Haaselh0ff

Secret Shopper is supposed to be from the perspective of a generic shopper, as they had a non techie person doing the "shopping" and bought the computers.
 
LTT could have shown the full invoices for each PC which would have negated probably all of this "drama" because then it would show exactly what it is listed as on the invoice and it would be in black and white, no mixing up what was originally charged for what including the "shipping". If SF went back and changed their site to forcibly separate the shipping and taxes then that would have been done after the fact and their "press release" could have reflected that as a move to be more "transparent".
 
 
Parts broken, no matter how small, is still broken. If someone that had never built a computer opened it and had loose rattling plastic in it then they would call their friends and say (most likely), yeah I got it and something broke in it. Does that mean the computer itself was broken, no not necessarily. But, parts in it were broken regardless.
 
The problem with taking the video down and making changes to it in this aspect is that it completely ruins the "secret shopper" aspect if the companies can go back and "UHM ACTUALLYYYY" and have the changes they want put into the video. Yes, LTT can ruin small companies with a video. But, the small companies have to strive to be better because they will always be under more scrutiny. 
 
I hope the replaced video details all of these findings and doesn't hide them because that will hurt everyone's credibility more than what has already happened.

Except the SF pc was not packaged as well as the other. That's why it broke.

I haven't watched the episode yet (I wanted to save it for Friday because I had the new Steam Deck video to watch first 🫠 ) but I've got some experience on the retailer's side of mail ordering.
 
Shipping, import duties, and taxes should be separate line items on the checkout. At the very least, all three should be called out on the shipping line.
 
According to this screenshot I stole off the LTT subreddit (thanks /u/MaybeSomeDayX1), the line item just says "Shipping":
 

 
I don't know how much about the checkout process Starforge can change, but this looks like charging $300 USD for shipping on the face of it. Apparently you have to click the question mark for it to tell you this includes duties and tax.
 
I can understand how this oversight made it through to a published video, but Starforge shouldn't get upset at LMG for taking their website at face value as a layperson would. Secret Shopper is all about getting a layperson's perspective on the customer experience from companies such as theirs.

Looks like we're going to have more inaccuracies in reporting considering this issue looks like it's on its way to being brushed under the rug.
 
I haven't had a chance to see the video as it was taken down already. But if the invoice says 300 dollars shipping, then the consumer will see it was 300 dollars. There are no ifs and buts, it either says 300 dollars under the shipping line item or it doesn't. You can't say "oh no that's inaccurate", present the more detailed invoice/explanation that should've been there in the first place, and then demand what happened to be omitted.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong. But unless everything gets presented in the reupload sine both sides have taken down virtually every important detail, I question their transparency in the whole ordeal. 

FirstTime?.jpg
 
Lack of QA and lack of software stability is AMDs forte.
 

I know the Dota 2 arcade is wild but I had no idea Rocket League was in there lol.
 
Cool to see this stuff!!! Thank you for sharing, love the transparency and openness. Please keep it up!
 

Summary
 
Unity, the engine behind such hits as every Hoyoverse title ever and such indie greats as Among Us, will begin charging a new "Runtime Fee" beginning in 2024 which allows them to charge per installation if you go over a certain installation threshold or make a certain amount of money off the game.
 
The amount per installation/revenue (pictured below) is a varying amount which depends entirely on what Unity tier your company subscribes to as well as how many installs you get in a given year.
 
Unity made sure to plug their various other programs that are packaged with their listed below subscription plans.
 

 
 
Quotes
Summary Continued
 
This has brought numerous amounts of backlash from Developers all across the website formerly known as Twitter. @AggroCrabGames posted the below tweet commenting about how this move easily hurts developers creating games for Game Pass stating that if "If a fraction of those users download our game, Unity could take a fee that puts an enormous debt in our income and threatens the sustainability of our business."httphttp
Other developers make similar comments including company InnerSloth developer @forte_bass which the company's main account retweeted.http
Unity also clarified some questions developers had in regards to how it counts an "installation" Clarifying that if a player deletes and re-installs a game it does indeed count as 2 installations and thus 2 charges.
 
My thoughts
 
What a fantastic advertisement for Godot! (who were also quick to post this new link to their discord and website : https://godotengine.org/article/godot-developer-fund/
 
It sure seems like Unity wanted a piece of everyone's pie. Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail alone could easily amount to millions of dollars in revenue for them even without assuming people have downloaded the game on multiple platforms (PS5, Cell Phone, PC). The cost of this is exuberant and comes across as a crazy and greedy move leaving many developers wondering if they should switch to a different engine entirely. The argument AggroCrab makes is also extremely concerning. What about Game Pass? If you're not a developer shoving micro transactions in your game (at least Hoyoverse has that covered to account for this massive hit) then how could you possibly justify Game Pass as an option for your Unity game? You reach all these players just to be hit with this massive fee for having a good player base.
 
Hopefully Unity will do an immediate reverse course, but judging by their stock price they will not and will continue to make poor decision after poor decision till everyone moves to either UE5 or Godot.
 
Sources
https://blog.unity.com/news/plan-pricing-and-packaging-updates
https://www.ign.com/articles/why-unitys-new-install-fees-are-spurring-massive-backlash-among-game-developers
 

GOTTA GET THAT STOCK PRICE UP BABY!!
 
Seriously, what a bone head move. I didnt even mention the fact that a person could abuse this to install uninstall a game and abuse the crap out of this to hurt devs. Or that it further incentivizes people to add DRM to their games to stop pirates from installing it now that they're going to be charged per install and need to make sure someone paid for it.

Summary
 
Unity, the engine behind such hits as every Hoyoverse title ever and such indie greats as Among Us, will begin charging a new "Runtime Fee" beginning in 2024 which allows them to charge per installation if you go over a certain installation threshold or make a certain amount of money off the game.
 
The amount per installation/revenue (pictured below) is a varying amount which depends entirely on what Unity tier your company subscribes to as well as how many installs you get in a given year.
 
Unity made sure to plug their various other programs that are packaged with their listed below subscription plans.
 

 
 
Quotes
Summary Continued
 
This has brought numerous amounts of backlash from Developers all across the website formerly known as Twitter. @AggroCrabGames posted the below tweet commenting about how this move easily hurts developers creating games for Game Pass stating that if "If a fraction of those users download our game, Unity could take a fee that puts an enormous debt in our income and threatens the sustainability of our business."httphttp
Other developers make similar comments including company InnerSloth developer @forte_bass which the company's main account retweeted.http
Unity also clarified some questions developers had in regards to how it counts an "installation" Clarifying that if a player deletes and re-installs a game it does indeed count as 2 installations and thus 2 charges.
 
My thoughts
 
What a fantastic advertisement for Godot! (who were also quick to post this new link to their discord and website : https://godotengine.org/article/godot-developer-fund/
 
It sure seems like Unity wanted a piece of everyone's pie. Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail alone could easily amount to millions of dollars in revenue for them even without assuming people have downloaded the game on multiple platforms (PS5, Cell Phone, PC). The cost of this is exuberant and comes across as a crazy and greedy move leaving many developers wondering if they should switch to a different engine entirely. The argument AggroCrab makes is also extremely concerning. What about Game Pass? If you're not a developer shoving micro transactions in your game (at least Hoyoverse has that covered to account for this massive hit) then how could you possibly justify Game Pass as an option for your Unity game? You reach all these players just to be hit with this massive fee for having a good player base.
 
Hopefully Unity will do an immediate reverse course, but judging by their stock price they will not and will continue to make poor decision after poor decision till everyone moves to either UE5 or Godot.
 
Sources
https://blog.unity.com/news/plan-pricing-and-packaging-updates
https://www.ign.com/articles/why-unitys-new-install-fees-are-spurring-massive-backlash-among-game-developers
 

Summary
 
Unity, the engine behind such hits as every Hoyoverse title ever and such indie greats as Among Us, will begin charging a new "Runtime Fee" beginning in 2024 which allows them to charge per installation if you go over a certain installation threshold or make a certain amount of money off the game.
 
The amount per installation/revenue (pictured below) is a varying amount which depends entirely on what Unity tier your company subscribes to as well as how many installs you get in a given year.
 
Unity made sure to plug their various other programs that are packaged with their listed below subscription plans.
 

 
 
Quotes
Summary Continued
 
This has brought numerous amounts of backlash from Developers all across the website formerly known as Twitter. @AggroCrabGames posted the below tweet commenting about how this move easily hurts developers creating games for Game Pass stating that if "If a fraction of those users download our game, Unity could take a fee that puts an enormous debt in our income and threatens the sustainability of our business."httphttp
Other developers make similar comments including company InnerSloth developer @forte_bass which the company's main account retweeted.http
Unity also clarified some questions developers had in regards to how it counts an "installation" Clarifying that if a player deletes and re-installs a game it does indeed count as 2 installations and thus 2 charges.
 
My thoughts
 
What a fantastic advertisement for Godot! (who were also quick to post this new link to their discord and website : https://godotengine.org/article/godot-developer-fund/
 
It sure seems like Unity wanted a piece of everyone's pie. Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail alone could easily amount to millions of dollars in revenue for them even without assuming people have downloaded the game on multiple platforms (PS5, Cell Phone, PC). The cost of this is exuberant and comes across as a crazy and greedy move leaving many developers wondering if they should switch to a different engine entirely. The argument AggroCrab makes is also extremely concerning. What about Game Pass? If you're not a developer shoving micro transactions in your game (at least Hoyoverse has that covered to account for this massive hit) then how could you possibly justify Game Pass as an option for your Unity game? You reach all these players just to be hit with this massive fee for having a good player base.
 
Hopefully Unity will do an immediate reverse course, but judging by their stock price they will not and will continue to make poor decision after poor decision till everyone moves to either UE5 or Godot.
 
Sources
https://blog.unity.com/news/plan-pricing-and-packaging-updates
https://www.ign.com/articles/why-unitys-new-install-fees-are-spurring-massive-backlash-among-game-developers
 

Summary
 
Unity, the engine behind such hits as every Hoyoverse title ever and such indie greats as Among Us, will begin charging a new "Runtime Fee" beginning in 2024 which allows them to charge per installation if you go over a certain installation threshold or make a certain amount of money off the game.
 
The amount per installation/revenue (pictured below) is a varying amount which depends entirely on what Unity tier your company subscribes to as well as how many installs you get in a given year.
 
Unity made sure to plug their various other programs that are packaged with their listed below subscription plans.
 

 
 
Quotes
Summary Continued
 
This has brought numerous amounts of backlash from Developers all across the website formerly known as Twitter. @AggroCrabGames posted the below tweet commenting about how this move easily hurts developers creating games for Game Pass stating that if "If a fraction of those users download our game, Unity could take a fee that puts an enormous debt in our income and threatens the sustainability of our business."httphttp
Other developers make similar comments including company InnerSloth developer @forte_bass which the company's main account retweeted.http
Unity also clarified some questions developers had in regards to how it counts an "installation" Clarifying that if a player deletes and re-installs a game it does indeed count as 2 installations and thus 2 charges.
 
My thoughts
 
What a fantastic advertisement for Godot! (who were also quick to post this new link to their discord and website : https://godotengine.org/article/godot-developer-fund/
 
It sure seems like Unity wanted a piece of everyone's pie. Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail alone could easily amount to millions of dollars in revenue for them even without assuming people have downloaded the game on multiple platforms (PS5, Cell Phone, PC). The cost of this is exuberant and comes across as a crazy and greedy move leaving many developers wondering if they should switch to a different engine entirely. The argument AggroCrab makes is also extremely concerning. What about Game Pass? If you're not a developer shoving micro transactions in your game (at least Hoyoverse has that covered to account for this massive hit) then how could you possibly justify Game Pass as an option for your Unity game? You reach all these players just to be hit with this massive fee for having a good player base.
 
Hopefully Unity will do an immediate reverse course, but judging by their stock price they will not and will continue to make poor decision after poor decision till everyone moves to either UE5 or Godot.
 
Sources
https://blog.unity.com/news/plan-pricing-and-packaging-updates
https://www.ign.com/articles/why-unitys-new-install-fees-are-spurring-massive-backlash-among-game-developers
 

Summary
 
Unity, the engine behind such hits as every Hoyoverse title ever and such indie greats as Among Us, will begin charging a new "Runtime Fee" beginning in 2024 which allows them to charge per installation if you go over a certain installation threshold or make a certain amount of money off the game.
 
The amount per installation/revenue (pictured below) is a varying amount which depends entirely on what Unity tier your company subscribes to as well as how many installs you get in a given year.
 
Unity made sure to plug their various other programs that are packaged with their listed below subscription plans.
 

 
 
Quotes
Summary Continued
 
This has brought numerous amounts of backlash from Developers all across the website formerly known as Twitter. @AggroCrabGames posted the below tweet commenting about how this move easily hurts developers creating games for Game Pass stating that if "If a fraction of those users download our game, Unity could take a fee that puts an enormous debt in our income and threatens the sustainability of our business."httphttp
Other developers make similar comments including company InnerSloth developer @forte_bass which the company's main account retweeted.http
Unity also clarified some questions developers had in regards to how it counts an "installation" Clarifying that if a player deletes and re-installs a game it does indeed count as 2 installations and thus 2 charges.
 
My thoughts
 
What a fantastic advertisement for Godot! (who were also quick to post this new link to their discord and website : https://godotengine.org/article/godot-developer-fund/
 
It sure seems like Unity wanted a piece of everyone's pie. Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail alone could easily amount to millions of dollars in revenue for them even without assuming people have downloaded the game on multiple platforms (PS5, Cell Phone, PC). The cost of this is exuberant and comes across as a crazy and greedy move leaving many developers wondering if they should switch to a different engine entirely. The argument AggroCrab makes is also extremely concerning. What about Game Pass? If you're not a developer shoving micro transactions in your game (at least Hoyoverse has that covered to account for this massive hit) then how could you possibly justify Game Pass as an option for your Unity game? You reach all these players just to be hit with this massive fee for having a good player base.
 
Hopefully Unity will do an immediate reverse course, but judging by their stock price they will not and will continue to make poor decision after poor decision till everyone moves to either UE5 or Godot.
 
Sources
https://blog.unity.com/news/plan-pricing-and-packaging-updates
https://www.ign.com/articles/why-unitys-new-install-fees-are-spurring-massive-backlash-among-game-developers
 

I know the Dota 2 arcade is wild but I had no idea Rocket League was in there lol.
 
Cool to see this stuff!!! Thank you for sharing, love the transparency and openness. Please keep it up!
 

A+ Video

I know the Dota 2 arcade is wild but I had no idea Rocket League was in there lol.
 
Cool to see this stuff!!! Thank you for sharing, love the transparency and openness. Please keep it up!
 

I know the Dota 2 arcade is wild but I had no idea Rocket League was in there lol.
 
Cool to see this stuff!!! Thank you for sharing, love the transparency and openness. Please keep it up!
 

I know the Dota 2 arcade is wild but I had no idea Rocket League was in there lol.
 
Cool to see this stuff!!! Thank you for sharing, love the transparency and openness. Please keep it up!
 

I know the Dota 2 arcade is wild but I had no idea Rocket League was in there lol.
 
Cool to see this stuff!!! Thank you for sharing, love the transparency and openness. Please keep it up!
 

I know the Dota 2 arcade is wild but I had no idea Rocket League was in there lol.
 
Cool to see this stuff!!! Thank you for sharing, love the transparency and openness. Please keep it up!
 

Cyberpunk 2077 

cyberpunkProcedure_1.png cyberpunkProcedure_2.png

F1 '23

As part of our transparency commitment to the community, we will upload our test procedures for both hardware and software-related items in this thread.  We are starting this process today (See the first reply to this post).
 
Our initial uploads will be in our Bookstack format and then we'll be converting to a version-controlled document for improved auditing and tracking purposes.  We expect to have the vast majority of processes uploaded in September.  And we will continue to provide uploads as we add new test processes and/or modify current processes.
 
Here are links to our testing repositories:
Test harnesses used in LTT Labs MarkBench
MarkBench Game Settings
Keras-ocr wrapped in a Python HTTP API for MarkBench tests
 
We welcome your feedback!

After thoroughly reviewing each LTT video containing Labs data or analysis, we have arrived at the following results.
Of the 32 videos reviewed, 25 contained Labs Test Data.   Of these 25 reviews, Labs has determined that in the T1 category, (2) videos should be removed until we can verify the results with a second test system.  We also determined that (2) videos contained charts that should be completely replaced after verification of the test results.  In the T2 category, Labs verified that the data is correct, but we have 24 corrections to make to 21 graphs that contain process errors on the charts.  Process errors included transposed numbers, numbers rounded incorrectly, incorrectly labelled tests/components and cross entry into the wrong charts.  These errors are being addressed with continuous process changes, including Labs taking over all charting responsibilities and hiring specialized personnel. We have noticed a significant drop in errors discovered and/or released over the past few weeks.  In the T3 category, we discovered eight typos that included reversed label descriptions and/or incorrect information like the number of PCIe lanes in a spec chart.  While these are pinned comments, we are working on correcting the videos for now.  As discussed in the video today, this post or workbook will not be updated. 

There won't be a big WAN Show segment about this or anything. Most of what I have to say, I've already said, and I've done so privately.

To Steve, I expressed my disappointment that he didn't go through proper journalistic practices in creating this piece. He has my email and number (along with numerous other members of our team) and could have asked me for context that may have proven to be valuable (like the fact that we didn't 'sell' the monoblock, but rather auctioned it for charity due to a miscommunication... AND the fact that while we haven't sent payment yet, we have already agreed to compensate Billet Labs for the cost of their prototype). There are other issues, but I've told him that I won't be drawn into a public sniping match over this and that I'll be continuing to move forward in good faith as part of 'Team Media'. When/if he's ready to do so again I'll be ready.

To my team (and my CEO's team, but realistically I was at the helm for all of these errors, so I need to own it), I stressed the importance of diligence in our work because there are so many eyes on us. We are going through some growing pains - we've been very public about them in the interest of transparency - and it's clear we have some work to do on internal processes and communication. We have already been doing a lot of work internally to clean up our processes, but these things take time. Rome wasn't built in a day, but that's no excuse for sloppiness.

Now, for my community, all I can say is the same things I always say. We know that we're not perfect. We wear our imperfection on our sleeves in the interest of ensuring that we stay accountable to you. But it's sad and unfortunate when this transparency gets warped into a bad thing. The Labs team is hard at work hard creating processes and tools to generate data that will benefit all consumers - a work in progress that is very much not done and that we've communicated needs to be treated as such. Do we have notes under some videos? Yes. Is it because we are striving for transparency/improvement? Yeah... What we're doing hasn't been in many years, if ever.. and we would make a much larger correction if the circumstances merited it. Listing the wrong amount of cache on a table for a CPU review is sloppy, but given that our conclusions are drawn based on our testing, not the spec sheet, it doesn't materially change the recommendation. That doesn't mean these things don't matter. We've set KPIs for our writing/labs team around accuracy, and we are continually installing new checks and balances to ensure that things continue to get better. If you haven't seen the improvement, frankly I wonder if you're really looking for it... The thoroughness that we managed on our last handful of GPU videos is getting really incredible given the limited time we have for these embargoes. I'm REALLY excited about what the future will hold.
 
With all of that said, I still disagree that the Billet Labs video (not the situation with the return, which I've already addressed above) is an 'accuracy' issue. It's more like I just read the room wrong. We COULD have re-tested it with perfect accuracy, but to do so PROPERLY - accounting for which cases it could be installed in (none) and which radiators it would be plumbed with (again... mystery) would have been impossible... and also didn't affect the conclusion of the video... OR SO I THOUGHT...
 
I wanted to evaluate it as a product, and as a product, IF it could manage to compete with the temperatures of the highest end blocks on the planet, it still wouldn't make sense to buy... so from my point of view, re-testing it and finding out that yes, it did in fact run cooler made no difference to the conclusion, so it didn't really make a difference.
 
Adam and I were talking about this today. He advocated for re-testing it regardless of how non-viable it was as a product at the time and I think he expressed really well today why it mattered. It was like making a video about a supercar. It doesn't mater if no one watching will buy it. They just wanna see it rip.  I missed that, but it wasn't because I didn't care about the consumer.. it was because I was so focused on how this product impacted a potential buyer. Either way, clearly my bad, but my intention was never to harm Billet Labs. I specifically called out their incredible machining skills because I wanted to see them create something with a viable market for it and was hoping others would appreciate the fineness of the craftsmanship even if the product was impractical. I still hope they move forward building something else because they obviously have talent and I've watched countless niche water cooling vendors come and go. It's an astonishingly unforgiving market.
 
Either way, I'm sorry I got the community's priorities mixed-up on this one, and that we didn't show the Billet in the best light. Our intention wasn't to hurt anyone. We wanted no one to buy it (because it's an egregious waste of money no matter what temps it runs at) and we wanted Billet to make something marketable (so they can, y'know, eat).
 
With all of this in mind, it saddens me how quickly the pitchforks were raised over this. It also comes across a touch hypocritical when some basic due diligence could have helped clarify much of it. I have a LONG history of meeting issues head on and I've never been afraid to answer questions, which lands me in hot water regularly, but helps keep me in tune with my peers and with the community. The only reason I can think of not to ask me is because my honest response might be inconvenient. 
 
We can test that... with this post. Will the "It was a mistake (a bad one, but a mistake) and they're taking care of it" reality manage to have the same reach? Let's see if anyone actually wants to know what happened. I hope so, but it's been disheartening seeing how many people were willing to jump on us here. Believe it or not, I'm a real person and so is the rest of my team. We are trying our best, and if what we were doing was easy, everyone would do it. Today sucks.
 
Thanks for reading this.