NVidia, What gives? Seriously?!?

[lexluthermiester]

Note to mods: This is going to be a rant which calls out NVidia on their latest bullshit and I'm not going to hold my punches. I'll understand if you wish to delete this thread(because of the potential drama it might cause), but I ask that you consider leaving up and closing it to everyone expect me(so I can bump it to keep it front and center for NVidia to see) and yourselves to keep things as civilized as possible given the situation. We all know NVidia personnel lurk these forums and they need to see this. That said, here we go....

NVidia, you've crossed a line. What line you ask? Please review;

I echo Jay's sentiments 100 fraking %.

I also agree with Linus on most points.

These are but two of the examples that are out there to be considered.

While you are not the first company to engage in such behaviors, you are one of the biggest and at this point in time you should know better. What you've done is no better than despicable. It is completely unprofessional, unethical and socially irresponsible. Let me highlight one of those points, it is lacking all ethical considerations. It is foul. It is unacceptable on EVERY LEVEL!

Don't try to excuse it all away by saying "Hey, its just business.". Such is a morally and ethically PATHETIC purview. It's time for you and the rest of the business world to kick it up a few notches and grow the fuck up!

Act with dignity & grace!

Treat everyone with equality & respect!

Be responsible in everything you do!

Accept that not everyone is going to kiss your grimy ass. And when someone offers critique, you say "Thank You!" and learn what you can from it instead of acting like overgrown children saying "Don't want to sing our praises? No soup for you!".

Grow up and get a damn clue! Change your ways before we the people change it for you! And we WILL change you!

/rant

EDIT;
Before anyone calls me one of the AMD fanboy types, WRONG! I love the new RTX 3000 cards because the RTRT performance is next level awesome. I will defend or critize NVidia, AMD, Intel or anyone else based on merit and factual evidence. My rage in this moment is about this situation and is solely based on this action.

 

[dirtyferret]

I saw this on techspot this morning and Nvidia ended up walking back on their letter (threat) but it's basically Nvidia tossing a hissy fit and screaming "ray tracing is important damnit and you need to start drinking and passing out the kool-aid".

 

[lexluthermiester]

Nvidia ended up walking back on their letter (threat)

Yeah, just saw that. They still need to see this. They only backpedaled because of outrage. They need to see and understand that a fundamental change needs to happen within the NVidia ranks. Mr Leather Jacket himself needs to pull NVidias head out of the sand & out their ass and behave better.

 

[Hachi_Roku256563]

What happens sorry im a bit out of the mix
this just says what NVIDIA did was BAD nothing else

 

[biffzinker]

What happens sorry im a bit out of the mix

They want reviewers to push RTX/Ray Tracing benchmarks over the older, and still current Rasterization benchmarks.

Edit: The reasoning was the reviewers are being handed out free cards from the company for review. It would seem there was an expected way Nvidia wanted the reviews done.

 

[lexluthermiester]

What happens sorry im a bit out of the mix
this just says what NVIDIA did was BAD nothing else

The short story, a Youtube channel called HardwareUnboxed(run by a host named Steve) received an email from an NVidia rep fairly high up in the chain of command effectively saying & detailing that his channel would not be receiving any review samples in future because Steve did not present the GPU's/features in the light NVidia wished for. Thus the outrage ensued...

Whether or not anyone agrees with HWUB/Steve's perspectives and opinions is irrelevant at this point. NVidia crossed the line here and it's not the first time they have crossed such a line.

 

[biffzinker]

NVidia rep fairly high up

PR manager to be exact. Always the PR departments getting caught causing the company a negative backlash, not just for Nvidia.

 

[bug]

The short story, a Youtube channel called HardwareUnboxed(run by a host named Steve) received an email from an NVidia rep fairly high up in the chain of command effectively saying & detailing that his channel would not be receiving any review samples in future because Steve did not present the GPU's/features in the light NVidia wished for. Thus the outrage ensued...

Whether or not anyone agrees with HWUB/Steve's perspectives and opinions is irrelevant at this point. NVidia crossed the line here and it's not the first time they have crossed such a line.

Tbh, when you review a product, you should strive to cover every aspect of it.

Nvidia has been burnt on this before, anyone remembers SoundStorm?

 

[dirtyferret]

Yeah, just saw that. They still need see this. They only backpedaled because of outrage. They need to see and understand that a fundamental change needs to happen within the NVidia ranks. Mr Leather Jacket himself needs to pull NVidias head out of the sand & out their ass and behave better.

I worked in Marketing and Advertising for over a decade. Did Nvidia go too far? Absolutely. Should we be shocked this happened? Absolutely not. I'm sure @W1zzard and his review team can fill pages with stories of brands going ballistic because they didn't agree with TPUs results, testing procedure, thumbs up and down, the other competition in the review, etc etc. Heck I can fill you in stories of me using ad dollars to get mentions and reviews on much larger media platforms for products they normally would not touch.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Should we be shocked this happened? Absolutely not

Really? I literally work in this industry and am appalled by this. Granted, I understand we do not live in a perfect world, but this is the year 2020, not 1980. Behavior like this is not acceptable. It is toxic and destructive. It must not be tolerated.

 

[Vya Domus]

I pointed out many times in the past how companies directly or indirectly manipulate reviewers by inspiring fear into them that they're not going to get the hardware the next time around. Ever wondered why most reviews seem rather milktoast even when the product is obviously terrible ? This is why.

Hardware unboxed could have not accepted their "apology" and told them that it's over, no more Nvidia coverage. But they didn't, because that's still their lifeline after all, in other words the pressure to put out favorable reviews still remains. So nothing really happened as far as I can say.

 

[dirtyferret]

Really? I literally work in this industry and am appalled by this. Granted, I understand we do not live in a perfect world, but this is the year 2020, not 1980. Behavior like this is not acceptable. It is toxic and destructive. It must not be tolerated.

You and everyone else has every right to be appalled and I'm by no means stating you should let it go. I was merely stating I'm not shocked it happened and I doubt it was the first (or even second) time Nvidia has sent out a letter like it and they are hardly the first company to do so.

 

[lexluthermiester]

You and everyone else has every right to be appalled and I'm by no means stating you should let it go. I was merely stating I'm not shocked it happened and I doubt it was the first (or even second) time Nvidia has sent out a letter like it and they are hardly the first company to do so.

Sorry, I meant no offense to you personally. I'm fully aware that this is not their first offense. This one strikes a nerve.

 

[Mr.Scott]

Meh.......happens all the time, in every industry. You don't give product a review in a positive way, you do get anymore to review. That's the way it goes. There are plenty of places the will provide what a company wants to hear.

 

[rtwjunkie]

I happen to agree with Jay that Nvidia needs to get it’s Posterior Cranial Induction fixed. They are completely out of touch.

The vast majority of gamers are not using RTX or its associated technologies. Most are playing games in rasterization mode because of either the the level of hardware needed to get the frames needed at an acceptable level, or because the quality level of RTX is just not there yet. Many people want quality images, but they don’t want a slideshow to achieve it. That standard can still be attained through rasterization. Nvidia doesn’t understand or refuses to understand that most people cannot afford their price for true entry into the RT world.

To threaten product samples because a review doesn’t say what you want it to say? Unethical to the core. If you just want a PR piece, do it yourself. If you want to have your product truthfully looked at, then send it out for reviews. You cannot have it both ways.

 

[Vader]

The Linus rant about this whole situation was pure gokd

 

[Arctucas]

When you make a deal with the Devil...

 

[lexluthermiester]

Meh.......happens all the time, in every industry. You don't give product a review in a positive way, you do get anymore to review. That's the way it goes. There are plenty of places the will provide what a company wants to hear.

I know you're right to some level, but that just isn't how a free market and free press works well. Things work best when they are done transparently and on the level.

 

[ShurikN]

Nvidia's backpedaling reads like "we are sorry we couldn't get away with this, we'll try harder next time"

 

[lexluthermiester]

When you make a deal with the Devil...

As pissed as I am about this, I would not call NVidia "the Devil". This situation is and will always be foul and wrong and it needs to be a very painfully and embarrassing mistake for them to learn from.

Nvidia's backpedaling reads like "we are sorry we couldn't get away with this, we'll try harder next time"

Yeah, I'll go along with that!

 

[8BitZ80]

Around five years ago there was a similar thing with Intel. Intel were the main player in the game and so getting sponsored by Intel was a huge deal. Reviewers were petrified about giving Intel negative press just in case they got kicked off the gravy train. Lots of boot licking and ass kissing going on in those days. Luckily that was eventually squashed when AMD made their Ryzen comeback.

 

[Gmr_Chick]

I happen to agree with Jay that Nvidia needs to get it’s Posterior Cranial Induction fixed. They are completely out of touch.

The vast majority of gamers are not using RTX or its associated technologies. Most are playing games in rasterization mode because of either the the level of hardware needed to get the frames needed at an acceptable level, or because the quality level of RTX is just not there yet. Many people want quality images, but they don’t want a slideshow to achieve it. That standard can still be attained through rasterization. Nvidia doesn’t understand or refuses to understand that most people cannot afford their price for true entry into the RT world.

To threaten product samples because a reviewdoesn’t say what you want it to say? Unethical to the core. If you just want a PR piece, do it yourself. If you want to have your product truthfully looked at, then send it out for reviews. You cannot have it both ways.

I agree with this bit (in bold) so damn much it hurts. I couldn't have said it better. I first read about this situation last night while browsing Techspot, whom Hardware Unboxed is affiliated with. HUB doesn't have the huge subscriber numbers that Jay or Linus, or GN have, but Steve -- HUB Steve, not GN Steve -- is damn good at what he does, which is provide in-depth and honest reviews. Now, granted, they don't go as deep as GN does, but for me, as a person who enjoys hardware but doesn't know its intricacies (like a lot of you here) that's OK. HUB reviews things in such a way that I can understand and therefore truly know if that CPU, GPU or mobo is "right" for me.

As for Nvidia. Nobody ASKED them to implement RT into their cards. Or maybe they did, I don't know. But to me, this whole shitshow seems like a case of being butthurt because a reviewer didn't heap tons of praise upon a feature -- Ray Tracing -- that, for all intents and purposes, is still largely useless to the majority of PC gamers at this point. Because I tell you what, I couldn't give two wet shits about RT. This goes for AMD too. Better shadows and lighting and all that crap isn't a game-changer for me. Now, DLSS on the other hand, is truly interesting to me. But therein lies another problem -- only the RTX cards support it, meaning people like me who have GTX cards can't begin to take advantage of it. That's gotta change.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Paid bias isn't a new thing
Nothing written anywhere nvidia/.... has to give out samples to anyone
People will still buy items no matter what a reviewers state think 20 series proves it they were dying all over the place after release and people still bought them

 

[Bones]

Have to say it - It goes in the way that if you don't give a glowing review of the hardware you don't get anymore free stuff or just stuff in general.
Negative reviews will make a potential customer look the other way and Nvidia ain't having that affecting the bottom line. Reviewers are essentially a loose part of their PR/Marketing dept and this is just pressuring the reviewers to sing the praises of Nvidia instead of the cold hard truth.

The E-mail was little more than a veiled threat to reviewers to either play ball or else and I believe many, if not the majority of reviewers will say "Else" in response to this. From JCT's vid I'm getting the feeling that's what's about to happen anyway, good product or not.

 

[Atomic77]

Nvidia is probably one of the most popular video card makers in the world they usally have pretty high quality stuff. It just so happens it is nvidia that is inside the nintendo switch and switch lite. I don't know what the big deal is here or what Nvidia did wrong.