Gamers Nexus alleges LMG has insufficient ethics and integrity

[atxcyclist]

Just now, bandainamcofan said:

I'm asking you to support your claim. That you're unwilling to do so is not my problem. I showed you where a journalism ethics body suggests this isn't a violation, you keep saying it is because Steve said so, but refuse to show me where. 

 

I want LTT to do great things. I want them to have great data and reviews that are trustworthy. I want the same for GN, Jay, whoever. It is in my objective best interest as a consumer to have multiple quality places to become informed. Are some people here just to troll? Undeniably. Some of us, however, are here because we actually want LTT to do better.

 

You're making the claim that Steve hasn't done something, but you haven't watched the content to see what I'm talking about, and so you're expecting me to summarize and catalogue dozens of hours of Gamer's Nexus videos for you? Nope, it's actually your issue that you're making claims about videos you've not watched.

 

So go watch the videos and learn about GN/Steve's processes he pats himself on the back for, and don't rely on other people to do that work for you.

[ImorallySourcedElectrons]

4 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

Even if it was on a weekend, then someone should have been made aware despite it being a weekend, LMG screwed up on selling it in the first place so they should've fixed it as quickly as possible.

Yes, let's call everyone back into work over the weekend for each mistake, that's sure to increase work-life balance.

[kreative]

Just now, Legitsu said:

Testing methodology doesn't matter in this case. The product is stupid. Okay I'm sorry we don't need a review on it to know that one look at it. Tells you all you need to know about it. It looks like it was engineered in a garage by a 15-year-old machinist intern I'm sorry that you know the product sucks and it's $800 worth of copper. The fact that it's $800 worth of copper should tell you everything you need to know about the people that designed it I'll fault LMG for this. They should have never ever reviewed the piece of crap. The water block LMG design was a better designed water block. Then that abomination

A product being stupid and a product sucking are very different things. A supercar is stupid, doesn't mean that it sucks.

 

You are going great lengths to excuse very neglecent behavior.

[Uzrathixius]

1 minute ago, ImorallySourcedElectrons said:

And honestly, Steve can be happy no one in the electronics industry cares enough about him to make a 45 minute attack video about his technical content. And he has had plenty of warnings.

 

Could you elaborate further? I've always thought his stuff was "fine", in that regard. However, electronics is not my industry so I am rather blind to what faults he may have in that content.

[venomtail]

Even as a viewer I can't keep up with how much "content" LTT is dumping out, I agree with Steve as well as the staff from the employee video.

 

But auctioning off something that's not theirs? I didn't think LTT would outright steal from others, not like they're running low on cash on income, at least looking from the outside in.

[ASSASSIN2112]

No one is perfect but being impatient and stubborn surely doesn't make it any better
And this applies to everyone

[Dayderingo]

Just now, ImorallySourcedElectrons said:

Yes, let's call everyone back into work over the weekend for each mistake, that's sure to increase work-life balance.

Strawman.

[lalaking07]

Everyone might not agree with me and thats fine. I truly do believe LTT try their best and they have sadly made some (many) mistakes. However, I still respect them as people and as a company. 
I believe LTT will weather this storm (I hope they do). Honestly if I was in their position, watching how one video on ethics (with the very eithcal decision to not have a single statement of trying to reach out to LTT regarding all this) turned so much of the community into ravenous animals out for LTT blood. That would break my spirit like I cannot even imagine, TBH it did break my spirit and I am not even invested in LTT in any regard whatsoever, How can someone make a video so filled with all the cherry picked negative facts and not atleast balance it out at all or reach out for comment ? I shake my head even now a day after watching. 

So this post is meant to be for the LTT team and all those that believe LTT can do better and that they will. 
Not for those that defend every wrong, but those that think LTT will find a way to rectify their mistakes. 

Otherwise, LTT team and specifically Linus. Sorry man, I cannot imagine what an absolute sucker punch this must feels like. 
But as callous as it may seem, I hope you take this on the chin, Take some time to regroup, and get up with renewed determination to get things right in the future. 

I might just be a little melodramatic about it all, in which case whoopsie. 

Either way much love, respect and support. 

[bandainamcofan]

Just now, atxcyclist said:

 

You're making the claim that Steve hasn't done something, but you haven't watched the content to see what I'm talking about, and so you're expecting me to summarize and catalogue dozens of hours of Gamer's Nexus videos for you? Nope, it's actually your issue that you're making claims about videos you've not watched.

 

So go watch the videos and learn about GN/Steve's processes he pats himself on the back for, and don't rely on other people to do that work for you.

I never said he didn't do that, I'm asking you to show me where, since you're the one stating it. I stated it's possible it isn't an ethical violation of journalism standards. 

[ioWesty]

9 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.

commenting on the red, right your technically not wrong but from the viewers pov it kind of does, lets say u or I was car salesmen and I was selling a 2022 Ford Mustang and I said "yea the top speed on this puppy... 169mph" (I'm not a salesmen), but anyway 169 that's a funny number therefore they are more likely wanting to buy it now, so then they go and buy it then he goes to the motorway and floors it, and for some reason he can only get it to 162.8mph and now he's pissed cause he was completely lied too, on how it does not go funny number speed, but in reality the salesmen just made a mistake, so the buyer is annoyed and tells him u lied to me bla bla, and they said they are sorry obviously he cant make it that (basically you cant make it where the viewer never heard the wrong number) but something he can do is make sure anyone else who goes to a Ford Mustang 2022 gets told its top speed is 162.8mph and for when the salesmen sells other cars like a 2023 Ford Mustang (don't any1 actually buy that car) they can make sure he says the correct top speed otherwise if he keeps getting complaints from there buyers the boss might not like that they are bad for the company and might not let them sell cars anymore or might just fire them (lose you reputation as a tech reviewer therefore views, or with the fire analogy companies will no longer send you products what is not good, i assume) but this is just what i think of the situation love to have your comment on this, if u need help with the analogy feel free to ask  @LinusTech

[PCDCobby]

6 minutes ago, Legitsu said:

Go watch the actual review and the wanshow piece on it but also Linus is perfectly justified just because a company is new does not entitle them to any differential treatment. The product sucked the review of the product being faulty does not change the product sucking those people own their own machine shop. They should know better I got to say well done. Steve masterfully crafted video ensuring everybody talks about the billet drama and it completely ignores the bad reporting and cherry picking of the rest of it an excellent job giving lmg zero time to respond by reaching out to billet. Not a day after they themselves. Found out well executed. Looks really terrible. Unfortunately it's total b*******

You mean the review where they used the wrong card, Billet Labs didn't have a 4090 to test with and LMG decided to use one because LOLNewCard instead of using the 3090 the block was designed for. 
Can't expect a shoe to fit if you're putting them on the wrong size feet.

[RasmusDC]

7 minutes ago, JoshuaScholar said:

Linus tested it WRONG and has no right to make ANY statements about its quality!

i bought this Exhaust made for a Honda Accord, and it did not fit on my Mustang V8.. this is a crap product and a crap company... they suck, DO NOT BUY...

 

by the way i sold your House, sorry about that but i donated the earning to charity, so it is fine.. and of course i will reinburse you for the price of the house.. i know it was not your choice but i did it.. Sorry..

[MichaelMouton]

9 hours ago, Alan999 said:

I also believe GN's handling of their recent recall was bad. It was more of a pat on the back and showcase on how well they handled it rather than cold hard facts. Ironic when you think how much Steve hates other companies marketing. The whole video didn't even make it clear if a refund was available. Sticker and a pin? I also think an incorrect wiring diagram can potentially do a lot more damage than a faulty zip puller. I can't find the video now either, has it been pulled?

 

GN spent a bit over seven minutes talking about it in a recent HW News episode...

 

I think they did a fine job considering they're not as large as LMG.  They tried mixing the modmat by trying different methods of removing the factory applied print, but that was not feasible.  Eventually, they gave buyers either the options of accepting a die cast emblem and two printed cards containing corrected pinouts or actually returning their modmats.

 

Also all of this was sent out in an email to said buyers.  They didn't tell them to go watch the latest episode of HW News.  Looking at the comments of the video it also seems as though just about everyone is very happy with the resolution.

 

Thanks, Steve.

[JoshuaScholar]

God, what this is coming down to!

 

Linus' defenders saying "Linus doesn't have to legitimately test a stupid product, everyone can see it's dumb without even testing it!"

 

Steve saying "water blocks have tight tolerances, you can't test a water block on the wrong card and then pretend that you know anything about it!"

 

I think the Linus side is harming the innocent over this!

[Drazil100]

12 minutes ago, WereCat said:

It's true that GN should probably call LMG and resolve this privately if possible but at the same time LMG employee took shots at GN and HWU, etc... before calling them and asking about how they test. So I think it's fair that there is now video from GN taking shots as well.

Even if they hadn't taken shots on wan, I don't think GN should have resolved this privately. What Steve had to say was important for the community to hear. Maybe he should have called to get a statement or something, but at the end of the day he SHOULD have made that video.

[MGsubbie]

9 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.

We potentially destroyed a startup company because we were lazy and I was greedy, but we gave them some money, so we're all good. Also, we never contacted Billet labs before posting out scathing video, and now we're upset that GN didn't contact us.

JFC Linus.

[Elinzar]

1 minute ago, ImorallySourcedElectrons said:

Communication issues happen in companies. I find it interesting how everyone expects no mistakes are made, while they most likely make such mistakes as well at their own job.

Yep they happen, most dont risk another company existance and all the hard work the people of that company made
why you think Linus didnt sleep when his channel got hacked? because it treatened to destroy everything he have worked for

now LTT because of a miss managment pretty much trew down the drain all the work Billet Lab guys have done, but also they basically said "whoops sorry here have some money gud bye" and if there was an intention to adress this publicly, it was never transmitted

 

again that GN had to report on this instead of LTT is concerning, that they knew more than LTT earlier about this situation is horriffic

that they can do this damage to someone else without even knowing should be a real Wake up call for LTT

[Legitsu]

1 minute ago, MGsubbie said:

We potentially destroyed a startup company because we were lazy and I was greedy, but we gave them some money, so we're all good.

JFC Linus.

I would hope so because any machinest worth there salt that made such a abomination should be ashamed

 

they didn't make a product they cut some holes in a chunk of copper and put some decorative bits on it 

boo hoo cry me a river 

 

[atxcyclist]

9 minutes ago, bandainamcofan said:

I never said he didn't do that, I'm asking you to show me where, since you're the one stating it. I stated it's possible it isn't an ethical violation of journalism standards. 

It doesn't matter if it's violation of some particular industry guideline, I'm saying it's a violation of Steve's own guidelines. He set them, he's not following them, that's basically everything I need to say about it. And again, no one is going and cataloging dozens of hours of video for you, if you've not watched them then don't make claims about what Steve did or didn't do in them.

 

 

[Lupino]

I feel like over 70+ screen pages of comments, no-one has hit the right tone, yet, so keep it comming, guys!

[kreative]

Just now, Legitsu said:

I would hope so because any machinest worth there salt that made such a abomination should be ashamed

 

You are the personification of an echo chamber.

[WereCat]

2 minutes ago, Drazil100 said:

Even if they hadn't taken shots on wan, I don't think GN should have resolved this privately. What Steve had to say was important for the community to hear. Maybe he should have called to get a statement or something, but at the end of the day he SHOULD have made that video.

I agree. What I had in mind was that if they resolved it privately then LMG would have the chance to correct their mistake by making a correction on their side without other outlets having to take a shot at them.

But they just didn't took that route.

[MGsubbie]

Just now, Legitsu said:

I would hope so because any machinest worth there salt that made such a abomination should be ashamed

 

Basing this on Linus refusing to follow a manual and using it on the wrong product?

[YZF-RX]

5 minutes ago, Legitsu said:

Testing methodology doesn't matter in this case. The product is stupid. Okay I'm sorry we don't need a review on it to know that one look at it. Tells you all you need to know about it. It looks like it was engineered in a garage by a 15-year-old machinist intern I'm sorry that you know the product sucks and it's $800 worth of copper. The fact that it's $800 worth of copper should tell you everything you need to know about the people that designed it I'll fault LMG for this. They should have never ever reviewed the piece of crap. The water block LMG design was a better designed water block. Then that abomination

Listen, we get it, you're head over heels for bootlicking LMG and will do anything to support them but you need to at least check your facts before spouting this nonsense.

 

Have you even looked at the Billet Labs performance testing done with their monoblocks? It shows an improvement in performance over the EK Quantum series blocks when they were installed into a 3090ti/12900k setup.

 

This isn't just some product that "sucks and is a piece of crap". Sure it looks a little rough but hey, you know what prototype means right?

[bandainamcofan]

Just now, atxcyclist said:

It doesn't matter if it's violation of some particular industry guideline, I'm saying it's a violation of Steve's own guidelines. He set them, he's not following them, that's basically everything I need to say about it.

 

 

And I've asked you to show me these guidelines to support your claim. You refuse. That's not a me problem.