NVIDIA Bans Reviewer for Concentrating on Rasterization Instead of Ray Tracing

erek said:
View attachment 309243

https://twitter.com/HardwareUnboxed/status/1338709463721672705
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This one seems much better, too bad it had to be written in the first place. Is it time to move on?

Now I do believe this, when Kyle broke or exploded the Nvidia news about GPP, that was the first time I remember seeing broad interactive media reviewers coming together. To stand up and fight for what one think is right. That really caught on and made a positive impact to the reviewers which now they step up and back each other boldly, much more at least than previous. A seed planted can grow.
 
Krenum said:
Certainly not. Brian is a product of his environment. Nvidia's problem with the community and business practices lays squarely on Jensen & it rolls downhill from there. I can't be mad at a guy that did me a solid but I sure as heck don't like the way the company as a whole is moving, especially when hearing about the mining crap. I think if Lisa Su pulled that, she'd be out of a job.
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Well there is a huge difference between the worker bee and the execs (and middle management). Pretty much everyone in their upper management chain are assholes. I never interacted with the "worker bees" but every single person I interacted with professionally at the upper management level was condescending and rude to say the least. There is a very good chance those positives are some lowish level employee who actually cared and is no longer there because of a toxic environment.

I could easily give counter examples but not really the point.
 
Youn said:
misleading title, the reviewer can still concentrate on raster
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Made the thread after midnight in the middle of exam week. Was the best I could think of after staying up for 3 days. :)

Yes, it irritates me too. Focusing instead of concentrating... Hahaha. Can't be perfect all the time.
 
sc5mu93 said:
Not to be annoying and I recognize you are playing with your new 6900xt, but the end of the GPP story would be an awesome read.
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https://twitter.com/GamersNexus/status/1339290142125789188

1608152051542.png
 
Some if those social media influncers are just voids no voice just obnoxious until they turn 50 loose all your hair no longer at the mercy on Youtube because they been played out clickbait reruns. Trying to meld with technology. Basically this country is still owned by the older generations they own all the land. The younger generation owns the wires.
 
Comixbooks said:
Some if those social media influncers are just voids no voice just obnoxious until they turn 50 loose all your hair no longer at the mercy on Youtube because they been played out clickbait reruns. Trying to meld with technology. Basically this country is still owned by the older generations they own all the land. The younger generation owns the wires.
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Cocaine is a helluva drug.

Just messing with ya.

:)
 
Krenum said:
Certainly not. Brian is a product of his environment. Nvidia's problem with the community and business practices lays squarely on Jensen & it rolls downhill from there. I can't be mad at a guy that did me a solid but I sure as heck don't like the way the company as a whole is moving, especially when hearing about the mining crap. I think if Lisa Su pulled that, she'd be out of a job.
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I am not sure how serious you are, but you think if Nvidia major stockholder and board members were the one AMD has Jensen would have been replaced, because during a quarter were he announce record revenue, up 57% from 2019, operating income up 51%, net profit up 49% and the stock gained more than 100% in value during 2020 because he sold what seem really simple and really high margin deal to clients ? How is it crap to start with ?

Without making you invincible that kind of year, must make you able to sleep at night:
p.png
 
Aireoth said:
He went silent on it shortly after, so I am speculating either someone snitched and he got a call, or its worth writing something larger than a forum post and thus delayed.
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Ran into some legal issues.

I can tell you however that the statement put out by NVIDIA about its reasons for stopping the program is a 100% BS.
 
FrgMstr said:
Yeah. A couple of nice personal anecdotes does make everything Nvidia does to the community OK.
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Not saying my anecdotes do. I said not everyone at Nvidia is an asshole.

Assholes are everywhere. Nvidia needs to get them out of their PR department. The way it was handled just looks crappy. The apology sounded legit, so I will give him that. Maybe it really was just some underlings responsible for the mess. You and me do not work there, all we can do is take them at their word without having someone who works with Bryan Rizzo to spill the beans to us. And if it was him, again, I think he should be fired.

At the same time, the youtuber throwing a tantrum, and all of the outrage, way overblown. The fact that MANY other youtubers posted videos about it, calling Nvidia out on this issue, tells me that Nvidia does not exert enough 'control' over them to create fake, paid for reviews. If that was the case, no other youtuber would have said shit. This was my one real concern. A single youtuber being in trouble with Nvidia doesn't register on my radar.
 
It would be nice one day if these bad practices where actually taken to task and company execs punished.

GoodBoy said:
Not saying my anecdotes do. I said not everyone at Nvidia is an asshole.

Assholes are everywhere. Nvidia needs to get them out of their PR department. The way it was handled just looks crappy. The apology sounded legit, so I will give him that. Maybe it really was just some underlings responsible for the mess. You and me do not work there, all we can do is take them at their word without having someone who works with Bryan Rizzo to spill the beans to us. And if it was him, again, I think he should be fired.

At the same time, the youtuber throwing a tantrum, and all of the outrage, way overblown. The fact that MANY other youtubers posted videos about it, calling Nvidia out on this issue, tells me that Nvidia does not exert enough 'control' over them to create fake, paid for reviews. If that was the case, no other youtuber would have said shit. This was my one real concern. A single youtuber being in trouble with Nvidia doesn't register on my radar.
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Given the current track record I'm comfortable with nVidia being largely assholes, at least at the top. You can blame the PR department all you want, but those calls (GPP, 'refocusing reviewers', etc) are all made above the PR departments head.

I mean several major players in the industry won't play with nVidia because they are know bad faith actors.

edit: how the heck is the stupid 'it was covid's fault' apology even remotely legitimate!?
 
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GoodBoy said:
Not saying my anecdotes do. I said not everyone at Nvidia is an asshole.
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It really doesn’t matter if you believe not everyone at Nvidia is an asshole. Their own company behavior has labeled themselves that way.

The individual could be good as gold or rotten as shit but they represent Nvidia as a whole. I don’t take their apology at face value because it’s just damage control. They have a pretty good history now of promoting this type of behavior.
 
zehoo said:
In 6-10 years time ray tracing is going to be great, as of right now rasterisation is still king.

The ban is also rather confusing as Steve was saying the new Nvidia cards were good (but pricey) and had benched a lot of ray tracing. He also pointed out how bad AMD is at ray tracing currently.

Maybe the ban has more to do with HU dumping on Nvidia for availability and the prices being much higher than MSRP. If I hadn’t cancelled my 3080 msrp preorder because I wanted more than 10gb, I’d still be waiting for my card. I’ll be getting a 6800xt if I can find one at msrp.
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because the gap is narrowing and they be sweating
 
p3sty said:
because the gap is narrowing and they be sweating
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I believe nVidia has hit a dead end on raster gains achitecturally, which is why they are focusing on raytracing. (could easily be wrong)

I firmly got this impression in the 2000 series keynote address, and similar vibes from the 3000 series.

It would certainly explain why nVidia seems so desperate to take media control over the last few years.
 
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GoodBoy said:
Nvidia needs to get them out of their PR department. The way it was handled just looks crappy. The apology sounded legit, so I will give him that. Maybe it really was just some underlings responsible for the mess. You and me do not work there, all we can do is take them at their word without having someone who works with Bryan Rizzo to spill the beans to us. And if it was him, again, I think he should be fired.

At the same time, the youtuber throwing a tantrum, and all of the outrage, way overblown. The fact that MANY other youtubers posted videos about it, calling Nvidia out on this issue, tells me that Nvidia does not exert enough 'control' over them to create fake, paid for reviews. If that was the case, no other youtuber would have said shit. This was my one real concern. A single youtuber being in trouble with Nvidia doesn't register on my radar.
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I would have to suggest you are not seeing the much bigger picture here, and if you have not yet, then you will not. There is plenty you have miscategorized or simply do not understand from your statement above. But no biggy.
 
GoodBoy said:
At the same time, the youtuber throwing a tantrum, and all of the outrage, way overblown. The fact that MANY other youtubers posted videos about it, calling Nvidia out on this issue, tells me that Nvidia does not exert enough 'control' over them to create fake, paid for reviews. If that was the case, no other youtuber would have said shit. This was my one real concern. A single youtuber being in trouble with Nvidia doesn't register on my radar.
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I think it is nice content for them and of good war, you have one of the biggest public company in the world (in market value at least) on one side and youtuber the other side, them even if it would be a bit over the top (that speculation) doing a lot of noise about this seem an overall good, for the youtubers and the future consumer.

It is not necessarily about a single youtuber being in trouble with Nvidia, it is a sign that many could have been if they:
1) Consider a big deal to not have early access
2) Didn't orient the conversation in a direction that please Nvidia
3) And reading Nvidia commenting about the fanbase comments, not directing their fanbase in a direction that please them

I don't think people think Nvidia pay for reviews with an actual money transaction and with a clear on paper control necessarily (or even probably), they pay in early access (drivers, hardware and so on, becoming more and more valuable has less and less certain you can get it otherwise anytime soon) and the script will be send has a suggestion of talking point, with a if your own benchmark are far off those mark you probably have some issue with that specific card we will send you a new one and so on, with a suggestion you will lose your partner position if you do not follow them.

How does those force oriented people coverage of NVidia product over the year's ? Maybe hard to tell, but it is important and normal to have some conterforce to this, to keep the game somewhat balanced.
 
Yeah, all of the Youtuber outrage has played great for those channels.

You are completely correct that the early access is the "pay" so to speak. Even if reviewers paid for the parts, they would still want the current arrangement of getting them early. There's no easy answer. Nvidia has complete control over who gets what and when. It's their product, and them sending samples is 100% in their interest to get the (basically) free viral marketing that the reviews provide. It's also 100% in their control (as the situation points out). Don't think for a second that they wouldn't be paying at least a modicum of attention to what has happened with the 100 or so "free" cards that got shipped out to the popular enough channels... I mean, it does have some cost, probably $50k spent in that way easy, probably more. (That probably isn't much to a billion dollar company)

If you accept free equipment from a vendor, there are probably going to be strings of some sort attached. As a reviewer if you just must have that day 1 review, then its just part of the game. I don't really see a way around it, other than consumers being happy with day4 reviews and not launch day reviews, where the "reviewers" pay for the shit with their own dime, buy at retail, so there are no strings. I think Retail samples are better to use in reviews anyway, company shipped parts could be cherry-picked.

The reviewers are just as guilty as the companies for creating the situation. I believe it started out innocently enough. Nice sales rep or other company employee with a few parts gives them out to pc fan websites, its beneficial for both parties.. but where did it lead? Over and over, websites basically turning into shills, integrity hard to come by, and the company wanting more control over those review websites' "product".

And the other side: Youtubers expecting free product sort of boggles my mind... it's basically just as bad as an Instagram "Influencer" expecting a free hotel stay for some Instagram "coverage"... yet here we are. With the former causing outrage at the company, and the latter causing "are you fucking serious" and laughing and derision at the "influencer"...
 
GoodBoy said:
And the other side: Youtubers expecting free product sort of boggles my mind...
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Do you include reviewers with Youtubers? I watch Hardware Unboxed as my go to review when new hardware comes out, they are my replacement for HardOCP. if it's a big release I include Gamers Nexus as well. They are not perfect but they are the closest on Youtube that I have found to Kyle and the reviews that I used to get here.

Counting Hardware Unboxed in with the influencers means you don't know what their content is like.

There is a trade off for when free products are given to reviewers. It is supposed to be that a fair review will come from it. Kyle has talked about how some companies stopped supplying him with parts after they didn't like the reviews. Nothing wrong with that.

In fact if Nvidia had never sent the email and just silently blacklisted Hardware Unboxed it would have been fine. Even an email stating that had just said we aren't going to send you cards any more would have been okay. It was the implication that if they started focusing on the specific things Nvidia wanted then they could be back in good graces of Nvidia. If Hardware Unboxed had just responded with an "Okay we'll do it" then they would be influencers and not reviewers.

If a company refuses to send a sample of a new product to a reviewer I know something is not great about the product (or the company). I have the heatsink in my computer because of a review here on HardOCP.

Every review for any video card I watch or read will now be tainted with the question, did Nvidia tell them to emphasize or deemphasize this particular feature? That was the problem with the email. The three other major You(Tech)tubers who do reviews who commented on this understand that as well. That's why Linus, Steve, and Jay were pissed off about it. They know what the potential taint is to all reviews in the future.
 
GoodBoy said:
Yeah, all of the Youtuber outrage has played great for those channels.
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What's new, drama sells. Yes, those channels knew they would get views from those videos, but consider the alternative. If any of the major players decided they weren't going to take a stand for editorial integrity, they would have been accused of being shills. And, in my opinion, rightfully so. You call out bad behavior, and Nvidia getting mad because they aren't getting the kind of coverage they want (even though HWU had an entire video dedicated to ray tracing performance) is ridiculous. When I do upgrade to an RTX card, I'm more than likely not going to use ray tracing; I just don't have any desire to tank frame rates for an extra bit of flash. Maybe in 3-4 generations when the performance penalty isn't so great I'll flip it on, but we are still in the early days. As someone that feels they're in the mid-range of PC gamers, I think it's reasonable that my POV is fairly close to the majority of the market. On newer games, I can't afford to keep something like RTX on. my framerates will be much too low.

GoodBoy said:
You are completely correct that the early access is the "pay" so to speak. Even if reviewers paid for the parts, they would still want the current arrangement of getting them early. There's no easy answer. Nvidia has complete control over who gets what and when. It's their product, and them sending samples is 100% in their interest to get the (basically) free viral marketing that the reviews provide. It's also 100% in their control (as the situation points out). Don't think for a second that they wouldn't be paying at least a modicum of attention to what has happened with the 100 or so "free" cards that got shipped out to the popular enough channels... I mean, it does have some cost, probably $50k spent in that way easy, probably more. (That probably isn't much to a billion dollar company)
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The cost to the company is likely nowhere near that. While you are paying to educate the reviewers and create press materials, the cost of sending a card to a reviewer is a fraction of the retail cost. When you and I buy a card, we pay for R&D. When they send one out for review, they're only eating the parts cost. So maybe $100 per card sent. Meanwhile, people like me that are using YouTube subscriptions to inform them of new releases are going to see those videos, get some conclusions drawn, then maybe go do more research to find out of the purchase is worthwhile.

In other words, the ROI is well worth the 10-20k it takes to launch a high-end, high-margin card.

If you want the kind of marketing where you control the message, don't seed cards to reviewers, make a commercial. When you seed a card, you're accepting the outcome, good or bad. Now if the reviewer is making unfair comparisons or outright lying, that's a different story. If Hardware Unboxed said the RTX cards performed worse than a Vega 56 while comparing the 56 on low settings and the 3080 on ultra, that's completely disingenuous, and I can understand pulling their access. But because they're focusing on a different performance metric?

GoodBoy said:
If you accept free equipment from a vendor, there are probably going to be strings of some sort attached.
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Yes, that you make a fair review in a timely fashion, otherwise what you're asking for is an unpaid advertisement agency.

If you want more editorial control than that, again, produce a commercial, or try to work out an ad spot with the site/channel.

The one exception I have to that is if you're given special access to confidential tools or information, in which case it is upon the reviewer to disclose that they tested the card under special conditions.

I work in IT and we've accepted free equipment from vendors before (most prominently, Meraki where almost every person in the department had enough equipment to start a small Meraki network). We then proceeded to buy competing products because that product line didn't suit our need. We didn't give two shits that the product was free because we aren't going to stake our livelihood on a couple grand worth of equipment.

GoodBoy said:
The reviewers are just as guilty as the companies for creating the situation. I believe it started out innocently enough. Nice sales rep or other company employee with a few parts gives them out to pc fan websites, its beneficial for both parties.. but where did it lead? Over and over, websites basically turning into shills, integrity hard to come by, and the company wanting more control over those review websites' "product".
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While yes, there are sites that tend to lean one way or the other, I find it far more common that the larger the site, the less likely that is to be. The community is hyper-sensitive to things like that. How many times has [H] been accused of being an Intel shill? No wait, an AMD shill? Sorry, had it wrong that time, Nvidia is paying Kyle off.

Meanwhile, Kyle himself has written critical pieces about all three (Intel resting on their laurels, AMD's driver situation, Nvidia with GPP, wood screws, Fermi heat).
GoodBoy said:
And the other side: Youtubers expecting free product sort of boggles my mind... it's basically just as bad as an Instagram "Influencer" expecting a free hotel stay for some Instagram "coverage"... yet here we are. With the former causing outrage at the company, and the latter causing "are you fucking serious" and laughing and derision at the "influencer"...
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When you go to work, are you getting free money? No, you're given a paycheck with the expectation of doing work.

Nvidia gives reviewers a card with the expectation of a review. That's not free stuff, that's a business transaction. A good review site is also going to view the situation that way which is why most aren't really affected editorially by having cards seeded. You might give a warmer review for your first couple cards, but once receiving hardware becomes normal, it's just another day in the office, and you'll need to do your job.

Larger sites make enough money that buying a card out of pocket isn't an issue, and they have the influence that the community would locate and ship them one if supply is scarce. To bring [H] back into the picture, do you really think it would have been an issue if Kyle posted asking for someone to sell him/let him borrow a 3090?
 
GoodBoy said:
Yeah, all of the Youtuber outrage has played great for those channels.

You are completely correct that the early access is the "pay" so to speak. Even if reviewers paid for the parts, they would still want the current arrangement of getting them early. There's no easy answer. Nvidia has complete control over who gets what and when. It's their product, and them sending samples is 100% in their interest to get the (basically) free viral marketing that the reviews provide. It's also 100% in their control (as the situation points out). Don't think for a second that they wouldn't be paying at least a modicum of attention to what has happened with the 100 or so "free" cards that got shipped out to the popular enough channels... I mean, it does have some cost, probably $50k spent in that way easy, probably more. (That probably isn't much to a billion dollar company)

If you accept free equipment from a vendor, there are probably going to be strings of some sort attached. As a reviewer if you just must have that day 1 review, then its just part of the game. I don't really see a way around it, other than consumers being happy with day4 reviews and not launch day reviews, where the "reviewers" pay for the shit with their own dime, buy at retail, so there are no strings. I think Retail samples are better to use in reviews anyway, company shipped parts could be cherry-picked.

The reviewers are just as guilty as the companies for creating the situation. I believe it started out innocently enough. Nice sales rep or other company employee with a few parts gives them out to pc fan websites, its beneficial for both parties.. but where did it lead? Over and over, websites basically turning into shills, integrity hard to come by, and the company wanting more control over those review websites' "product".

And the other side: Youtubers expecting free product sort of boggles my mind... it's basically just as bad as an Instagram "Influencer" expecting a free hotel stay for some Instagram "coverage"... yet here we are. With the former causing outrage at the company, and the latter causing "are you fucking serious" and laughing and derision at the "influencer"...
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Many many hardware manufactures supply product to reviewers with the only string being attached being.... please review this. Some of the better ones don't even require that... hoping that the people they furnish a product too will. (most of course ask for a review). So far THE ONLY company that is KNOWN to attach strings is Nvidia. AMD is not known to attach strings, Intel is not known to attach strings.... 100s of interface / game controller companies ect ect are known to not attach strings. Yes there are some hinky reviews out there for things like graphic tablets... but that comes down to some shady Chinese manufactures (or the PR firms they hire anyway).

Nvidia is known to do this... frankly if you trust a Nvidia review from basically anyone part of any early driver/hardware access program from them your stupid at this point. The number of Nvidia reviews I actually trust 100% can be counted on one hand.... and I could find 3-4 more good reviewers and still say the same. Nvidia is slime. Every Nvidia card I have ever owned has been disappointing in one way or another. I have played on Nvidia tons as good friends and familiy members have been sucked into the Nvidia marketing spin.... I have found damn near every NV card I have every used or played anything on to be not quite reflected in the reviews I have read. (with some obvious exceptions... but I haven't read a good [H] review in a long time clearly) Last cycle I went with a 5700 XT and am supper happy best card I have ever owned hands down... if I was buying today I would go AMD again, and when I replace the 5700 XT next year (or the one after depending on how the games I choose to play push my hardware) I have little doubt I'll be going AMD again, unless Intel pulls off a miricle. I can tell you for sure even if Nvidia has some super card next year that every review site and youtuber in the world says is the second coming.... no thanks, and also Sorry don't believe you... I'm sure it will be the same BS DLSS is the bestest ever marketing crap I have already seen too many times. (serious DLSS is complete trash anyone saying different outs themselves as paid marketing)
 
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GoodBoy said:
And the other side: Youtubers expecting free product sort of boggles my mind... it's basically just as bad as an Instagram "Influencer" expecting a free hotel stay for some Instagram "coverage"... yet here we are. With the former causing outrage at the company, and the latter causing "are you fucking serious" and laughing and derision at the "influencer"...
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Why does it boggle the mind? It's just a different version of the same shit that has happening forever. You don't think movie companies allowing reviewers to go see movies in theater for free whether they had a TV show doing the reviews, or wrote in a local paper, or anything had any sort of similarity? Companies want publicity, and the cost of sending out a free product often is MUCH cheaper than actually paying for ads in papers/tv... hell even in the internet as far as publicity goes.

And lets be fair here, everyone with a Youtube channel is not getting free shit, some dude with 584 subscribers and 230 views ain't getting a printed flyer on a product for free much less a video card. The difference between these youtube channels and instagram "influencers" though are the youtube channels generally have a focus on something whether it's food, hardware (from computers to power tools to aquarium equipment), where as Instagrammers are like "look me me I'm popular I want free shit for everything I do" and the focus on that person isn't because they like hotels.
 
Both sides are right.

1. Nvidia sending reviewer stuff is a privilege, a privilege that can be taken away.
2. Reviewers should be able to talk about a product in the way they feel is important. It's a review, not a sponsored ad.

But when things go south, at the end of the day, it's still a privilege to do hardware reviews for free.
Buy the item yourself then it's your right to talk about it as you wish.

When Kyle was here, they started to buy their hardware so they say what they want. Until reviews do that, continue to be policed by Nvidia.
 
WorldExclusive said:
But when things go south, at the end of the day, it's still a privilege to do hardware reviews for free.
Buy the item yourself then it's your right to talk about it as you wish.
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Except that it's not doing reviews "for free", sure the product they get to review is free, but it takes equipment, man hours, etc to do it all, it costs money to review products like the popular ones do. And sure these reviewers most likely make more money than it costs them which is why you see a world of difference between reviews of LTT, Jay, Hardware Unboxed, etc, and JimBobs Puter Review with 320 subscribers and climbing!

The true value though is not in the free hardware, it is getting the hardware before it is released to the public. See how much bitching and moaning there is with companies who put review embargos on products that coincide with release day? Yeah it's kind of like that. Sure they could buy their own stuff, and someone like Jay2Cents probably knows enough people at Microcenter to "skip the line" and buy a card too, but at the end of the day we want these independent reviewers, they're on OUR side, they're the ones who post information out there involving the hardware in question so that the rest of us aren't stuck on the nerdgasm unlabeled charts and other promo stuff Nvidia and AMD puts out there. We shouldn't be attacking them for getting "free shit" and that they should be "grateful for getting it". Be upset at the message, not the messenger, be pissed at Nvidia for throwing it's weight into a reviewer, don't assume all other reviewers goosestep in line with Nvidia because they want free shit.
 
GoodBoy said:
Yeah, all of the Youtuber outrage has played great for those channels.

You are completely correct that the early access is the "pay" so to speak. Even if reviewers paid for the parts, they would still want the current arrangement of getting them early. There's no easy answer. Nvidia has complete control over who gets what and when. It's their product, and them sending samples is 100% in their interest to get the (basically) free viral marketing that the reviews provide. It's also 100% in their control (as the situation points out). Don't think for a second that they wouldn't be paying at least a modicum of attention to what has happened with the 100 or so "free" cards that got shipped out to the popular enough channels... I mean, it does have some cost, probably $50k spent in that way easy, probably more. (That probably isn't much to a billion dollar company)

If you accept free equipment from a vendor, there are probably going to be strings of some sort attached. As a reviewer if you just must have that day 1 review, then its just part of the game. I don't really see a way around it, other than consumers being happy with day4 reviews and not launch day reviews, where the "reviewers" pay for the shit with their own dime, buy at retail, so there are no strings. I think Retail samples are better to use in reviews anyway, company shipped parts could be cherry-picked.

The reviewers are just as guilty as the companies for creating the situation. I believe it started out innocently enough. Nice sales rep or other company employee with a few parts gives them out to pc fan websites, its beneficial for both parties.. but where did it lead? Over and over, websites basically turning into shills, integrity hard to come by, and the company wanting more control over those review websites' "product".

And the other side: Youtubers expecting free product sort of boggles my mind... it's basically just as bad as an Instagram "Influencer" expecting a free hotel stay for some Instagram "coverage"... yet here we are. With the former causing outrage at the company, and the latter causing "are you fucking serious" and laughing and derision at the "influencer"...
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The fact that you're taking full YouTube channels that clearly require several people and lots of time, effort, and money to produce content for gamers...and comparing them to Instagram thots e-begging for free shit shows how out to lunch you are.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Except that it's not doing reviews "for free", sure the product they get to review is free, but it takes equipment, man hours, etc to do it all, it costs money to review products like the popular ones do. And sure these reviewers most likely make more money than it costs them which is why you see a world of difference between reviews of LTT, Jay, Hardware Unboxed, etc, and JimBobs Puter Review with 320 subscribers and climbing!

The true value though is not in the free hardware, it is getting the hardware before it is released to the public. See how much bitching and moaning there is with companies who put review embargos on products that coincide with release day? Yeah it's kind of like that. Sure they could buy their own stuff, and someone like Jay2Cents probably knows enough people at Microcenter to "skip the line" and buy a card too, but at the end of the day we want these independent reviewers, they're on OUR side, they're the ones who post information out there involving the hardware in question so that the rest of us aren't stuck on the nerdgasm unlabeled charts and other promo stuff Nvidia and AMD puts out there. We shouldn't be attacking them for getting "free shit" and that they should be "grateful for getting it". Be upset at the message, not the messenger, be pissed at Nvidia for throwing it's weight into a reviewer, don't assume all other reviewers goosestep in line with Nvidia because they want free shit.
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Nvidia doesn't need Youtube reviewers. They don't. The channels need company products to be relevant, not the other way around. If Unbox Therapy has nothing to Unbox, his ability to get attention will decrease. When I got into PC building, I came here, Anandtech and Overclock.net. None of them had YT review channels.

GPU write ups give better information on GPU performance. Videos are for entertainment. Most Youtubers can't do a written review to save their life.
YT channels are personalities that get attention so Nvidia gives them cards, but video cards were selling out way before YT influencers. It's about attention, flooding YT with review samples makes people want to buy.

You can't ask for honest reviews when the person is getting it for free. All influencers try to convince their audience their opinions are not influenced but they all make sure not to violate the terms of their agreements. Everything on YT is for views and attention, not for truth. Fake outrage always get the view numbers high, JayTwoCents is go for that, outrage video but continues to review Nvidia cards...because he needs them for his channel and he too signed the contract.
 
sc5mu93 said:
Bummer, but I get it. I mean with the FTC going at nvidia (re:arm) for anti-competitive behavior...

Let's hope FTC has a longer memory than gamers..
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One would hope that its anticompetitive behavior that I am 100% sure that the FTC is aware of in the past should come into consideration going forward.
 
GoodBoy said:
And the other side: Youtubers expecting free product sort of boggles my mind
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This is hardly a new thing. I knew a guy who would get free software all the time by saying he was press and would give the company a review in exchange for a free copy.
 
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