Gamers Nexus alleges LMG has insufficient ethics and integrity

[Hydra_20]

Not interested in the drama or the reactions.

 

The main takeaway I see from this is that LTT needs to fix up their data accuracy issues. Sooner rather than later.

 

They've entered the sphere of data driven analysis because of the Labs project, but they've grown faster than their processes have allowed and now we see the results of that. Lots of stuff falling through the cracks. I think this should light a fire under LTT ass to fix up their processes quicker if they want to be taken seriously for their Labs results. 

 

The WAN show 2 weeks ago tried to discuss this too, about the community driven fact checkers. A shame GN didn't reference that discussion. There's clearly effort being done behind the scenes to correct the data issues. But Linus is right in the fact that it takes time. 

 

In any case, that's about all there is to this. The whole Billet thing seems to be resolved, I hope that was a one off, seems like something that would happen when you have hundreds of employees in different departments that don't necessarily speak to each other. At least this is an easy problem to fix all in all.

 

Personally I think the community is over reacting, but that's not new. 

 

That's all.

[Deadpool2onBlu-Ray]

All of Linus's responses just read like corporate gibber jabber. He hasn't taken any sort of responsibility or accountability. Sad.

[TheProfosist]

3 minutes ago, Drazil100 said:

Idk, he managed to ignore the whole former employee coming out about how LMG is a terrible place to work on reddit a while back, though that one there were legal reasons why he couldn't talk about it. I would not be surprised if we got another one of those wan shows where he cheekily references the drama and about how bad his week has been without actually bringing it up.

In my eyes that person was just a bit delusional about how a job works. Dont know them or their history but working with the LMG team at LTX has reinforced that at their size LMG is a regular employer that hires regular people. People want to put them on a pedestal since they're a "YouTuber".

[Leksi T]

1 minute ago, Calzz said:

I just think WAN show is kinda the only really place for it, I think a video on the main channel will be best to really make it front and center that there owning up to it and really taking it serious but I think they wont want to do that so it really only leaves the WAN show

True, short of a video, I guess WAN would be the next best thing.

[CatHerder]

One aspect of all of this that stands out to me the most is that didn't Linus just hire a new CEO for the company?

Linus coming here to the forums, 3 hours after the GN video went up typing these rambling and deflecting posts while continuing to argue with random people on the forums absolutely undermines his new CEO, who's job it should had been to coordinate a reaction and response to this, but Linus robbed that chance off him.

[RichardBirch]

Comment removed.

[ColonelSupremePizza]

1 minute ago, Leksi T said:

I don't even know if I think it's an attack. But it could easily be seen as such, especially from LMG's standpoint.  Like Jay said on Twitter, I hope they don't, I really hope. But they might.

 

And yeah, the chances of a video are slim.  I can imagine LMG would worry about the effect on YouTube's analytics, which wouldn't be entirely unfounded.  But IMO, they should take the hit and do it. It would benefit them alot more in the long run.  And as I've said already, I really think this should stay off WAN, hopefully at least the next one.

Look, anyone can view things as something they aren't. I can say that I don't like a particular candy and you might think that I hate all candy and want them all removed from the universe. Considering how Linus is already super upsetti spaghetti that his "internet fwend" didn't call him to talk about it before making a journalistic video calling out obvious mistakes and bad practices, he will absolutely take it as an attack. He used the "I'm a real person too guise" routine, so of course he isn't capable of taking criticism.

 

LMG shouldn't worry about analytics and such because in the end, their channel has so many subscribers and momentum behind it that it'll barely tickle the numbers. Remember when people said they wouldn't buy Blizzard products because of the Cosby Room, rape allegations, or Free Hong Kong protests? Yeah, those same people are back to buying Blizzard shit and it didn't do much. Unless Linus went full on nuclear, the sad reality is this really won't be a blip on their analytics. Even if it did have an effect, that's on Linus for being so dense that light bends around him and not be capable of understanding criticism.

[filpo]

Just now, Leksi T said:

In this case, a prepared response is what I want.  A video with everything laid bare, that everyone can point to and say 'this is what they're gonna do' and later 'they didn't' or hopefully 'they did'

They should do it on the WAN show since it's the place where they would get the most feedback immediately

Nice way of planning it out too

[Blademaster91]

14 minutes ago, will0hlep said:

Okay, I've watched and read everything I can on this topic. My two cents is this:

The billet labs video and decision Linus made on retesting it makes complete sense to me and I don't really understand the criticism. If it costs $800 and can only cool last generations GPU, then no one should be buying it. The more important take away from that video is that billet labs had a cool idea that could be turn into a good product in future, not that they had a good product now. I will say that I would have liked to see the product tested with a 3090 but only for entertainment purposes as I felt the exact numbers wouldn't have mattered to anyone and I personnally felt it was made clear that this prototype would work well with the 3090.

 

As for accidentally auctioning off the cooler prototype. My family owns and operates a small to medium business with a roughly similar employee count (100-150) to that of LMG. From watching my father run this business for 10+ years, It has become clear to me that no one in a business of that scale can control everything and some miscommunitcation is totally unavoidable. Is it great that LMG has accidentally sold the prototype, no. Is it worth burning them down over, also no. From what I can see LTT has offered to compensate Billet, if they do that I'm happy.

As for increased errors in videos, this seems a valid critism of LTT at this time. I'm not sure it's enough to warrent a thread quite this long but I guess it is good we are talking about it.

How does it make sense to not test the cooler on a GPU it was made for? Linus was complaining about the price, yet has no issues making stupidly expensive builds, or a game controller made of gold. It seems like he didn't care at all because there wasn't enough money from the company that sent it. And it makes no sense for Linus to be bashing on the company without giving the block any fair testing.

The for entertainment purposes is a weird thing to be claiming for on a water block, I think more knowledgeable people are going to be watching videos on water cooling than the people that just want entertainment of Linus playing with expensive things.

 

As for auctioning off the prototype that was a dumb mistake, sure mistakes can happen, although it shouldn't have happened if Billet said they wanted it back and there should have been a note to return it if the block was correctly put into their inventory.

Although the worst thing is how LMG handled selling it off, they totally acted non-nonchalantly over a one off prototype and probably hurt Billet as a company since that was their best prototype, thats completely unacceptable IMO and Billet deserves a public apology.

[iAxX]

Disappointed there's not enough coverage of the conflict of interest between LMG and Noctua/ASUS. 

 

Saying the NH-D15 will take anything you throw at it as the CPU throttles.

Not properly covering the ASUS refusal to RMA situation. 

 

As you then partner up with Noctua to make LTT colored fans and Noctua colored screwdriver. 

As ASUS becomes the main sponsor for LTX.

 

These are egregious violations of trust if you're reporting on news or going into the technical reporting field. 

 

 

[Sarra]

Wow, this trainwreck is still getting worse? Holy crap.

[harls]

1 minute ago, ColonelSupremePizza said:

Look, anyone can view things as something they aren't. I can say that I don't like a particular candy and you might think that I hate all candy and want them all removed from the universe. Considering how Linus is already super upsetti spaghetti that his "internet fwend" didn't call him to talk about it before making a journalistic video calling out obvious mistakes and bad practices, he will absolutely take it as an attack. He used the "I'm a real person too guise" routine, so of course he isn't capable of taking criticism.

 

LMG shouldn't worry about analytics and such because in the end, their channel has so many subscribers and momentum behind it that it'll barely tickle the numbers. Remember when people said they wouldn't buy Blizzard products because of the Cosby Room, rape allegations, or Free Hong Kong protests? Yeah, those same people are back to buying Blizzard shit and it didn't do much. Unless Linus went full on nuclear, the sad reality is this really won't be a blip on their analytics. Even if it did have an effect, that's on Linus for being so dense that light bends around him and not be capable of understanding criticism.

The problem is it wasn't a journalistic video. 

[Thepyrodex]

2 minutes ago, jitteryzeitgeist said:

Ot wasn’t an insult, I addressed exactly why I’m in here despite not being a viewer.

 

which is why I’m asking again:  I posted exactly why I’m here, did you miss it because the words were in a combination you’re not familiar with or did you hit the first line and fly into a rage?

"Ooo I can't wait to hear more bullshit from Linus" ~ totally unbiased user

 

you are just fully of insults!  you gonna call me a poopy head next? 

[ScoggsUK]

4 minutes ago, VisibleXela said:

If a video is based on "facts available at the time" then it is still based on facts, not conjecture. What Steve does or does not infer within the confines of his own brain is immaterial to me and makes no difference.

 

My point was what happened to the block was immaterial. It does not matter if someone actually has it in their hands or if it's in a trash can somewhere. That's bad either way.

 

We know LMG had it, we know they were responsible for it, and we know they no longer have it anymore. We knew those facts at the time. If LMG was able to respond prior to the video going up and was able to clarify and say "actually, we never gave it to anyone. we weren't careful with it and an employee stole it" (for the uninitiated: this absolutely never happened, it's a hypothetical) then that wouldn't change anything at all, they're still in the wrong. They still shouldn't have put it up for auction, they still should have given it back forever ago, and they sure as shit should have compensated Billet for it well before the GN video went up.

 

GN reported the facts available at the time, and no statement or response from LMG could have or would have changed things at the time, beyond giving Linus a chance to quietly sweep things under the rug in lieu of making things right.

I agree they are in the wrong and have items to answer for. 

 

But I respectively agree to disagree on the right to comment point. It was the right thing to do in the circumstances in my opinion. 

 

I'm not going to infer what would have happened if it was dealt with it privately and I'd be amazed if anyone within this thread is close enough to do so. 

[MotherboardsInThePark]

1 minute ago, Sarra said:

Wow, this trainwreck is still getting worse? Holy crap.

^ Me watching post-2016 LTT.

[ImpliedSilence]

@Legitsu Dude, do you need to talk to someone...maybe take a few deep breaths, you D1ck riding Linus this hard the last 10+ pages of threads, you're going to have a heart attack and he isn't going to even appreciate your efforts.

[filpo]

Just now, Thepyrodex said:

you gonna call me a poopy head next? 

look out! he might not invite you to his birthday party next 

[VisibleXela]

Just now, iAxX said:

Disappointed there's not enough coverage of the conflict of interest between LMG and Noctua/ASUS. 

 

Saying the NH-D15 will take anything you throw at it as the CPU throttles.

Not properly covering the ASUS refusal to RMA situation. 

 

As you then partner up with Noctua to make LTT colored fans and Noctua colored screwdriver. 

As ASUS becomes the main sponsor for LTX.

 

These are egregious violations of trust if you're reporting on news or going into the technical reporting field. 

 

 

There's no victim here, so it's far less juicy.

 

But you're exactly right - people are trying to take GN's journalistic integrity to task when LMG's is far more suspect at this point.

[dege13]

39 minutes ago, Legitsu said:

so we just gonna ignore that he flubbed the timeline in the inital video. 

 

again for somebody riding a top a 27 foot tall horse seems like a no brainer thing to check.

 

 

If he did, I think Steve can make a mistake too. You made a spelling mistake in your reply, but I'm not going to hold it against you.

It is consistent and compounding mistakes that makes a problem, even worse when the mistake makes consumers think badly of a product, like the stickers on the mouse, as an example.

[jitteryzeitgeist]

Just now, Thepyrodex said:

"Ooo I can't wait to hear more bullshit from Linus" ~ totally unbiased user

 

you are just fully of insults!  you gonna call me a poopy head next? 

Its not an insult.

 

Calling him a fraudulent, uninformed, disconnected huckster with megalomaniacal and narcissistic tendencies, thats more of an insult.

 

You being a sycophant is an insult.

 

Me calling his words “bullshit” is a matter of opinion

[Wintyr]

you think after making fun of this guy you think Linus would not follow the same way but mabey its the beard

[mMontana]

1 minute ago, Hydra_20 said:

The whole Billet thing seems to be resolved, I hope that was a one off, seems like something that would happen when you have hundreds of employees in different departments that don't necessarily speak to each other. At least this is an easy problem to fix all in all.

I cannot agree with that, I'm sorry.

Would they "lost" a pre-production unit from nVidia, AMD, Intel, Asus if needed to be returned?

Would they auction that device?

 

Other companies play along with stronghanded and do unpleasant tricks with the weaken. They were adamand on the big no no about Eufy/Anker, they cut the rope. We will never be accountant of the money "lost" with that decision.

However, Billet Labs now knows that sending prototypes to Media might be a bad idea.

And every startup knows that LMG had done something not nice to a startup product. So it will be a lot tough decide "do we really want to do that?"

[IrishDiem]

8 minutes ago, filpo said:

Wow this is passive aggressive

Well it there opening line to me. Not even a hello. So I had to descent to their level. 

[Legitsu]

1 minute ago, iAxX said:

Disappointed there's not enough coverage of the conflict of interest between LMG and Noctua/ASUS. 

 

Saying the NH-D15 will take anything you throw at it as the CPU throttles.

Not properly covering the ASUS refusal to RMA situation. 

 

As you then partner up with Noctua to make LTT colored fans and Noctua colored screwdriver. 

As ASUS becomes the main sponsor for LTX.

 

These are egregious violations of trust if you're reporting on news or going into the technical reporting field. 

 

 

only because steve got into a pissing match with both companies 

 

so what nobody on youtube is allowed to sponser with anybody daddy steve has decided is a bad guy ?

 

again the arrogance is just off the effing scale with gn here who the tf do you think you are 

[lyenistek]

First off, Huge fan of the way Linus has held other companies accountable like Asus, Anker, etc. Now he just needs to chill out for a moment and look at his own response through the same lens.

 

GN's response was clearly a salty response to the opening video "the difference between us and somebody like Gamer's Nexus or Hardware Unboxed...." Steve could have handled it a little differently but shots were already fired at him. That doesn't make his points invalid though.

 

My main takeaway is that Linus wants to position LMG as an authority with superior electronics testing and therefore should be held accountable for it's mistakes.

 

I want to believe in Linus' vision for the Lab, but not owning up to errors and not slowing down to correct mistakes is a bad look for the Lab. I'm perfectly content watching LMG videos for entertainment, but if he wants to position himself and the labs as the most accurate form of a review he's going to have to answer earnestly to scrutiny. 

 

I know the water block review wasn't tested by the Lab, but realistically will most of the audience make that distinction? Either we can fully trust Linus or we can accept that he's just in it for the entertainment and not the accuracy. The line between the accuracy of a Lab video and the goofiness of an LTT video is blurred if Linus is the face of both.

 

He's mentioned on the WAN show about using the labs as a form of creating a "moat" but it's a very ineffective moat if he doesn't secure it the whole way around. 

 

I know that money is the driving force behind his decisions, but in the long term how he responds to criticism of the Lab will impact his bottom dollar more than spending 100-500 dollars to get things right.

 

From the responses I've seen he's being very dismissive of this whole situation and not the way I expected him to handle it.

 

I will continue to watch LMG content in hopes he does the right thing.