MSI Afterburner Developer Hasn't been Paid for a Year, Product Development in Limbo

[claes]

Somehow I don’t think those externalities have anything to do with this at all

 

[damric]

This is unfortunate. Unwinder is a good guy. In the forums at G3D he's grouchy, but people ask dumbass things and never read his stickies. EVGA screwed him, and now MSI. I hope he put a code bomb in the latest version, but he wouldn't because he genuinely cares about the software.

 

[Muck Muster]

Let's be honest: we wouldn't even need Afterburner if Nvidia bothered to include an overclocking and monitoring tool in their GPU driver just like AMD and Intel do.

This is still a shady move on MSi's part, though.

I've worked without pay at two differnet times in two different professions with two very good bosses. The later for 3 yrs. at a friend's computer repair business. It finally went bust because the city/county/state overwhelmed us with taxes, regulations, licenses, ordinace diffinitions (really a cr4ppy way for taking more money), etc.. It was a crazy time. A lot of small businesses went bust. We had one customer steal a list of our networking clients and give them to another computer business. With good friends, it's not unreasonable to make/take an offer (s) and accept consessions/provisions with working partners. We've worked under the table before, even to our disliking. But we do it to keep a working partnership in something we love or by means provides us with something of meaning. To do nothing is unreasonable. I wanted the hands-on working experience for my CompTIA A+ which proved invaluable. I'm really dishearten by MSI going nearly a year and do nothing.
Heh. I have a freind from Taiwan, who gets a revenue from stocks. He says his countrymen can be real cutthroat business people. Even to themselves.

This is unfortunate. Unwinder is a good guy. In the forums at G3D he's grouchy, but people ask dumbass things and never read his stickies. EVGA screwed him, and now MSI. I hope he put a code bomb in the latest version, but he wouldn't because he genuinely cares about the software.

EVGA? Wow. Nvidia really treated them like trash. What comes around, goes around.

I feel like everyone here is having a stronger reaction than unwinder is. Sounds like there was a problem paying him through his bank that just hasn’t been resolved yet. Screw-up on MSI’s part for sure, but unwinder seems to have expected that a resolution would come sooner than later.

Folks pointing to using a third-part as a solution are probably correct, but I could understand why unwinder might not want to deal with that hassle, especiallly while navigating sanctions. Hopefully something works out and he gets back-pay in full and can continue development. Sounds like a nice job.

I've worked with bad clients and customers. Really giving much rope before I let go of hope. It's when the coldness get to you, you realize there's no recovery. You need to do something. MSI's been a topic of bad news before. I stay away from their products when it's needful.

 

[Raptor_i]

I wish Unwinder didn't include Nvidia 40 series in its update, that would hit MSI hard, bunch of hypocrites.

 

[Tsukiyomi91]

let MSI suffer even more.

 

[NRANM]

This is very interesting.
Unwinder doesn't blame MSI and appears to indeed have at least a decent business relationship with the company. It was mentioned earlier that MSI is looking to implement some kind of solution and workaround.
Yet, people still keep piling on MSI. Do you guys only read the title and come up with the rest of the scenario in your heads?

 

[Bwaze]

I find it completely unbelievable that MSI has't found a way to finance the developer in Russia. There are large software developers that are running as if nothing had happened.

An example:

Eagle Dynamics that develops Digital Combat Simulator (DCS) flight simulator is a Russian company, and even has a strong connections to Russian military (apart from games they also develop in cooperation with other Russian companies pro simulators for pilot training, battlefield simulators etc). A fact they bragged with for years, and then tried to erase all mentions of it. One of their developers was even imprisioned in USA for smuggling technical manuals of US military aircraft. When they first started having problems with international sanctions (PayPal, other payment problems) they opened "headquartes" in Switzerland. It is forbidden to even mention this in their forums or Facebook pages dedicated to the sim (No political discussions!), and everyone now pretends they're western developers - although a they have in the west is a front.

And they thrive, although all of their devopment is going on in Russia.

 

[ADB1979]

I possibly in the dark here, but AFAIK Russia still handles this as "Special Operations" unwilling to acknowledge it being a war. And that creates some legal nuances. One of those nuances is that they can't mobilize/conscript civilians into the army. They can only mobilize the reservists which they did months ago.

Spot on.

This. The problem is not that MSI is not willing to pay. It is quite complicated to get the payment to someone in Russia, more so for a big corporation. Banks and transfers are sanctioned by western countries and then counter-sanctioned by Russia itself. Plus, some not so nice rules for Russians receiving money abroad, especially in foreign currencies - involving costs, taxation and other niceties that a country can wield.

The solution is IMHO quite simple, MSI can ship him some military hardware, which he can then sell via a broker into Ukraine, which is then sold off to various terrorist groups in Africa

This is very interesting.
Unwinder doesn't blame MSI and appears to indeed have at least a decent business relationship with the company. It was mentioned earlier that MSI is looking to implement some kind of solution and workaround.
Yet, people still keep piling on MSI. Do you guys only read the title and come up with the rest of the scenario in your heads?

MSI has had the best part of a year to come up with some kind of solution, and still hasn't...

 

[NRANM]

MSI has had the best part of a year to come up with some kind of solution, and still hasn't...

You are saying as this is solely MSI's job. There are two parties in this situation, and you are automatically absolving one of them because it's much more poetic to blame the huge corporation instead of the individual person.
Now, it could very well be that it was mainly MSI's fault, but isn't certain because we lack details. Based on what Unwinder wrote in Guru3D thread, he didn't appear particularly proactive in finding a solution either. It sounded like he simply accepted it. That assessment of course could also be wrong but, again, we have very few statements from both parties on the matter, and even less actual details as to what had happened during this period.

We don't know what the communication has been between Unwinder and MSI. We don't know if either side had offered solutions. We don't know, if there had been solutions proposed, why they were rejected by the other side. Etc., etc...

My point is that people jump to conclusions way to easily, and I do find it curious that the "victim" is much more forgiving of the "perpetrator" than some random people online.

 

[Yraggul666]

You are saying as this is solely MSI's job. There are two parties in this situation, and you are automatically absolving one of them because it's much more poetic to blame the huge corporation instead of the individual person.
Now, it could very well be that it was mainly MSI's fault, but isn't certain because we lack details. Based on what Unwinder wrote in Guru3D thread, he didn't appear particularly proactive in finding a solution either. It sounded like he simply accepted it. That assessment of course could also be wrong but, again, we have very few statements from both parties on the matter, and even less actual details as to what had happened during this period.

We don't know what the communication has been between Unwinder and MSI. We don't know if either side had offered solutions. We don't know, if there had been solutions proposed, why they were rejected by the other side. Etc., etc...

My point is that people jump to conclusions way to easily, and I do find it curious that the "victim" is much more forgiving of the "perpetrator" than some random people online.

Oh sure! Look at us barbarians piling it up on poor old MSI!
Good thing they have a white knight here to protect their honour.

I love MSI's products and if MSI would have had minimum shady stuff and controversy i would be the first to ask for moderation in judgement untill more facts would surface
and would trust this situation not to be MSI's fault, but as the situation stands i'm NOT willing or able to do that.

I admit i'm biased against MSI because of the recent "AMD gets prev gen hardware" crap and i'm also willing to admit that i might be wrong accusing MSI of ill intentions/foulplay,
but all that doesn't change the fact that MSI is a huge company that could do right by the man if they really wanted to.

So save the "holier than thou" and "witchhunt" routine for some other "random people online".

 

[Bwaze]

On the other hand, MSI Afterburner is a free program. All this time MSI got quite a bit of publicity by paying one (1) programmer? No wonder it works much better than various motherboard software, RGB "Mystic Lights"...

 

[NRANM]

Oh sure! Look at us barbarians piling it up on poor old MSI!
Good thing they have a white knight here to protect their honour.

I love MSI's products and if MSI would have had minimum shady stuff and controversy i would be the first to ask for moderation in judgement untill more facts would surface
and would trust this situation not to be MSI's fault, but as the situation stands i'm NOT willing or able to do that.

I admit i'm biased against MSI because of the recent "AMD gets prev gen hardware" crap and i'm also willing to admit that i might be wrong accusing MSI of ill intentions/foulplay,
but all that doesn't change the fact that MSI is a huge company that could do right by the man if they really wanted to.

So save the "holier than thou" and "witchhunt" routine for some other "random people online".

I'm simply trying to keep a cool head and be rational and objective about issues that I encounter. If to you that sounds like I'm "whiteknighing" for MSI, there is little I could say to convince you otherwise.

And you are also making assumptions with the "MSI is a huge company that could do right by the man if they really wanted to" statement.
Who said they weren't trying? Unwinder never said that. This article does not state that. MSI has not stated that. If anything, they stated that they want the development of Afterburner to continue. You can make the argument that perhaps they should have reacted sooner, however, that would still be based on speculation, as we don't have enough information to claim they've never tried to resolve the situation.

Is objectivity really such a difficult concept to grasp?
And I don't understand the witch hunt remark. People automatically blaming MSI are the ones closer to performing a so called "witch hunt".

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Only msi product I use

 

[fb020997]

Never used it with my current Vega 64, since I OC/UV it with Wattman and use the integrated Radeon Overlay. But I used both Afterburner and RTSS with my previous HD6770m.

 

[ADB1979]

Unwinder doesn't blame MSI and appears to indeed have at least a decent business relationship with the company. It was mentioned earlier that MSI is looking to implement some kind of solution and workaround.

My mistake, I should have only quoted this one line previously... Yes I had read the rest of your post, and no it is not entirely MSI's fault, but this is a company with serious resources (unlike one Russian dude/dudette) and has offices in Russia and sells products there. So whilst MSI "is looking to implement some kind of solution and workaround", they have had the best part of a year to do so, and have still failed to execute on this, we wouldn't even be discussing this if it was 3-months, rather than almost 10... As for Unwinders position with MSI, that is up to him, most would be very angry, some would have walked, for all I know, he might be absolutely loaded and has no need for the money.

Unlike many here, I have no personal issues with MSI, I currently use an MSI motherboard as I write this and I am very happy with it, so I am not pushing some kind of personal vendetta, and I haven't used MSI afterburner for many years, just angry that a big company has not fixed this (assumed) serious problem for Unwinder, which I am sure they have fixed for all of the rest of their Russian staff, otherwise we would have heard about that a long time ago, so clearly they could have fixed this by now, but haven't, and that is what makes me and others angry, that not all have been treated the same.!!! I expect that there is some kind of contractual clause, or other issue that has caused problems that doesn't effect MSI's other Russian staff, just Unwinder, and that may be why Unwinder appears to be rather relaxed about the situation.

I have no real interest in discussing this any further, but I will come back periodically to see that it has been resolved, and find out what the cause was (apart from sanctions) out of general interest. It would obviously be in MSI's interest to have fixed this long ago, as this kind of negative press has financial costs that go way beyond what it would have cost to have fixed the problem. Many people (and businesses) really do not understand the cost of negative press, even if it a relatively small issue like this, for some, this might be the last straw and the reason why their next product purchase is not an MSI product, and for that, MSI are solely to blame as this issue with Unwinder could clearly have been solved. Now I just want to know why.

 

[toyo]

I'm East European and Russia was always the biggest threat for us here, but Unwinder should be paid and the app is too good to abandon. There are things to discuss about the whole insane situation that are obviously not appropriate here. Unwinder, being a male, should've also bounced from the country, IMO.

 

[Deleted member 177333]

Definitely won't be buying anything from MSI moving forward. They're doing that dude pretty dirty when he has nothing to do with the political issues over there.
I use Afterburner every day. If there's a way to send the guy $ while I still have a Paypal account, hopefully TPU can post a follow up, I'd be happy to send him some $.

 

[Mussels]

Facebook had some great comments about just getting rid of that [racist gibberish goes here] and putting Real Murrican Devs on the job (Like MSI aren't from Taiwan or something)
And... No.
Alexey/Unwinder *IS* afterburner.

My favourite comment was a genuine non-troll comment about 'Who gives a shit about afterburner for its overlay, just use rivatuner - it's way better and afterburner used it anyway'




I'm sure between Unwinder and W1zzard (Seriously - ATItool was what made TPU explode all those years ago) we could make one hell of an OCing program

I don't understand why MSI relies heavily in one person? Don't they have a software department in Taiwan?

They basically paid Alexey to put their name on his program

In it's early days it had exclusive benefits on MSI cards (The options are still there for extended clock/voltage ranges/controls) but Nvidia and AMD limited that with BIOS locks

There's only one man that can end this war.

Sorry i'm busy shaving my dogs feet

This is very interesting.
Unwinder doesn't blame MSI and appears to indeed have at least a decent business relationship with the company. It was mentioned earlier that MSI is looking to implement some kind of solution and workaround.
Yet, people still keep piling on MSI. Do you guys only read the title and come up with the rest of the scenario in your heads?

MSI Only offered to do something after an entire year had passed and he made it public

Perhaps you should read the headlines, as they contain that basic nugget

 

[WeeRab]

He can't be paid in Russia anymore, it's as simple as that. There's nothing stupid going on at MSI.

MSI are still selling their products in Russia according to the article. (and presumably earning revenue) So it appears there is something 'stupid' going on at MSI

 

[phanbuey]

Sorry i'm busy shaving my dogs feet

Right then - I'll just tell that to my family that's getting shelled. They understand -- everyone's very busy.

I'm not sure why he hasn't gotten around to using alternative payment methods. We have 2 Russian programmers at my company and they're getting paid (they also bailed to Thailand/ Georgia - so that may be why).

It really just sounds like there's more to this story?

Also MSI might not be in direct control of product distribution in Russia. There might be a outside country distributor that's buying the cards then marking them up and selling them in Russia. That's how tech used to flow in back in the good old days.

 

[lexluthermiester]

@ MSI
Seriously? Get your fraking heads out of your bums and get your INTERNATIONALLY ACCLAIMED developer of the INTERNATIONALLY ACCLAIMED software paid!

Failure to do so will render him the right to take his code, strip out everything specifically related to MSI and make a universal utility.... Wait, that's a good idea! On second thought...

@ MSI
Don't do anything, keep screwing things up..

This is still a shady move on MSi's part, though.

Let's be fair to MSI, I did some digging on this issue, MSI is in a bit of a hard place in this situation. They literally can not transfer money to Alexey Nicolaychuk because of all the crap going on. While MSI has the resources to fix this problem and work around it, they would need to make some special arrangements.

So I'd like to back-track a little bit. MSI is in a tough spot. However, I still think MSI and the rest of the world need to remember that the Russian people are not responsible for the moron actions of their government. They are just as much the victims as the Ukrainians are.

 

[Mussels]

MSI are a multinational company

They can use their branches from other countries without legal issues to pay him

What Alexey brought up is that they're about to reach the expiry of the clause in their contract - when that gets broken at the 1 year mark, we'll find out what happens (Do they lose the rights to the name?)

 

[lightning70]

It was an application that I used very much. Frankly, I was upset. So, what alternative software is available to this software? Is alternative software that practical?

 

[Mussels]

It was an application that I used very much. Frankly, I was upset. So, what alternative software is available to this software? Is alternative software that practical?

Nope.
We're stuck right now.
For example nothing else lets me set a specific MHz + Voltage combination on 30 series GPUs, only nvidias TDP control which doesnt solve that the stock voltages are far too damn high.


That said, there is nothing stopping him working for someone else, a new face appearing with a new program, or one of the old legends creating something again.

 

[AusWolf]

It was an application that I used very much. Frankly, I was upset. So, what alternative software is available to this software? Is alternative software that practical?

Is Evga Precision still available?