Nvidia Prioritizes Gamers Over Crypto Miners, Tells Retailers To Do The Same

One of the most jarring developments in the PC gaming industry over the last year is the steep jump in the price of video cards. From 2016 to the end of 2017, the cost of high-end GPU has nearly doubled due to the high demand for cards by cryptocurrency miners. This took gamers by surprise and caused outrage in the community. That’s why Nvidia just scored major points when it told retailers to prioritize gamers over miners.

In a recent interview with ComputerBase, a spokesperson for Nvidia named Boris Böhles said that the company puts gamers above all else. He also notes that the company is encouraging its trading partners to pursue the same goals in terms of choosing who their real customers are.

"For Nvidia, gamers come first. All activities related to our GeForce product line are targeted at our main audience," Böhles said. "To ensure that GeForce gamers continue to have good GeForce graphics card availability in the current situation, we recommend that our trading partners make the appropriate arrangements to meet gamers’ needs as usual.”

There was also a detail in the ComputerBase article that seemed to suggest Nvidia was imposing a two-card limit on purchases on traders. However, this was not exactly corroborated by the company and there appears to be no indication that it was implemented by any stores.

As PC Gamer points out, it wouldn’t even matter if Nvidia does send out an order telling retailers to limit how many cards they are going to sell to a single customer. At the end of the day, Nvidia has no authority over these retailers and they are going to do what they believe is in their best business interest.

The biggest losers in this arrangement are definitely the PC gamers who now find themselves unable to upgrade their rigs without significant cost. Not that PC gaming was ever really cheap, but with how expensive GPUs are now, it’s become almost untenable for a lot of enthusiasts.