UPDATE: NVIDIA backtracks - Hardware Unboxed blacklisted from receiving GeForce FE review samples over “focus on rasterization over ray-tracing”

[RejZoR]

On 12/16/2020 at 8:22 AM, SAVE-12-HK said:

do you have the balls to blacklist nvidia as a gamer?

It's easier to say "I'm blacklisting Milka" when there are 500 trillion other companies making their chocolates. Not so much when you have 2 companies making GPU's, of which 1 was struggling for years to release a competent GPU...

[WereCatf]

46 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

As I've mentioned before, the issue is the fact that we have to rely on day 1 review to get information

I have to agree with @leadeaterhere: I don't see why the information being available on day 1 has any relevance to the accuracy of the information or not. I mean, it's not like the cards have magically different performance if the review is available a few days from release. Day 1 reviews matter to reviewers, but for consumers? Only to those who have zero impulse-control and literally cannot contain themselves.

[RejZoR]

1 minute ago, WereCatf said:

I have to agree with @leadeaterhere: I don't see why the information being available on day 1 has any relevance to the accuracy of the information or not. I mean, it's not like the cards have magically different performance if the review is available a few days from release. Day 1 reviews matter to reviewers, but for consumers? Only to those who have zero impulse-control and literally cannot contain themselves.

Even more so these days when everyone had PLENTY of time to read all the reviews in the world for 3 months before even being able to buy RTX 3000 card...

[Moonzy]

1 minute ago, WereCatf said:

I have to agree with @leadeaterhere: I don't see why the information being available on day 1 has any relevance to the accuracy of the information or not. I mean, it's not like the cards have magically different performance if the review is available a few days from release. Day 1 reviews matter to reviewers, but for consumers? Only to those who have zero impulse-control and literally cannot contain themselves.

I guess "have to" is a wrong word to use, but that's generally the coverage we refer to anyways

 

Tbh, I wouldn't mind if Nvidia pulled cards from reviewers and say "we don't like your coverage"

But the implication that other reviewers that do receive it is essentially Nvidia's messenger bothers me, but I guess we just have to trust the reviewer integrity.

 

And as u mentioned, reviewers that have been dropped will verify the integrity of other reviewers after they have their cards and reviewed it

 

Honestly I don't know what's the best move here for Nvidia. Nvidia came out and be painfully honest, but gets bashed.

If they pulled silently, similar would happen just like asrock, we all know what's the reason.

[WereCatf]

2 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

Honestly I don't know what's the best move here for Nvidia. Nvidia came out and be painfully honest, but gets bashed.

If they pulled silently, similar would happen just like asrock, we all know what's the reason.

There is no good move for them. They dug their hole, now they get to sleep in it, and only time can heal the damage.

[Moonzy]

Just now, WereCatf said:

There is no good move for them. They dug their hole, now they get to sleep in it, and only time can heal the damage.

The last thing I want is to bash on a company for being honest, though

 

Even if it's bad news for consumers

 

"We won't have shortages of gpu"

Or

"We're having difficulties producing enough gpu, so availability may be scarce, please be patient"

 

Given the hindsight, which would you prefer to be told?

[Dutch_Master]

56 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

Derbaur's take on this is that Nvidia is simply telling the truth, and we're bashing them for it

You need to realise that DerBaur is much less of an "independent reviewer" then most, as he's associated his name and brand to products and brands much more then Linus, Jay and GN Steve ever did, combined. Note that I'm not saying he's not independent or does a poor job!

 

We have a saying here that translated, roughly comes down to this:

"Who's bread one's eat, who's language one's speaks"

[WereCatf]

Just now, Moonzy said:

Given the hindsight, which would you prefer to be told?

I'm not sure why my opinion matters, but I have Asperger's and, as is fairly typical for us, I like everything just being blurted out raw.

[Blademaster91]

31 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

I guess "have to" is a wrong word to use, but that's generally the coverage we refer to anyways

 

Tbh, I wouldn't mind if Nvidia pulled cards from reviewers and say "we don't like your coverage"

But the implication that other reviewers that do receive it is essentially Nvidia's messenger bothers me, but I guess we just have to trust the reviewer integrity.

 

And as u mentioned, reviewers that have been dropped will verify the integrity of other reviewers after they have their cards and reviewed it

 

Honestly I don't know what's the best move here for Nvidia. Nvidia came out and be painfully honest, but gets bashed.

If they pulled silently, similar would happen just like asrock, we all know what's the reason.

The day 1 reviews are more important for reviewers than consumers, those that were impatient and rushed to buy Nvidia 3080s got to be the beta testers with that whole POSCAP vs. MLCC issue.

But a company controlling how reviewers cover a product is something I really dislike, and after this I'm not sure I can trust what any reviewer says about ray tracing, ray tracing should be a feature, not a main selling point.

IMO the best move for nvidia would be a better apology towards HUB.

25 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

The last thing I want is to bash on a company for being honest, though

 

Even if it's bad news for consumers

 

"We won't have shortages of gpu"

Or

"We're having difficulties producing enough gpu, so availability may be scarce, please be patient"

 

Given the hindsight, which would you prefer to be told?

I really don't care which one Nvidia would tell me because they didn't admit why there was a shortage, and its not like I can buy one anyway.

[Moonzy]

29 minutes ago, leadeater said:

TL;DR Nvidia: Put up or shut up. You failed to deliver noteworthy Ray Tracing performance increase so you got all the coverage it deserved, a passing mention it's a bit better.

I'm thinking that the concept of review samples slightly sketchy.

you're given a piece of tech to review and you're supposed to say something about it.

If the company don't like what you said, they might stop sending you one, so it blows up on their face because people think they're being mean when they're just doing their job trying to market their product, even though reviews aren't supposed to be used for marketing purposes. (Even though they sorta are)

 

Perhaps they shouldn't send review samples and let reviewers buy off the shelves GPU and review them on their own accord?

If their product is good, the reviews themselves are marketing materials.

Companies still get constructive criticism, if the product is bad.

[leadeater]

12 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

The last thing I want is to bash on a company for being honest, though

Depends what they are being honest about and how. A company being honest that they are vindictive or excessively controlling, or a secret illuminati front organization, probably does deserve a bit of bashing for that. Being an honest asshole is still being an asshole, just with a nice bow on it.

 

Yea I am just joking above, but it really does matter what they are being honest about.  

[WereCatf]

1 minute ago, leadeater said:

Being an honest asshole is still being an asshole, just with a nice bow on it.

Thanks for the mental image; my mind immediately went into trying to figure out how to put a bow on a literal asshole!

[leadeater]

2 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

I'm thinking that the concept of review samples slightly sketchy.

you're given a piece of tech to review and you're supposed to say something about it.

If the company don't like what you said, they might stop sending you one, so it blows up on their face because people think they're being mean when they're just doing their job trying to market their product, even though reviews aren't supposed to be used for marketing purposes. (Even though they sorta are)

 

Perhaps they shouldn't send review samples and let reviewers buy off the shelves GPU and review them on their own accord?

If their product is good, the reviews themselves are marketing materials.

Companies still get constructive criticism, if the product is bad.

Well I think Nvidia could have stopped giving review samples for the general stated reason they gave, at least even only temporarily. They just really needed to word it so much better. As you say they are allowed to be unhappy with the coverage they got and think it was not fair and thus withhold future review samples, just be a lot more careful about implying an action is required that puts either or both parties integrity in to question.

 

People would have still made noise and cried foul but I'm rather confident it would not have made it to the level of getting significant commentary from the reviewer community that it did.

[Moonzy]

1 hour ago, Blademaster91 said:

But a company controlling how reviewers cover a product is something I really dislike, and after this I'm not sure I can trust what any reviewer says about ray tracing, ray tracing should be a feature, not a main selling point.

This I agree with, a company shouldn't tell what a reviewer should do

 

Edit: but they can suggest what reviewers can do, highlight latest features and such

 

Nvidia simply said they won't send them anymore FE cards, and added that they'll still receive driver support for their pre-release testings. And gave them an honest reason of why they stopped sending them FE cards.

They didn't force HUB anything, if you ask me.

Unless you go on the conspiracy theory side.

 

HUB said they're fine without FE cards too, btw

[Grabhanem]

5 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

HUB said they're fine without FE cards too, btw

This is what I find so baffling about this whole mess. You can argue all day about whether what Nvidia did was wrong - for me, it was just straight-up stupid.

 

HWUB isn't some tiny one-man tech review channel, they're one of the most trusted reviewers on Youtube, and they've shown no hesitation in calling out manufacturers for shady tactics - see MSI X570 and the Asus TUF A15. What did Nvidia hope to gain by going after them? HWUB loses what, one video worth of ad revenue per year? And by calling Nvidia out, they gain trust from the community and (rightly) a crap-ton of free publicity from various tech news channels.

Meanwhile, what does Nvidia get? There's tons of people in this thread alone who will never recommend a Nvidia card again, and reviewers now can't even review raytracing performance without looking like shills, even if they legitimately think it's worth talking about.

[Master Disaster]

On 12/13/2020 at 5:21 PM, MadPistol said:

The Internet hates bullies.

This is Nvidia attempting to bully a channel into favoritism. Instead, said channel pushed back, and the Internet pounced on said bully.

When will companies learn... you don't pull this crap unless you're willing to take the fall associated with someone calling your bluff.

It goes further than that. As Linus pointed out, there's no chance in hell Nvidia PR expected that email to stay private, it was always going to be made public, Nvidia knew that and they even took the time to throw some free marketing into a threatening email.

 

Nvidia were basically saying to EVERYONE they seed review samples to that they (the tech journalists) either get onboard with their (Nvidia) vision or they (Nvidia) will have no worries about blacklisting them (journalists), they tried to make an example out of one channel to send a message to everyone.

 

And also like Linus said, they have no right to try and control the "editorial direction" of any member of the press. Its one thing to blacklist a channel, they have the right to send samples to (or not) anybody they choose, but its another thing entirely to threaten the entire industry and try to enforce their own journalistic agenda onto everyone.

 

Its not like it the first time they've tried stunts like this, remember that contract they tried to force all AIB partners into signing which said they can only get partnership if they agree to only use their internal gaming brands on Nvidia products?

[Moonzy]

10 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Nvidia were basically saying to EVERYONE they seed review samples to that they (the tech journalists) either get onboard with their (Nvidia) vision or they (Nvidia) will have no worries about blacklisting them (journalists), they tried to make an example out of one channel to send a message to everyone.

If an independent reviewer depends on a company they are reviewing a product of to operate, I think there's a problem here.

 

They shouldn't care. And as HUB have stated, they don't, they didn't even notice they were blacklisted when they did the 3060ti coverage, no one did until they received that email.

 

13 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

And also like Linus said, they have no right to try and control the "editorial direction" of any member of the press. Its one thing to blacklist a channel, they have the right to send samples to (or not) anybody they choose, but its another thing entirely to threaten the entire industry and try to enforce their own journalistic agenda onto everyone.

Tbh whether Nvidia threatened them to follow their editorial direction is debatable, Nvidia simply stopped seeding them samples, but still provides drivers and states that they can work with AIB to get cards.

It depends on how you interpret the message, I suppose.

 

And even if they do threaten reviewers and stopped supporting them, what can they do about it? Prevent reviewers from downloading game ready drivers after launch? Tell everyone not to sell their GPU to reviewers?

 

I just think the concept of review sample is bizarre, as stated in my previous post.

Nvidia is still in my hated company list because of the GPP thing that you've mentioned.

[Master Disaster]

1 hour ago, Moonzy said:

If an independent reviewer depends on a company they are reviewing a product of to operate, I think there's a problem here.

 

They shouldn't care. And as HUB have stated, they don't, they didn't even notice they were blacklisted when they did the 3060ti coverage, no one did until they received that email.

Totally fair.

1 hour ago, Moonzy said:

 

Tbh whether Nvidia threatened them to follow their editorial direction is debatable, Nvidia simply stopped seeding them samples, but still provides drivers and states that they can work with AIB to get cards.

It depends on how you interpret the message, I suppose.

 

And even if they do threaten reviewers and stopped supporting them, what can they do about it? Prevent reviewers from downloading game ready drivers after launch? Tell everyone not to sell their GPU to reviewers?

The subtext of that email was very clear.

 

Being facetious, here's a translation...

Quote

Dear HUB (and also all other tech media),

 

We have decided to not seed you review samples because you don't cover ray tracing enough. We think RT is the future.

 

Our products are great ...bla bla bla marketing BS...

 

If you decide to change your mind and cover RT like we want then we will seed you cards again.

 

Thanks,

Your evil overlords

My issue is this basically amounts to an attack on the integrity of the free press. When a governing body tries to control the narrative of the press with any kind of bias or prejudice we tend to call that a unitary state or a dictatorship.

[Moonzy]

3 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

here's a translation...

Quote

Dear HUB (and also all other tech media),

 

We have decided to not seed you review samples because you don't cover ray tracing enough. We think RT is the future.

 

Our products are great ...bla bla bla marketing BS...

 

If you decide to change your mind and cover RT like we want then we will seed you cards again.

 

Thanks,

Your evil overlords

Expand  

 

"Here's a translation" but this guy just copy pasted the original msg smh

 

But yea, they gave HUB a choice, they can continue reviewing GPUs as they are, and they won't receive FE review samples, or they can consider covering more RT contents and Nvidia will perhaps re-supply their FE cards.

 

Now, Nvidia is kind of a jackass for even trying to suggest it, it's like "hey kid, want some drugs?" kind of a slippery slope

But they also didn't force a positive review of RT, just more coverage, but I guess that's my interpretation, and you could argue they could say "we want positive review or no FE cards for you" in the future, so indeed it is not great.

 

Good on HUB for keeping the integrity.

[Master Disaster]

2 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

"Here's a translation" but this guy just copy pasted the original msg smh

 

But yea, they gave HUB a choice, they can continue reviewing GPUs as they are, and they won't receive FE review samples, or they can consider covering more RT contents and Nvidia will perhaps re-supply their FE cards.

 

Now, Nvidia is kind of a jackass for even trying to suggest it, it's like "hey kid, want some drugs?" kind of a slippery slope

But they also didn't force a positive review of RT, just more coverage, but I guess that's my interpretation, and you could argue they could say "we want positive review or no FE cards for you" in the future, so indeed it is not great.

 

Good on HUB for keeping the integrity.

Again, fair point and I actually agree that the slippery slope argument is never really a good thing, it relies on assumptions about the future but the one thing I took away from all this was the rest of the tech tubers all standing up against it because they all got the hidden message too.

 

Heck Linus straight up said as much in WAN Show, "Message received loud and clear Nvidia".

 

As a company as big as Nvidia you can say a lot without actually saying very much.

 

I do admit though, I had never considered your point about them only demanding more coverage and not necessarily positive coverage.

 

 

[Moonzy]

15 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Again, fair point and I actually agree that the slippery slope argument is never really a good thing, it relies on assumptions about the future but the one thing I took away from all this was the rest of the tech tubers all standing up against it because they all got the hidden message too.

 

Heck Linus straight up said as much in WAN Show, "Message received loud and clear Nvidia".

 

As a company as big as Nvidia you can say a lot without actually saying very much.

 

I do admit though, I had never considered your point about them only demanding more coverage and not necessarily positive coverage.

 

 

In hindsight, if they just sent an email saying:

"If you could cover ray trace aspects more, doesn't have to be positive, it'd be great" and didn't pull the FE cards until HUB decides to say no, that might've been better, PR wise

 

Of course them pulling FE after the refusal would still get backlash, but it's more understandable

[ARikozuM]

On 12/11/2020 at 9:20 AM, Mark Kaine said:

Or in other words, nvidia found a clever way of having their customers pay for and at the same time beta testing a technical feature that will see widespread usage in a rather distant future (10-20 years)

This isn't a "clever" way. This is the only way. You can test whatever you want under whatever conditions you want, but at the end of the day only your market can point out the flaws and benefits of the product. Those of us who do early adoption tend to what success in the product and we don't really care how far away it is from mass adoption, i.e. smartwatches or wireless charging. If we relied only on Pixar, we'd probably be playing Toy Story Call of Duty or Aladdin: Replicant.