Gamers Nexus alleges LMG has insufficient ethics and integrity

[CYJAN3K]

Just now, atxcyclist said:

You’re fine with allowing someone to make one-sided flame-stoking videos, that just shows that you don’t have integrity yourself.

They didnt made that though. They made criticism and backed up things they talked about. You present it as if they were just shattalking LTT for no reason and talk about integrity, nice one.

2 minutes ago, atxcyclist said:

Linus doesn’t have to say that, journalists make contact with both sides of any report, period. If Steve isn’t going to do that, then he’s just purposefully making drama, and to that end why should anyone care about a severely-biased flame-tactic video?

Again you missed the fact that this isnt "journalist and two sides of one story" type of situation. This is "journalist have a story" situation and the difference is that they can only write their point of view, they dont need to ask LTT what should they change because this is their view.

Some external outlet might try to write this as a story and they should ask both LTT and GN. Linus doesnt need to ask BilletLabs before doubling down on his weak defense during wan show, doesnt need to ask GN for permission to write his POV and thats also just fine. I dont need to ask you for permission to criticise your usage of very inflamatory words when GN video wasnt like that. All I need is something to back up my words - like the fact that they made multiple pauses in video to remind you its not about fighting each other now, its just criticism of their work and you cannot dispute that.

[ForboJack]

17 minutes ago, MiltownClowns said:

Every single controversy I can remember is from Linus putting his foot in his mouth.

What are you talking about? Almost nothing about this story is about Linus saying something. The bad data is still bad data and the auctioned off mono block is still gone. The way Linus talkes about this, might make some people mad or some people agree with him, but it has nothing to do with problems at hand. 

 

I agree with most GN says in their video, but I also think it's bad practice not to ask for a statement - which is kinda ironic because the video is mainly about bad practices. Cheekiness aside the points they make are valid and we'll see how and if LMG improves. For the consumer in me I just want better videos, even though parts of me enjoy the drama in the space and in the communities as well.

[Nissen]

@LinusTech no doubt you and everyone are very busy, thank you for being as active with your community as possible.

 

The opinions are many and in all directions, quickly making it messy and muddy. I've never seen myself as a fanboy of anyone, but I do respect and value LTT, GN, J2C, AHO, HUB... All of you are doing great work, all in your own style and flair and I'm adult enough to make my own opinion not trusting anyone as a solo medium for truths.

 

You are all professionals and you are all people, with a team you have to trust and rely on. I may be a bit naive, but my view of the future is a lot of collaboration, data sharing and crediting of data and articles/videos between all of you on an equal/fair platform. One can hope at least. I hope that this episode won't build any walls, but instead be an opportunity towards such a future.

 

Why not invite GN to a back and forth, face to face, discussion. See where you (LMG and GN) can agree, disagree, find common ground etc.

 

In my view all of this is a bit blown out of proportions, but no smoke without something... I'm not interested in a public fight/drama, but I see nothing wrong in a dialog/discussion back and forth and I would imagine you agree on most and some of the finer details will likely come down to let's agree to disagree and move on.

 

The moving on part is also a "fun" topic, friendly banter / calling out I view as healthy. As long as it is stated as being opinion based and meant as constructive criticism no one should be above that. Anyone can make mistakes and anyone reporting on others mistakes might miss some crucial info.

 

Instead of following companies embargo, you could setup a collaboration initiativ where you fact check each other and release on a schedule you agree upon with the other media outlets. And if/when someone screws something up minor/major, call in for a podcast where everyone are invited and have a neutral person as host where subject are being committed beforehand and everyone are informed on which topics will be brought up for discussion.

 

You could even make it a monthly or quarterly show where you can hold each other accountable and give rebuckles. And if there are no "internal" controversies, you can just have fun talking about positive news others made and you would like to highlight or stories to look forward to.

 

Let the media "police" the media and make a collaborative show out of it. Here in my country our press do this publicly and live every week and it is great!

[VicBar]

2 hours ago, Jazmodo said:

And therein lies the problem - you implicitly believe/trust a YT channel at face value. 

 

I enjoy LMG for what it is, entertainment. If you come here for cold, hard facts & nothing more, you need to subscribe to a journal, and even then it's not guaranteed 100% tue.

I believe they both have the consumer's best interest in mind. These channels were both created out of love for tech and their own interest as consumers to get better info and not get cheated into buying smth. You could say one of them has strayed more from that path when being bigger and reaching further was more important and came with all these problems we all see.

 

But don't you assume that about me I watch more than two reviews if I'm ever gonna buy smth, which is what BOTH Linus and Steve preach you should do, I might add. *sips from GN cobalt blue gold trimmed glass* *rests glass on GN coaster*.

[Arneun]

9 minutes ago, ToboRobot said:

As far as I know (and could confirm quickly online) it Canada/USA it's a guideline, not a firm rule. 

 

Yeah, I was trying to make a point that's it's so much tied to journalistic integrity that some places had codified it in the ethics.

 

I'm not actually sure whether this would be subject to some punishment if broken in my country, but the point still stands.

[Dom1252]

2 minutes ago, e22big said:

I've just been listened to GN, they said the owner told him that it was lost by LTT. If there's anything beyond the scope of the quoted video, I don't really know (nor care tbh)

what exactly are you talking about?  because now I'm confused

if the cooler, then that was auctioned, it's said in the video, linus admitted it even here in the thread

[charliebros]

Hey @LinusTech

 

Looking at your reply, with "There would not be a big WAN show segment for this", I would expect AT LEAST a full video explaining what the hell is going on, even if they are things that "you have already said"

 

I love LTT, I have been watching every video since around 10 years ago, many of my purchasing choices have been made based on LTT's reviews and commentaries, sometimes I would go ahead and watch another 2 or 3 reviews, but often LTT gives a review that turns out is the general consensus.

 

You guys cannot go ahead and say "well yeah we got everything wrong but results are results", even LESS if you are trying to set up the Labs as a trustworthy database for all things tech. I know that ShortCircuit is meant to be a quick "let's grab this thing and shoot it", but like, you made some comments about how you want ShortCircuit to be a bit more in depth, How can we trust you about this with all this going on? One, maybe two posts about some corrections it's okay, but a loooot of videos are plagued with asterisks, corrections, etc, again, how can we trust your content is ok?

 

I know you are no longer the CEO, but you are the face and representation of the company, I mean, it literally HAS YOUR NAME, so unless you step down, there's a reason everybody is asking, not Taran, not Yvonne, but you.

 

It truly saddens me to see all of this blow up, but it was necessary, and it certainly explains why Steve didn't contact you first.

[IndustrialBananaBread]

2 minutes ago, Nissen said:

@LinusTech no doubt you and everyone are very busy, thank you for being as active with your community as possible.

 

The opinions are many and in all directions, quickly making it messy and muddy. I've never seen myself as a fanboy of anyone, but I do respect and value LTT, GN, J2C, AHO, HUB... All of you are doing great work, all in your own style and flair and I'm adult enough to make my own opinion not trusting anyone as a solo medium for truths.

 

You are all professionals and you are all people, with a team you have to trust and rely on. I may be a bit naive, but my view of the future is a lot of collaboration, data sharing and crediting of data and articles/videos between all of you on an equal/fair platform. One can hope at least. I hope that this episode won't build any walls, but instead be an opportunity towards such a future.

 

Why not invite GN to a back and forth, face to face, discussion. See where you (LMG and GN) can agree, disagree, find common ground etc.

 

In my view all of this is a bit blown out of proportions, but no smoke without something... I'm not interested in a public fight/drama, but I see nothing wrong in a dialog/discussion back and forth and I would imagine you agree on most and some of the finer details will likely come down to let's agree to disagree and move on.

 

The moving on part is also a "fun" topic, friendly banter / calling out I view as healthy. As long as it is stated as being opinion based and meant as constructive criticism no one should be above that. Anyone can make mistakes and anyone reporting on others mistakes might miss some crucial info.

 

Instead of following companies embargo, you could setup a collaboration initiativ where you fact check each other and release on a schedule you agree upon with the other media outlets. And if/when someone screws something up minor/major, call in for a podcast where everyone are invited and have a neutral person as host where subject are being committed beforehand and everyone are informed on which topics will be brought up for discussion.

 

You could even make it a monthly or quarterly show where you can hold each other accountable and give rebuckles. And if there are no "internal" controversies, you can just have fun talking about positive news others made and you would like to highlight or stories to look forward to.

 

Let the media "police" the media and make a collaborative show out of it. Here in my country our press do this publicly and live every week and it is great!

I can only imagine how much of a mud flinging match the live chat would be haha

[ToboRobot]

2 hours ago, GotWeez said:

You create time by trimming wastes of time

 

If you assume LMG is operating at a Net 0... sure, overhead is problematic

 

If you can't properly manage your current workload, you stop growing or take less work. Otherwise your quality slips and you aren't producing anything of value.

 

That's outright wrong. Processes can be changed immediately. It just takes the willingness to do so. We aren't talking about reinventing the wheel... we're talking about slowing down and caring enough to take your time and get it right.

 

If they can't care enough to take the time, or in some cases even do the bare minimal, to get it right... what value is there in you watching it? Watching it knowing that you're watching factually incorrect shovelware garbage?

 

Can't even be bothered to finish a tech upgrade... One shot... if it's not finished... oh well, screw it...

I don't think any of us know if there are massive wastes of time that can be trimmed.

I don't think any of us know the finances, but I think based on the head count and region the overhead is substantial, and we don't know what sort of pressure the costs vs revenue balance is. 

The overhead is why it's hard to take less work.  (assumption)

 

Processes take time to be researched, planned, localized and implemented.  Then they take time to take effect.  LMG could hire GN as consultants today, and it would take time for that new process to take effect. 

People watch content that interests them, and there is lots of subpar content on YouTube and TV that people watch.

[the9thdude]

1 minute ago, atxcyclist said:

There is simply a ‘must’, if something is to be taken seriously. I’m not interested in arguing that point further, I took journalism classes in school, even at that level we were expected to get both sides of a story. You, and many other people in here are just patting Steve on the back for doing a poor job, a job Steve Burke claims GN is providing adequately for the tech community.

That's neat that you took journalism classes.

 

Too bad everyone in the tech space except for like, four people, are self-taught journalists who came from a variety of backgrounds such as lab tech, academia, or even tech retail. Yes, there are journalistic standards, but isn't making sure that the data you provide the most accurate it can possibly be instead of just going "close enough"? As far as I'm concerned, everyone right now is operating in the spirit of the law, rather than the letter of the law when it comes to journalistic standards. If this were the AP or BBC, I'd be inclined to agree with your statements, but that's not who we're talking about. We're talking about a college dropout who runs a multimillion dollar media company versus a lab tech who just really likes to run benchmarks.

 

So please, spare me the "b-but journalistic integrity makes this entire argument pointless!" Right now, LMG has a problem on their hands, and if they ignore it, it's going to get worse, not better.

[Middcore]

I just want to add that Linus's "We were never going to give the Billet Labs block a good review no matter what because nobody will ever pay what they're charging" is pretty amusing because there was a time not so long ago when people would have scoffed at the idea of anyone paying two grand for a graphics card and yet the RTX 4090 exists (and that isn't even a "scalped" reseller price).

 

Does the Billet Labs block finally push PC gaming as a hobby over the edge into "More expensive than badminton" territory, Linus? 

[atxcyclist]

13 minutes ago, CYJAN3K said:

They didnt made that though. They made criticism and backed up things they talked about. You present it as if they were just shattalking LTT for no reason and talk about integrity, nice one.

Again you missed the fact that this isnt "journalist and two sides of one story" type of situation. This is "journalist have a story" situation and the difference is that they can only write their point of view, they dont need to ask LTT what should they change because this is their view.

Some external outlet might try to write this as a story and they should ask both LTT and GN. Linus doesnt need to ask BilletLabs before doubling down on his weak defense during wan show, doesnt need to ask GN for permission to write his POV and thats also just fine. I dont need to ask you for permission to criticise your usage of very inflamatory words when GN video wasnt like that. All I need is something to back up my words - like the fact that they made multiple pauses in video to remind you its not about fighting each other now, its just criticism of their work and you cannot dispute that.

They did, I explained how journalism works numerous times to various people here, you may not have any concept of it but that’s not really my problem. 

 

Regardless of your take on it, Steve is just making drama by not contacting an entity they are reporting on.

[CradleGames]

52 minutes ago, LinusTech said:

We talk constantly about how we intend to move forward and make better content. It's just taking longer than any of us would like. If everything had gone according to plan, we'd have our camera range, theater room, and acoustic chamber done like 6 months ago. Instead our warehouse is torn apart right now because they had to reinforce our roof in order to support the heat pumps that we've been trying to get procured since last summer.

The real world is messy, and the more cooks you have in the kitchen, the more room there is for error.

 

With that said, if all you want is a non-ambiguous statement that we're going to keep trying to get better, then here it is. We're going to keep trying to get better. Gary did a wonderful 'state-of-the-union' update for the company this morning about recent milestones and what we have in store. Those investments will keep flowing, and I promise that they will be a win for consumers and the tech industry.

For now, it's hard to do because I'm frustrated by the timelines too, but all I can do is say, "Stay tuned. it's upward from here and we're really excited."

Tell me, are you really that out of touch?

Nothing you listed will make "better content". Giving your staff time to make better content will make better content.
Honestly nobody gives a shit about your theater room or acoustic chamber if you still produce half-baked rushed content.

When you make a mistake, you OWN it. You must be proactive. Don't release garbage because of "deadlines".
When there's a mistake in a video, you take it down, and you apologize publicly. You don't blame other people.
Don't punch down. Ever.

[xg32]

6 minutes ago, IndustrialBananaBread said:

Pretty likely. The community have been aware of these issues for ages, and hopefully the video and its impact serves as a very cold shower for LMG.

Everyone with some tech knowledge knew LTT benchmarks werent good enough for even entry level enthusiasts, and i actually wonder if the other tech tubers just didnt address it out of respect, and both HUB/GN both acknowledged it since getting called out by the lab guy. Just really embarassing overall. 

 

Wake up call? or dodge the issue for months til it blows over?

[TheChroNickL]

To everyone making comments about Journalism or Journalistic Integrity etc. This is the Editor's Code of Practice and an interpretation from IPSO regarding contacting subjects of a story:

 

https://www.societyofeditors.org/resources/editors-code-of-practice/

https://www.ipso.co.uk/news-press-releases/blog/ipso-blog-do-journalists-have-to-contact-people-before-they-publish-a-story-about-them/

 

 

 

 

[Dom1252]

it's funny how many people are now experts on journalism, lol

both sides are always wrong

[IndustrialBananaBread]

1 minute ago, xg32 said:

Everyone with some tech knowledge knew LTT benchmarks werent good enough for even entry level enthusiasts, and i actually wonder if the other tech tubers just didnt address it out of respect, and both HUB/GN both acknowledged it since getting called out by the lab guy. Just really embarassing overall. 

 

Wake up call? or dodge the issue for months til it blows over?

Hoping they address it. Ignoring it will just let it simmer until the next video comes, then it will explode in their faces even bigger than it currently is.

[VicBar]

3 hours ago, Dion3825 said:

Even with LTT being an entertainment channel for the most part I find that the rushing of video's not only has a negative effect on the quality or reporting on products but also makes the entertainment value lower, for me at least. I feel like there is less fun content, more fast "i bought random stuff from x cheap store, here it is." - I feel like there are less jokes and less times where the team interacts with each other, less fun and quirky scripted or unscripted moments. 

Even with the House videos! Linus himself expressed frustration just last WAN Show that in his life a lot of things feel like they are forever in a "temporary" state. The house update videos are awesome, I've always loved them! But specially with the last one about the watercooling and the pool... I felt like... How useless of a video if this is all the 3rd or 4th proof-of-concept type video and it'll all change completely in a month or two and we'll be right back here from scratch doing smth diff. It just made it feel very irrelevant.

 

Even though it was fun! It's always fun... but the irrelevance of a lot of the content they've been making recently has been adding up over the years on me ig...

[MiltownClowns]

3 minutes ago, ForboJack said:

What are you talking about? Almost nothing about this story is about Linus saying something. The bad data is still bad data and the auctioned off mono block is still gone. The way Linus talkes about this, might make some people mad or some people agree with him, but it has nothing to do with problems at hand.

I was referring to his statements in this thread. A proper PR response would could have steered this event to more productive waters. Instead he was defensive, dismissive, and generally made things worse. The health of LMG is directly tied to the perception of Linus, and he isn't taking that responsibility with the weight it demands.

[izan TM]

1 hour ago, Paul Thexton said:

There can be reasons for it. Running tests on nominally the same hardware you can certainly simplistically expect the results to be consistent… But in reality there *are* other factors involved.

 

For one thing, was the hardware test spec *actually* the same between runs beyond which GPU was used? Drivers the same? Was the game compiling shaders on the older run? Is the underlying OS the same, game at the same patch level? etc etc.

 

I’m not making excuses for the examples offered in Steve’s video, but I can see how it’s possible. Conveying info about all the relevant test conditions is the important learning here I think.

 

If it were me and I saw performance data leap outside of what I’d consider margin of error then I’d certainly manually validate the results and put a bit of effort in to understanding the cause. That does take time/resource though.

here's the thing, if you aren't controling for those variables, can you even be considered a lab?
most reputable reviewers have an offline copy of windows, with offline saves of videogames and offline drivers so the tests are the same for years of hardware testing

if you don't do that, you aren't comparing apples to apples

 

and whenever you do change your test bench for recency reasons, you do rerun all of your tests enough times to validate them, build a data base and THEN you can go ahead and use that test bench for a review

 

what the lab are doing is hap-hazardly testing stuff and throwing graphs on screen without rhyme or reason

[Godlygamer23]

5 hours ago, igormp said:

So, LMG content is rushed, inaccurate and focus more on being "funny" rather than accurate?

I'm a bit late to this thread...But the central problem is that Linus wants LMG to be seen as something else. It's a bit like Lisa wanting AMD to stop being seen as the "budget" CPU company, and taken more seriously. When you're building something to test products and calling it the "Lab", it gives a much different tone than Linus just saying that him and his team tested it. It gives off a vibe that there's something more serious going on...Where Steve discusses frame rate data being incorrect, probably because of settings changing somewhere, that is unacceptable. You should ensure that EVERYTHING is working properly, basically a dry run, before you start publishing data and using it as an authoritative source of information. If you can't get that right, you will be seen as a joke, and not someone who cares about the product.

 

Even where Linus complained about having to spend extra money to do better testing is simply stating where his mind is. He is more concerned about spending a bit of extra money(especially the first time around) than providing an accurate view of the product. A small startup company goes to LMG because of their size, and Linus and his team totally misuse the product, and claim it's "bad", probably severely hurting that company. No one claims LMG is perfect, LMG itself included. That doesn't absolve them of responsibility for their mistakes. Even if the issues Steve talks about might be overblown, they are affecting LMG, and the level of quality they're producing with their videos. They won't be taken as a real authoritative source until they fix these issues.

[AliJDB]

2 hours ago, LinusTech said:

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.

It really seems as though you inherently misunderstand the problem. Review channels are there to tell us how something performs, which is information we use to decide if we want to part with our cash - you don't make that decision for us. You can steer us, and you can tell us you wouldn't spend your money on it - but deciding it isn't worth testing properly because YOU wouldn't spend money on it is a disservice to everyone involved.

[IDontUseLicensedWindows]

2 hours ago, bizzehdee said:

 

contacting linus personally, and resolving it quietly. is the exact opposite of "proper journalistic practices", what an absolute narcasistic arrogant buffoon

What about the whole "We reached out to [insert company] for comment, but they did not reply"? GN has done that for other things. Not picking a side, but he (Linus) does have a point.

[esponrru]

@LinusTech Along with you and the rest of the team Ive seen myself grow, and learn about the things I love. You have been a great help in moments of struggle, I see you as a role model as someone I wish to be like. In every WAN show I listen to your takes and I understand the place where you come from. I could say Im one of your greatest admirers and watch most if not all of the context of this various issues. I hear your point but where I see the issue is in perception, if LMG wishes to be the hub for all tech knowledge with the immense LABS database that you envision. The normal joe has to believe that you and your company have integrity. I know that  the framework investment doesn’t cause conflict of interest, that your relationship with noctua doesn’t cloud your judgement and that you have shown that if a sponsor misbehaves (like anker) you will drop them, LTX or not. But the average watcher, the one time review person, can see the common errors, the controversy around you the investments and relationships and discard LMG as biased or unreliable. I know thats not the case, but many people could. A world without LMG would be a worse world to live in

[CYJAN3K]

Just now, atxcyclist said:

You have 7 posts here, you joined to promote drama.

Getting desperate huh? I wrote the reason for my account there - Linus doesnt want to acknowledge this video in more fitting place (its about his videos on youtube, in response to another video on youtube and yet we are on this old forum that doesnt fit the problem at all). Simply the fact that only one comment can be highlighted and there are "no threads" is terrible for everyone but Linus (because his comment is highlighted).

 

I could have 1 post and it doesnt change anything, as we can see - you have many posts and yet you are just lying about content of GN video and news outlets approach to different type of content.