Gamers Nexus alleges LMG has insufficient ethics and integrity

[Legitsu]

14 minutes ago, VisibleXela said:

5 hours ago Linus said "we haven't sent payment."

 

The Gamers Nexus video is 8 hours old.

 

5 is a smaller number than 8.

again so billetlabs was informed on the 11th they lmg didn't have the block anymore

you can't count weekends because well business days 

 

so at the earlist assuming somebody texted or emailed linus on friday/saturday 

the soonest anything could be done about it was TODAY monday 

the fact that they have already agreed to resolve the issue on the FIRST business Day since being made aware is pretty quick

 

steve intentionally didn't wait so he could use this issue to sell his entire video and you people who apperently don't understand how days work or how businesses work in the real world got sucked right in and paid no mind to the timeline that was being provided 

 

and as for the point about the missing prototype being a major problem for billet labs

I am sorry like if you lose one prototype and its the end of the world for you? then my god what are you even doing? fire up the cnc machine and cut anouther one if you can't come up with anouther prototype and you expect to ship in novemeber ? brauh what are you doing.

 

and assurdly there is no possblity of anybody 'stealing' anything from the prototype trust me bro(tm) nobody in the industry cares because the design is litteral dogwater and linus is right when its that bad nobody should ever buy one ever because its extremely clear the billetlabs has no idea what they are doing 

 

 

 

 

[Guest]

1 minute ago, hysteresis said:

I mean ... I agree in that I don't think linus nor anyone at LMG actually did that. But ... why is the response "We're throwing money at it so please look the other way"? 

Because they’re a pretty sizeable company, and that’s one way pretty sizeable companies deal with PR poopstorms when they are in the wrong.
 

“Yeah we missed/ignored these guys and our incompetence probably negatively impacted their microbusiness but we’ll throw some money at them so it’s all good, also please don’t forget that the way we screwed up led to some money going to charity, so, y’know, please shut up and stop being mad.”

 

It sucks, but you asked the question why, and that’s the answer why.

[jitteryzeitgeist]

10 minutes ago, VeryScary said:

It's a joke because some people don't know the difference between a review and a video showing something LTT think is interesting?

If you're taking someones hard work they sent you out of sheer curiosity and you treat it like a leprosy-filled decpaitated head, yes.

[Squilliam]

5 hours ago, ImorallySourcedElectrons said:

I hate to break it to you, but all tech journalism has plenty of factual errors, especially those that go for the video format. To avoid falling into the what-aboutism category, let me just say that as someone who works in related industries, GN has plenty of bad takes as well, the difference being that they're not nearly as good about going "my bad". LTT doesn't get needlessly defensive over the fact that they make errors, and they often include the bad takes in videos with corrections, which I appreciate because it does tend to show the initial genuine reaction - something which is useful for myself as someone that's tangentially related with product design on various occasions. This is far more useful than a boring line that might get missed from my point of view.

 

I would imagine it's actually more than 500 USD, having an actual person with some training and a college/university degree work in a building tends to cost around $90-100 an hour. So you need someone doing the work, someone on the camera, someone doing sound, and preferably some sort of director present, so the shoot alone would probably end up costing around $2000, if you then need to manufacture a new mounting bracket, etc. you could easily lose an entire day and now you're looking at somewhere around $4000 to $5000. It also doesn't account for the fact that you might have a deal with sponsors that require the video to come out on a certain date, availability of working and recording spaces, etc.; which is to say that I understand not wanting to do another take. But it's indicative of general communication problems between billet labs and LTT, which compounds further with the block being sold at auction. The real question is how they respond after the screw up becomes known. I experienced this type of communication breakdown at both small start-ups and multi-billion dollar corporations, so I can totally see it happening at LTT as well.

 

Accuracy of information is actually my main grievance with Gamers Nexus. Every time they dove into electronics manufacturing I just cringed and wanted to start bashing my head on my desk to make it stop.

 

Asking the manufacturer for input when you have unexpected results is quite desirable when dealing with complex and new products, it's quite possible a single setting could make all the difference in the world. I just wish this would be done consistently across all products if unexpected results pop up.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if the recent increase in error rate is caused by the large volume intake of new employees.

They used to do sentence retakes a la voice over. Linus used to show off the half shell mic for voiceovers. That can be accomplished by Linus alone.

[iAxX]

In some of the enthusiast circles I'm in there has always been a saying "you watch LTT for news and entertainment you watch GN when you actually want to buy something"

 

I was hoping with all the investment going into the lab that would change but this probably has done enough damage to solidify that perception in a lot more people's minds. The people who validated those graphs need to be moved to entertainment only roles or fired. The 7700x graph, the cooler one. They make absolutely no sense. How the hell are you validating and recommending coolers as they reach TJ MAX and the CPU throttles??

[Rich.m]

Do you believe everything you see on the internet???

Sighns of a lie. 

1. Laughing after making a statement, the mind set is, you have told a lie that is so believable that you think everyone bought the lie.

2. Tend to add excessive detail to convince themselves or others of what they are saying.

3. Fidgeting.

Please Steve, watch your video of you.

 

What makes this video stand out to me even more, is the blatent disregard for LMG addressing every single issue prior to it ever being an issue or needing someone to make a video about it. WE as the community know Linus does not have labs finished or setup, yet. This has been stated in many videos, that the information may be wrong and not to take it as accurate (yet).

That being said, I see LMG dropping the ball here and there, which is why I would like to imagine Linus appointed a CEO other than himself, which he openly admitted, can not run a corporation, thus, stepped down. 

Steve, you did this wrong, I would LOVE to go into detail. Instead of being the night in shining armor, Standing up for the good of the community and Gosh darnet people like you. You look like your desperate and reaching on an issue that has allready been addressed MANY times by Linus and LMG as a whole. 

Also Steve, when you have 120+ people counting on you to put food on their table and a roof over their head, lets see what kind of time you have to cherry pick videos from people in the same industry with prestine perfection just to run a smear campaign.. I am an AMERICAN, WE KNOW smear campaigns STEVE. Stop it. 

 

Also, in regards to the CPU GPU block, Linus, that was done dirty, no amount of my bad make's it ok. Sorry, as a friend I am calling you out on this one thing.

To fix it, these are the options I see would satisfy the community as a whole, and sweep it under the rug, as a, remember that one time, lol, yeah that was bad.

option 1. You need to buy back that water block from the person from the auction, and return it to Billet Labs. Appologize to them in person, in video.

option 2. You need to promote Billet Labs like your life depends on it, Pay them More than fair compensation, And do a video of you handing over fists full of cash and appologizing to them in video.

option 3. Buy Billet Labs, and hire all their employees to run the company and smile and nod.

 

[MiltownClowns]

1 minute ago, RockerBug17 said:

As if I care that others think I'm "sucking up." I don't have time to teach them the nuance of conversation.

 

The only difference between this thread and a stoning is the stones.

So the main thing. That's the difference. The thing its named after. Please teach me about nuance.

[jitteryzeitgeist]

3 minutes ago, VeryScary said:

Yeah, how to buy the cheapest laptop isn't a laptop REVIEW. Some of you guys are reaching. 

"How bad" is a statement of quality based on testing its features in comparison to like offerings.

 

There's a word for that but dangit, it escapes me.

[jakemaster1390]

I would like to offer some of my thoughts. This is not me raising a pitchfork but offering some thoughts.

 

1) The whole billet Labs Thing is Inexcusable. It wouldn't be so bad if it were just the video was left to wrong equipment was used in testing this block. In the future to Billet Labs and other startups sending stuff to LMG/Labs - Make sure to have at least a boilerplate contract stating that the product is to be returned. Then should an F-up like this occur, it should make it easier and more streamlined to litigate this in court or at least reach a settlement. To LMG- I understand that you were evaluating it as a product that No normal person should buy, but it should have been tested with intended Card. As for selling it off, That is a logistics breakdown. System should be implemented that as part of your inventory system that it should be clearly labelled as Return to Manufacturer or keep in inventory.

 

2)Labs - Even with it still growing and getting systems established, Assign someone that is knowledgeable in statistics. It doesn't need to be a person that is knowledgable about every single aspect but if they know statistics they can recognize something outside of statistical norm and ask for a re-test. Also A system should be put in place for labs that as part of logistics management has a tracking number that gets a general form with full product description, Any information included from the Manufacturer (Such as press notes etc.), Tests and data from those tests included that should be also used by the writers to put down their personal notes and experiences then forwarded to the editors when the video is being edited then reviewed one final time by an assigned video checking to catch editing errors or if the information is published to the Labs Website then just to a team of fact checkers.

 

3) Editing Mistakes - I understand the use of the Asterisk or on screen text. Maybe it is time that you empower your editors if the original shooter can't re-record that even a voice cut in or even a short insert verbally of the correct information from the editor in like a little mini scene would be better than the asterisks until you can get the mistakes under control. Also assign/Hire one or a few people that their job is nothing but watching the video before published and Hire a Statistician to check over labs automated results. I know lots of other smaller YouTubers that have used Patreon for early Releases, made a mistake in information, one of those patreons catch the mistake and then the YouTuber corrected the mistake before it went public on YouTube. I understand because of Embargos that you can't implement a system like smaller youtubers use but get people that is nothing but their job for checking video accuracy (Another Example is a Line producer on the set of a movie making sure that all needed lines are recorded)

 

4) Working with sponsors/investments - Not much I can Say There

 

5) Steve Calling out Linus and not approaching him in person - Linus/LMG, You are a video company that has everything they say recorded. Too often those things said can be taken out of context. Steve to me seems like a person that calls things as he sees them and he is doing so because he wants you to improve. Working as a front line worker for multiple Multi-million dollar corporations, I would be often part of a small group of people that noticed problems in systems or noticed problems as they were developing. We would raise the issue to our direct management. I have seen even our direct management even fight those that oversaw our sections of the company. Too often what we said fell on deaf ears or even once our department was closed down even though they pulled one of our mangers and said that a process was being put in place to direct a department that had such a broad responsibility but then after that time they just decided to pull the plug entirely. Some stuff does have to be aired publicly to hold accountability.


TL;DR - Systems need to be corrected for handling/inventory of product especially being tracked between Labs/LMG especially regarding data found and to prevent another Billet labs situation. Someone (or small team) needs to be assigned solely to checking for Statistical errors / product errors in videos or posts made to the labs website

Edited August 15, 2023 by jakemaster1390
It posted before I could complete what I wanted to write

[Tehkast]

This seems rather blown out of proportion this whole thing.

 

The prototype thing aye that kinda sucks but end of the day they got what they wanted attention and more over even this "Drama" is something they could only wish for no press is bad press, if the product was reviewed 100% correctly we would never heard of this again as its kinda dull. This is win for Billet labs.

 

As for selling the thing I doubt that really was a conscious decision rather then 1 of 100 staff gathering items to sell for charity and some wires getting crossed, accidents happen seems to be a lot of speculation of malice.

 

The labs data mistakes just seems like a shot for the sake of it Jesus its early days and recall a comment on the WAN show within the last 3 weeks talking about a fact checker and just how impractical that would be as no-one could be a expect on the wide variety of topics they need to fact check the videos.

 

This isn't a fanboy comment as I find the lab crap boring frankly just don't like to see a over reaction and drama bait reaction to a comment about how they "Retest everything every test unlike etc etc" This clearly got someone butthurt and this is all reaction to that.

 

 

 

If the true intention of this video was to improve standards in a hobby we all enjoy then great but at the moment comes across as a slapping contest in public. The low key reaction and not getting drawn into it seems for the best. 

[Silveraga]

Just saw that you posted a few more answers in the thread that wasn’t attached to the main answer. I guess i’ll wait and see for now

[VeryScary]

Just now, ZombieMan762 said:

 

They just did a Dell laptop review and Linus wasn't the presenter but his name is listed as the Director and Producer. That is a conflict and should be disclosed. 

So like I said, he didn't review the laptop? 

 

Also, you point out a video where the product is given a favorable review. Alex literally called it a great laptop.

[Loopers]

3 minutes ago, wreakinghavoc said:

Why not just thank GN and just slow down a bit? 

This. The staff may not admit or say it, but I'd bet they sure would appreciate it as would the audience. 

My hot take is I believe labs were a mistake. Grew too big and became too corporate. 

[TrevKen]

26 minutes ago, GeorgeBanana said:

First and probably last post, was motivated to come here and give y'all some support after getting fed that video.

Steve Steve-ing.  About 8:40 is an obvious example that tells you all you need to know about him here.  Calling Gary a "former marketing director for Asus" with no other clarification is extremely telling, Steve knows full well who Gary is, but that's inconvenient when you're trying to craft a wink-wink nudge-nudge narrative and amplify mistakes and misunderstandings into something they're not.

As someone who's been around long enough to have enjoyed Gary contemporaneously as part of Anandtech, just wanted to say that seeing through Steve is easy, and at least one person out there has enough experience, both tech and life, to see him and his video for what they are.

Respect for taking the high road in the pinned post.

You haven't really said a lot in defence of LTT. Steve has his flaws and motivations, we can all see that ourselves.

 

But the issues still remain which Steve correctly pointed out. 

[VeryScary]

4 minutes ago, jitteryzeitgeist said:

If you're taking someones hard work they sent you out of sheer curiosity and you treat it like a leprosy-filled decpaitated head, yes.

Majority of that video was positive, but ok

[Blademaster91]

16 minutes ago, DirtyHarry said:

SMH this is the kind of schizoposting  that justifies in Linus’ mind him digging his heels in and ignoring legitimate, sane criticism. There is absolutely 0% chance that anything within a million miles of being this conspiratorial occurred.

 

LMG did a crappy rush job of reviewing the prototype. It then got lost on a shelf somewhere, not scanned back into inventory or similar. The emails requesting it back were missed or ignored due to some combination of overwork and incompetence. Down the line, someone who has been given not enough time to find “any old weird stuff” to put in the LTX charity auction found it and were like “wtf is this? Oh lol this weird one off waterblock, let’s put it in.” and that’s that.

Additional correspondence from billet labs was ignored until a public stink was raised, making billet the squeaky wheel that finally got the grease.

 

It’s basic, everyday corporate incompetence. It’s unacceptable, and it’s awful for the billetlabs guys, but it’s not some sort of elaborate conspiracy. LMG don’t have the time to check the labels on their graphs, where do some people think they get time to plot the winners and losers in the hardware industry inside some evil lair?

LMG has over 100 employees now, i'm sure they have someone that is managing the inventory, if not then its corporate negligence to not scan an item into their system if they are scanning everything else that goes up for review. If they manage everything else in the warehouse then there is no excuse to not scan the Billet block, the whole deal with auctioning it off then trying to deny it seems like Linus doesn't care because Billet isn't a massive company handing LMG sponsorship money.

[Bleda412]

1 hour ago, suits said:

That's the only part of GN's video that I thought was mostly nonsense. 200k in framework is literally an "I support this" amount. The noctua screwdriver I could see, but it's something so easy to tell if it's a bad review it's meh at best. 

 

Those saying this framework investment clouds judgement I just don't understand the thought. 

My issue is NOT rooted in Framework. You're putting words into my mouth. I only said that Linus didn't address the conflict of interest concerns in his response to GN. I find the Noctua screwdriver and LMG's other partnerships/sponsorships to be more of an issue.

[Legitsu]

4 minutes ago, Rich.m said:

Do you believe everything you see on the internet???

Sighns of a lie. 

1. Laughing after making a statement, the mind set is, you have told a lie that is so believable that you think everyone bought the lie.

2. Tend to add excessive detail to convince themselves or others of what they are saying.

3. Fidgeting.

Please Steve, watch your video of you.

 

What makes this video stand out to me even more, is the blatent disregard for LMG addressing every single issue prior to it ever being an issue or needing someone to make a video about it. WE as the community know Linus does not have labs finished or setup, yet. This has been stated in many videos, that the information may be wrong and not to take it as accurate (yet).

That being said, I see LMG dropping the ball here and there, which is why I would like to imagine Linus appointed a CEO other than himself, which he openly admitted, can not run a corporation, thus, stepped down. 

Steve, you did this wrong, I would LOVE to go into detail. Instead of being the night in shining armor, Standing up for the good of the community and Gosh darnet people like you. You look like your desperate and reaching on an issue that has allready been addressed MANY times by Linus and LMG as a whole. 

Also Steve, when you have 120+ people counting on you to put food on their table and a roof over their head, lets see what kind of time you have to cherry pick videos from people in the same industry with prestine perfection just to run a smear campaign.. I am an AMERICAN, WE KNOW smear campaigns STEVE. Stop it. 

 

Also, in regards to the CPU GPU block, Linus, that was done dirty, no amount of my bad make's it ok. Sorry, as a friend I am calling you out on this one thing.

To fix it, these are the options I see would satisfy the community as a whole, and sweep it under the rug, as a, remember that one time, lol, yeah that was bad.

option 1. You need to buy back that water block from the person from the auction, and return it to Billet Labs. Appologize to them in person, in video.

option 2. You need to promote Billet Labs like your life depends on it, Pay them More than fair compensation, And do a video of you handing over fists full of cash and appologizing to them in video.

option 3. Buy Billet Labs, and hire all their employees to run the company and smile and nod.

 

this hes running a thinly vailed smear campain 

and I gotta admit steve is REALLY Good at it 

like it takes minute to pick apart the holes in his holeyer then tho :we just want you todo better: facade 

but by god how gullable are you people 

 

[Albal_156]

4 hours ago, NoseyTable said:

No, because journalists ask for comments on stories from the subjects of those stories.  Addressing both sides of a story is important. GN refers to themselves as journalists, which means that they need to provide accurate information, and a lot of what I saw in that video was his opinions stated as facts.  Sure, a lot of it was valid, but him deciding unilaterally what their motivations were was not fair

If GN want to be journalists then they aren't doing a very good job of presenting both sides of a argument that is for sure yes. They've done so in the past with the Newegg videos while also speaking to former members of Artesian Builds to get lots of sides to the story but yeah despite the many valid criticisms made in the video the start of the video specifically felt too much like a hit piece.

Maybe the suspicion comes from the TMB incident (over year ago now tbh can't believe its this prevalent still) where Linus just told everyone to trust him. I will be honest I've got no reason to distrust Linus about something as I feel he's had good track record but a CEO of a corp telling you trust him over a prodct with no warranty thats shipped worldwide isn't a good look despite previous track records so perhaps thats the reason why GN is distrustful.

[VisibleXela]

7 minutes ago, Legitsu said:

again so billetlabs was informed on the 11th they lmg didn't have the block anymore

you can't count weekends because well business days

 

 

 

 

The fuck I can't, lmao, the working week doesn't have any domain over "doing the right thing." Also why did they wait until August 11th?! According to GN, they borrowed it back in June, but even if that's not true (no reason to think it isn't, but let's just pretend) LTX was two weeks ago. Whatever happened between "borrowing" the prototype and today is LMG's responsibility, full freakin' stop.

7 minutes ago, Legitsu said:

and as for the point about the missing prototype being a major problem for billet labs

I am sorry like if you lose one prototype and its the end of the world for you? then my god what are you even doing? fire up the cnc machine and cut anouther one if you can't come up with anouther prototype and you expect to ship in novemeber ? brauh what are you doing.

Oh so we're just victim blaming now, that's cool. No, sorry, that's still LMG's fault.

7 minutes ago, Legitsu said:

and assurdly there is no possblity of anybody 'stealing' anything from the prototype trust me bro(tm) nobody in the industry cares because the design is litteral dogwater and linus is right when its that bad nobody should ever buy one ever because its extremely clear the billetlabs has no idea what they are doing 

 

Not the point, selling stuff that isn't yours isn't made better whether it's a diamond (made of solid gold, naturally) or the landmines my dog leaves for me in the back yard.

 

 

[jitteryzeitgeist]

1 minute ago, VeryScary said:

Majority of that video was positive, but ok

I want to remind you of what you, specifically you said

Quote

In the very beginning Linus says the video was made by two people that have never built a watercooled pc before

Now if you were that company who sent you a high dollar custom watercooled block to LTT, likely their only prototype, are you going to sit here and honestly, to my face, tell me they were expecting it to be put in a joke video, used on the wrong video card, and never returned?

 

That's what Billet Labs was expecting from Linus Tech Tips?

[iAxX]

1 minute ago, Legitsu said:

this hes running a thinly vailed smear campain 

and I gotta admit steve is REALLY Good at it 

like it takes minute to pick apart the holes in his holeyer then tho :we just want you todo better: facade 

but by god how gullable are you people 

 

This is about what I'd expect from someone with a PCMR avatar LMAO 

[LmnSour]

I've been noticing errors on a lot of videos and it was only time for 60 Minutes, uh GamersNexus to post a video. 

But to say Steve's video was "purely objective" is questionable.  It came off as an ego filled smear video like all of his "objective" reporting videos.  Self righteous smearing.  Ending the video with *shrug* "that's my thoughts on this..." was an attempt to deflect responsibility of the video by Steve.  He knew what he was saying...

 

But I think what LTT need to be mindful of is this delusion that permeates society of "you are good at your job by virtue of being hired to it." LTT employees need to understand what they are reporting and saying and need to be a bit less judgemental in their videos IMHO.  They should be more mindful of objectivity, professionalism, and just getting things right.  And I agree with Steve.  If its wrong, it probably should corrected in the manner he prescribes. 

[jitteryzeitgeist]

Just now, iAxX said:

This is about what I'd expect from someone with a PCMR avatar LMAO 

Bro I said the same thing

 

It's not 2005 anymore, even Glorious is getting rid of that branding

[duke_seb]

4 minutes ago, Tehkast said:

This seems rather blown out of proportion this whole thing.

 

The prototype thing aye that kinda sucks but end of the day they got what they wanted attention and more over even this "Drama" is something they could only wish for no press is bad press, if the product was reviewed 100% correctly we would never heard of this again as its kinda dull. This is win for Billet labs.

 

As for selling the thing I doubt that really was a conscious decision rather then 1 of 100 staff gathering items to sell for charity and some wires getting crossed, accidents happen seems to be a lot of speculation of malice.

 

The labs data mistakes just seems like a shot for the sake of it Jesus its early days and recall a comment on the WAN show within the last 3 weeks talking about a fact checker and just how impractical that would be as no-one could be a expect on the wide variety of topics they need to fact check the videos.

 

This isn't a fanboy comment as I find the lab crap boring frankly just don't like to see a over reaction and drama bait reaction to a comment about how they "Retest everything every test unlike etc etc" This clearly got someone butthurt and this is all reaction to that.

 

 

 

If the true intention of this video was to improve standards in a hobby we all enjoy then great but at the moment comes across as a slapping contest in public. The low key reaction and not getting drawn into it seems for the best. 

Exactly…. The guys at billet are probably sitting back laughing at how well this will work out for them.  
 

first they get a blank check and now…..
 

how many people are going to google them and look them up.  Maybe buy something.  Some may even buy something in “solidarity” 

 

having their stuff up for auction be it most likely a management error is probably a dream