Gamers Nexus alleges LMG has insufficient ethics and integrity

[Alex T88]

9 minutes ago, RedRound2 said:

Its a mistake. He admitted it. It was probably one among the tens and thousands of products they have handled. And it involved multiple humans (who are far from perfect creatures). It happens from time to time. Do you have any idea how many major fuckups happen in huge corporations? Its quite frankly absurd, but it happens all the time and everywhere. It's just part of being a big company, unfortunately.

With all due respect, but how could it have been a mistake? It is a one of a kind prototype, which LMG agreed to return to Billet Labs, the rightful owner, on June 30th. It's not like they forgot to return it and it was left in a box in a warehouse, where everybody forgot about it, a month later, during LTX it was auctioned and sold. I don't think this can be made into a mistake. This was purposely done, with a one of a kind water block, not some random product that you can buy in bulk. 

 

14 minutes ago, RedRound2 said:

His claim was that even if it performed really well on 3090 or 3080 or whatever it was designed for, his conclusion would still remain the same.

Which is kind of hypocritical, coming from someone who uses his pool to water cool some PC's in a server rack.

[ImorallySourcedElectrons]

25 minutes ago, JiRoDev said:

Many instances beyond what Gamers Nexus pointed out can be easily spotted like in M1 Max's review LTT resorted to Dolphin Emulator (using OpenGL which is deprecated on MacOS for like 5 years now) as if they couldn't find any properly optimized test that runs on the Metal API (3D Mark wild life extreme is something that even I can recall on top of my head as a GPU benchmark that supports Metal) to make their out of this world conclusion that the GPU is nowhere near a 3050 laptop, when in fact it is closer to a 3080 laptop when you stop using deprecated APIs like OpenGL and start using Metal API.
Another instance when they were testing the media engine and the result was that the base M1 (with no Media Engine) was heavily outperforming M1 Pro (with Media Engine) and M1 Max (with double Media Engine), and they didn't care one bit to investigate and just put up the graph as a valid benchmark.
Another instance was the Short Circuit video of M2 MBP 14/16", where they stated the screen can sustain 500 nits where in fact it can sustain 1000 nits and peaks at 1600 nits, they mentioned the webcam was 720p when in fact it was 1080p. And they didn't even care to pin a comment correcting it and just let people do the work in the comment section.
These are just things I recall on top of my head that I caught while watching the videos and thought it was strange, seeing Gamers Nexus going beyond that was an eye opener, and seeing Linus doubling down on his stance in a blog post is even more of an eye opener. I was hoping the message would trigger an acknowledgement at the very least and a quality control to address these issues rather than doubling down on such a pathetic stance. The accuracy is a huge problem, and passing down wrong information because they prefer to push 25 videos per week or whatever that quota is screams typical corporate greed rather than users first as they claim to be.
I get the hate against Apple that's generally steaming from PC folks, I'm a PC guy as well and a game developer, and I see some outrageous decisions taken by Apple like pricing 8GB of RAM at $200. But those are not an excuse to use deprecated API's against them to prove that their machines suck, as a reviewer you start from a neutral position and work your way up, not from how can I make this product look bad because the company is bad, which was the dominant message in those reviews as it's much harder to find deprecated benchmarks than properly optimized benchmarks. As a game developer making games for PC/mobile, I was interested in the gaming state of Mac's after the ARM transition, and watching LTT reviews almost convinced me that it's not worth it to care about ARM Mac's as a new platform. But watching basically everyone else convinced me that there's a massive potential, and that the hardware is already there and it's capable, all we need to do is port games to Mac (many big titles are already ported like Resident Evil Village, No Man's Sky, and so much more are coming soon like Death Stranding, Stray, Baldur's Gate 3....).
So for me at least as a game developer always exploring new markets, LTT videos were heavily misleading and almost convinced me to ignore such a huge opportunity. Seeing them doubling down on their stance basically disqualified them as a trusted source from now on, at least for me.

On the other hand, the numbers you get with Metal  are quite meaningless as comparison to non-Apple systems. Because there's no guarantee that the implementation or assets are anything alike, so at that point it becomes a case of "we have a number!". I think going with Vulkan would have been a middle of the road approach, but the issue there is that I'm not sure anyone is actually writing proper tests using Vulkan, given that it inherited many of OpenGL's oddities.

[goodtofufriday]

15 hours ago, LinusTech said:

Getting all the details before publication is *NOT* the opposite of journalistic integrity.

This isn't about being on a side... There's no war. You don't need to fight. You need to slow down and think.... 

What a terrible take. 

 

I can't imagine any company head being OK with getting only *most* details right. 

My company has a due diligence team for this. We need to have all the details as correct as possible before moving forward with anything. My CEO would ream me for even bothering him with a 85% baked report. 

 

Not having all the details, knowingly lacking or poor correcting of bad details, and systematically continuing this approach shows a lack of integrity. 

 

It causes me to never be inclined to view the labs as more that just "at least it's better than userbenchmark"

With LMGs current reputation for getting wrong data I am not inclined to suddenly take data from Labs as a new standard of sorts. 

[Cosmic Emotion]

1 minute ago, RazielKanos said:

That level of "own reality" is wonderful...

 

We do agree on that.

[filpo]

Just now, Empyreal said:

 

Look, I found more laptop review videos after his Framework investment disclosure. Still wanna argue? What now?
 

 

 

 

 

 

This reply is the definition of 'come at me bro' and I'm all for it 

[Kinokoda]

15 hours ago, LinusTech said:

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.

Focus on Quality over Quantity. Please. You didn't want to properly test a product for a video dude. WHY MAKE THE VIDEO THEN?! Fix your shit and then we will see if you are trustworthy. You own staff aren't happy with any videos the have made lately. And no, the Lab wasn't a waste of money, your use of it is.

[filpo]

1 minute ago, Kinokoda said:

Focus on Quality over Quantity. Please. You didn't want to properly test a product for a video dude. WHY MAKE THE VIDEO THEN?! Fix your shit and then we will see if you are trustworthy. You own staff aren't happy with any videos the have made lately. And no, the Lab wasn't a waste of money, your use of it is.

They've been saying that for so long but haven't done it. Idk why since they could start it tomorrow

[perryckd]

I just signed up to tell LMG and the whole angry internet that GN Steve is no stranger to guerilla journalism. That is to sudden strike a big boy for maximum exposure to their advantage of gaining views and subs.

 

Want a latest example? Check their video coverage on Asus AM5 boards and vsoc settings. GN Steve went a full video and more guerilla about Asus not correcting the vsoc values. When IN FACT, GuerillaN Steve team measured the incorrect voltage points for vsoc. His videos are invalidated and he chose to sweep the story under the rug after maximised his subs and views. 

The whole AM5 vsoc was done in bad faith by GuerillaN, they themselves admitted they needed to get the story out fast. They did little to verify and 'stole' the damaged CPU to send it to some analysis lab that came back with no conclusive results. It would be better if Amd and Asus got hold of the CPU and do failure analysis. But Guerilla Steve wanted his clickbaits, was it a surprised they also advertised their t-shirt and new channel during this saga?

 

Take a look at Asus low key clarification that Guerilla Steve chose to ignore. 

 

 

https://www.overclock.net/threads/asus-rog-crosshair-x670e-overclocking-discussion-thread.1799959/post-29193099

[VeryScary]

1 minute ago, Empyreal said:

 

Look, I found more laptop review videos after his Framework investment disclosure. Still wanna argue? What now?
 

 

 

 

 

 

1st video literally mentions framework, not being a conflict, and the reason why it isn't a conflict less then 30s in. 

 

Didn't even bother to watch the rest. If you're not going to watch the videos you post to prove your point then why would I. 

[Cosmic Emotion]

To the people defending Linus. You do realize this is not in your best interests as consumer right?

[filpo]

1 minute ago, Cosmic Emotion said:

To the people defending Linus

who's defending him?

[PCDCobby]

Nvidia used to have a pretty good raport with the community back in the 8800 days, imagine if they came out and said "trust us bros we're worth it" Linus would not tolerate that kind of stance in the slightest but seems to think LMG should be allowed to get away with that kind of attitude towards things like transaction contracts in terms of warranties. 

[JiRoDev]

Just now, ImorallySourcedElectrons said:

On the other hand, the numbers you get with Metal  are quite meaningless as comparison to non-Apple systems. Because there's no guarantee that the implementation or assets are anything alike, so at that point it becomes a case of "we have a number!". I think going with Vulkan would have been a middle of the road approach, but the issue there is that I'm not sure anyone is actually writing proper tests using Vulkan, given that it inherited many of OpenGL's oddities.

Not quite, Metal is a graphics API used for rendering, so the result that matters is rendering performance, not how it did it, Apple's hardware work best with Apple's software, in this case Metal, so why discredit the FPS you get from a Metal app and credit something unsupported like Vulkan or OpenGL, windows uses DX12 as its best API so why not compare its performance with Apple's performance using its own best API which is Metal.

[Supersonicwolfe]

15 hours ago, Deeppurp said:

This is a brain dead take.

It is standard practice to reach out to the company for a comment or statement on an article published about them. GN even normally follows this practice.

 

IT IS WHY Linus called them out for it. If LTT refused or gave a BS statement, GN likely would have put it in the video and criticized it as such as they have in the past.

 

They didn't though, GN just blasted it out.

Well, not saying GN is right, but seems like Linus already know about this might be coming.

 

On the other had LMG sort of called out GN and Hardware Unboxed first regrading data accuracy, in their Lab tours they claimed they will always do fresh benchmarks EVERY TIME... (8:38 of the linked video). As if GamersNexus and Hardware Unboxed don't do the same...I don't think LMG have reached out to the others for comment before they say it... (Both GamersNexus and Hardware Uboxed have disputed that claim, GamersNexus for one actually label test date on their charts.)

Yes, this is a statement said lab tour not LMG's own video, but its open to public. And now it's on YouTube... you can consider this statement is now considered as published.

 

[VeryScary]

11 minutes ago, Dom1252 said:

 

how come? he is trying the product on camera, talks about it's pros and cons and makes conclusions? 

I agree they're not good reviews, but they do tick every box of a basic review

First few were about buying laptops from shady asian websites, not an actual laptop review. 

 

The last one is a sponsored review and guess what happened? Linus mentioned framework and conflict in the first few seconds. 

[Dom1252]

3 minutes ago, VeryScary said:

1st video literally mentions framework, not being a conflict, and the reason why it isn't a conflict less then 30s in. 

 

Didn't even bother to watch the rest. If you're not going to watch the videos you post to prove your point then why would I. 

Linus says it's ok, so you blindly trust him? 

heh, not like Linus would have agenda (getting as many views as possible) 

[Cosmic Emotion]

2 minutes ago, filpo said:

who's defending him?

Many people. I just wanted to give some advice.

[E-Waster]

3 minutes ago, filpo said:

who's defending him?

There have been one or two white knights defending Linus but they soon get lost in the sea of replies

[dustypaws]

3 minutes ago, filpo said:

who's defending him?

Some are.... but I'd have guessed that there are more diehard fanboys here... I'm surprised...

[VeryScary]

Just now, Dom1252 said:

Linus says it's ok, so you blindly trust him? 

heh, not like Linus would have agenda (getting as many views as possible) 

Did you actually watch the video and his reason behind what he said or did you immediately comment because f Linus and LTT?

[filpo]

Just now, dustypaws said:

Some are.... but I'd have guessed that there are more diehard fanboys here... I'm surprised...

Thankfully I'm not seeing many rn

 

Just now, E-Waster said:

There have been one or two white knights defending Linus but they soon get lost in the sea of replies

Main Character wannabes 

[Dom1252]

Just now, VeryScary said:

Did you actually watch the video and his reason behind what he said or did you immediately comment because f Linus and LTT?

I watched every LTT video, except for the last one... 

you stated here you didn't, so maybe watch the full video instead of just the segment where linus makes excuses

[Poagie]

15 hours ago, Josysclei said:

First of all, the whole Billet Labs stuff is completely absurd if true. I don't think they would intentionally sell something they couldn't, probably some massive fuck up in communications happened between the team responsible for sending it back and the people choosing the items to be auctioned, but it's still a huge issue and 100% LTT's responsibility to fix it and make sure something like this never ever happens again. 

 

About the rushed content, it's something that a lot of times crosses the border of "fun jank" to being just frustrating. Every single project they do seems to be rushed, unfinished, untested and plagued with issues and oversights. And that could be their content "brand", seems like many people enjoy the jank. But if they now want to present themselves as serious testers, someone the community can look up for reliable data with Labs, that mindset needs to change, FAST. How the hell can I trust someone who has to correct themselves almost every video? And makes errors that a basic review of the content could catch? 

 

You need to pump out 7 videos a week? Sure buddy, but maybe allow more time sensitive projects to be properly planned, executed and reviewed and throw some "here's 10 fun crap we found on aliexpress" videos to make up for it.

I think you failed to address one of the most important things. Something your employees clearly also have issues with. The self imposed speed of producing videos. Even your staff thinks you guys should spend more time on videos. Even your staff thinks your video quality can and should be better. I would agree with Steve. Simply replacing a video isnt the same thing has publicly correcting videos. Your response above leans heavily into the trust me bro. You responded to just a few of the really low ball issues in the video. Not the truly important things. Quality vs speed of output. 

[dragonuck76]

Watch the GN video, now, and it is all done with ill intent, and not for informing us of the poor content from LTT.  Yes he states this was done to help LTT mend there ways, but that could have been done in a 5min video.  But its a 44min video ripping into LTT and Linus directly...  LTT on many WAN shows and other videos posted has stated they have made mistakes and things need to change.  But I will go back to what I have said time and time again, I dont just use LTT to purchase something, I watch a great range of content on what ever it is I intend to buy, and even google for reviews and other content that does not use youtube to discuss, while reading the manufactures site, and look for good deals.   Does LTT need to fix things yes, and I trust they will,, just as many other youtubers have said... but GN approach was over board and to be honest was just used to cover their own attack, and the threat that will come when LTT finally have the LAB up and running, and getting the right process and writers to do the job right

[VeryScary]

Just now, Dom1252 said:

I watched every LTT video, except for the last one... 

you stated here you didn't, so maybe watch the full video instead of just the segment where linus makes excuses

Lol you have a problem with reading comprehension. That's not at all what I said. Now I see why you think "Linus Evil"