NVidia GPP is dead

Weirdly for an admitted AMD man, NVIDIA's GeForce Partner Program's antitrust problems had largely flown beneath my notice until today... when NVIDIA killed it. Because of its antitrust problems. Yay?

From WCCFTech:

Almost a month after news first broke of NVIDIA’s GPP program and the anti-trust allegations surrounding it – the company has pulled the plug on what can be accurately called one of the most infamous marketing and branding experiments in graphics card history. [...]

This is something that can only be claimed as a victory for gamers because regardless of what the company terms this as, the fact remains that we saw major branding moves happen in this space including the launch of ASUS AREZ as well as MSI and Gigabyte removing the Gaming branding from Radeon flavored graphics cards. It is unclear at this point whether these decisions will be reversed or will continue in force. [...]

NVIDIA’s GPP program was surrounded by rumors about priority allocation and MDFs and the way AIBs almost universally decided to drop Radeon cards from their gaming branding indicated that there was more at play than simply a volunteer-based program. Whatever the case may be, it looks like NVIDIA has decided that GPP is not worth the hassle.

NVIDIA's blog post/announcement was an impressively meaningless word salad that tried to spin their looming antitrust problems as a positive, and even managed to shoehorn in their "the way it's meant to be played" tag line. You can click through to WCCFTech's article for the full text of that, and for the numerous other links to further reading that WCCFTech had embedded.

Tom's Hardware has coverage of AMD's response to NIVIDIA's non-apology:

In light of the Nvidia GPP controversy, AMD made an official announcement that it remains committed to fair competition and providing consumer choice. In AMD’s own words, the company’s products don’t come with “gamer taxes” and the company doesn’t force its partners into “anti-competitive conditions.” [...] AMD has now broken its silence on the matter and issued an official statement. Of course, AMD didn’t mention GPP or Nvidia by name, but it’s clear who this statement targets. Corporate VP of Radeon Gaming at AMD Scott Herkelman said the following with regards to the ongoing controversy.

Over the coming weeks, you can expect to see our add-in board partners launch new brands that carry an AMD Radeon product. AMD is pledging to reignite this freedom of choice when gamers choose an AMD Radeon RX graphics card. These brands will share the same values of openness, innovation, and inclusivity that most gamers take to heart. The freedom to tell others in the industry that they won’t be boxed in to choosing proprietary solutions that come bundled with “gamer taxes” just to enjoy great experiences they should rightfully have access to. The freedom to support a brand that actively works to advance the art and science of PC gaming while expanding its reach.

As someone who hates anti-competitive and anti-consumer bullshit of all kinds, just on principle, I have to say that it's good that GPP is dead, and I hope the penalties that NVIDIA pays for even attempting it are correspondingly severe.