AMD Announces "AMD Rewards" Program for the Gaming Evolved Application
by Ryan Smith on February 19, 2014 12:01 AM EST
We normally don’t cover contests and giveaways, but this one is just a bit different than the others and sheds some light on the inner workings of AMD, so we’ll take a quick look at it.
AMD is announcing today that they’re starting up a rewards program for users of their Gaming Evolved Application. The rewards program, dubbed AMD Rewards (not to be confused with Radeon Rewards) is a point based system that will see AMD rewarding users for using the Gaming Evolved application. The points in turn will be redeemable for a number of items, including games and some 3rd party hardware items, but most notably Sapphire Radeon R9 cards. All told, AMD is apparently putting up $5 million USD in merchandise, which would be a significant expense for a single promotion.
What makes this notable is the actions that will earn points in the program. AMD’s press release doesn’t have a complete list, but using the GEA game optimization service and playing supported games are specifically mentioned as activities that earn points. As we covered back in November when the GEA launched, the ad-hoc nature of data collection being used by Raptr and AMD meant that the service started with a very limited data set for optimization recommendations, due to a lack of data to bootstrap the service. Without a dedicated group to provide at least the initial data, the service would be slow to ramp up as AMD needs users playing games and running the GEA first, and only then would they be able to generate recommendations.
This latest promotion looks to be an effort at finally solving the data problem by providing an additional incentive for Radeon owners to use the GEA. If AMD can get enough data collected to make the service widely useful, then it would be able to achieve the critical mass of users needed to make the GEA game optimization service self-sustaining. We'll have to continue to keep an eye on the service and see what this does for AMD's data set. The idea behind the optimization service is very cool, so hopefully this promotion can give AMD the additional data the service needs to really shine.
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xsandman32 - Wednesday, February 19, 2014 - link
Looks like Steam + GeForece Experience + Origin's advertisements.ericore - Wednesday, February 19, 2014 - link
AMD is resource strained.If AMD is able to gather a large data set from a large number of users, optimized games would be officially pooled from this rather than arbitrary or aristocratic means .
It's also a good marketing ploy for gamers (choose AMD, only AMD let's users choose which game they optimize).
njdss4 - Thursday, February 20, 2014 - link
Just checked this out, and it seems like you earn points so slowly that it would take months, if not years, to earn anything noteworthy (like a video card). You'd have to be on the Raptr forums posting a LOT, playing games hours a day, using the optimization feature on everything, and even then you won't get much.Combine that with how Raptr 'recalculates' points whenever they feel like it, taking away thousands of points from people for no reason other than they don't want to give out the prizes they promised, and you've got a recipe for wasted time, bitterness, and disappointment. Avoid.
2GStyle - Thursday, February 20, 2014 - link
While they did recalculate points they also said that the rewards program was being changed. You could have used your points prior to get other things but not using them switched them over to the new program. I never understood why someone could complain about something listed as beta and a banner saying it was subject to change. I honestly think they are being generous since they didn’t wipe the points system and they are offering bonus points currently to make up for the recent change. In the end you are still recieving "free" points and no one is forcing you to use the program.ShadowViper - Thursday, February 20, 2014 - link
Actually couldn't use them prior since the store was never opened. They led us to believe that in dec (no mention there that they were going to take points away and also no mention there that it was a beta program) that what we earned we would be able to spend at the store when it opened.Check page 2 of the comments all the information that they provided is listed there with the links I provided.