sub-brands and derivatives) being the gaming brand.

Of course Nvidia isn't (even allegedly) saying "Asus can no longer sell AMD" - that would be blatantly illegal, and would be a PR disaster a lot worse than this - but the reported wording makes it quite explicit that shared branding (such as ROG) would be a no-go. You're welcome to disagree, but I expect you to be able to argue that point with regard to what's been reported, not just "all this is unconfirmed so we should just assume it's all ok."

The logical extension of this is that any AMD gaming brand from ASUS would need a name that isn't ROG - which locks AMD out from ROG's massive brand recognition and established consumer trust. Effectively, Asus AMD Gaming would be reset, starting from zero, while Asus Nvidia Gaming would keep going with current momentum at the very least. Is that anticompetitive? I'd say yes.

These are publicly traded for-profit companies in a multi-billion dollar industry with enormous R&D costs, multi-year development cycles, short product lifespans and tight profit margins. Of course they have incentives to push the boundaries of legality in order to maximize profits. That's almost a given. We have no reason to assume any big tech company (or really any other big company) wants anything more than our money. They are definitely not consumers' friends. I'd rather be a pessimist here and have the occasional happy surprise, rather than be constantly put down by all the shirt things these companies do.

While unconfirmed reports from off-the-record sources should always be taken with a pinch of salt, this is exactly the type of situation where no-one would be able to go on the record, as they'd no doubt lose their jobs. That Kyle had the story corroborated from various sources at different companies is about as much as we can expect. Nvidia's non-reply to this can also be read as telling: if these "unofficial" GPP clauses didn't exist, why not just say so? What do they stand to lose? Still, as with any investigative reporting we have to trust in the integrity of the journalist responsible. I'm frankly not familiar enough with Kyle or HardOCP to pass judgment on that, but as all I've ever heard is that he's been accused of pro-Nvidia bias, this doesn't exactly add up either. I'm open to this being the proverbial mountain made out of a molehill, but so far I've seen nothing to convince me that there isn't something significantly fishy going on.

 

[bug]

The funny thing here is that you seem hell-bent on not actually tackling the question of "what constitutes a brand", all the while putting forward your self-proclaimed "dumb suggestions" as explanation on why this isn't problematic. I'm not denying that you might be right, but would you mind reading my first post in this thread, where I attempt to focus on this, and respond to it? My reason for disagreeing with you is that I don't see any variation of "ROG X" and "ROG Y" as complying with the "gaming brand exclusively aligned with Nvidia" terminology, due to ROG itself (regardless of sub-brands and derivatives) being the gaming brand.

No, of course I don't want to get into details, because details is what we don't have. You seem to think there can be only one, I don't. Can we just leave it at that?

 

[INSTG8R]

And why do you suppose has saphire turned into Amds main card partner could it be that they exclusively make Amd cards because no one else is, and many aibs stopped making as many variations of Amd card a few years ago hmmnn timelines

Also unsurprisingly it was AMD that gave the first hints to kyle and id wager they Know what's going on.

@bug how can you see all GPU makers top Gaming brands going soley Nvidia as anything but anti competitive , if the Gaming brands were all Nvidia wtf do you call the Amd line.
If you're marketing pushes your top gamng brand as the best for gaming then exactly how do you describe option B without it being derised by your own marketing.

This stuffs bad for customers and should not be put up with imho.

Sapphire has been their main AIB partner for near decades. I can dig out my X1900XtT Crossfire Master Card with the half peeled Sapphire sticker with Ruby underneath. Sapphire has ALWAYS been there.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

Sapphire has been their main AIB partner for near decades. I can dig out my X1900XtT Crossfire Master Card with the half peeled Sapphire sticker with Ruby underneath. Sapphire has ALWAYS been there.

They're not restricted to Amd though on any level known, but yeh I agree they're one of few now but i always choose their card's nowadays for AMD mostly palit for Nvidia.

 

[INSTG8R]

They're not restricted to Amd though on any level known, but yeh I agree they're one of few now but i always choose their card's nowadays for AMD mostly palit for Nvidia.

Zotac is the other side. They are both under PCPartner

 

[Xzibit]

Zotac is the other side. They are both under PCPartner

PCPartner - Zotac, Manli, Inno3D

 

[mouacyk]

The logical extension of this is that any AMD gaming brand from ASUS would need a name that isn't ROG - which locks AMD out from ROG's massive brand recognition and established consumer trust. Effectively, Asus AMD Gaming would be reset, starting from zero, while Asus Nvidia Gaming would keep going with current momentum at the very least. Is that anticompetitive? I'd say yes.

So a product that performs faster and has more marketshare cannot awaken to a revelation of control for its image? Is NVidiia actually breaking a prior contract to do shared branding? If not, the partners screwed themselves by lumping two competing products into the same brand to save marketing costs and confuse uneducated consumers. As far as NVidia is concerned, they probably feel they carried AMD in many of the partner brands these past several years.