nVidia blocks Hardware Unboxed due to rasterization focus. Update: nVidia retracts.

[BFG10K]

Full letter

Spoiler

LTT coverage

My thoughts

I think this is wrong and to be completely fair, I called out this behavior when AMD played similar shenanigans with TPU and Tech Report.

As for the "gamers" comment above, as of right now I don't give a crap about ray tracing, and even less of a crap about DLSS. I own a 2060 Super and never use any of those features by choice, for various reasons. Perhaps in 3-5 years with 2-3 new generations of cards, my opinion might change.

Rasterization is by far the most important feature for me, and I'm not a minority by any stretch of the imagination:

Spoiler

Update: nVidia now retracted

https://twitter.com/x/status/1337885741389471745

I'm not surprised they retracted but I expected it to take longer along with a "it was an internal draft that was never supposed to be released", or similar.

 

[Shamrock]

Bryan reached out to HUB again. It's in the community tab on their YT.

Hi Steve - Thanks for your note. I just wanted to say again how sorry I am for my original email. I overstepped my bounds and it’s as simple as that. I love seeing all the ways reviewers test and report on our products and I value your contributions. Suggesting that I would withhold samples because I didn’t agree with your commentary is simply inexcusable and crossed the line. I failed myself, my colleagues, and the amazing community of reviewers I consider my friends. You all work so hard in service of the gaming industry we love – you deserved better from me. I hope you will forgive my mistake and give me the opportunity to be of service to you in the future. It would be great if you can share this with your fans so they know how I feel. Thanks, BDR

 

[uzzi38]

Bryan reached out to HUB again. It's in the community tab on their YT.

Sounds a lot like they're not taking the PR hit well. Overall feedback after the first e-mail was that people don't believe them, and Nvidia clearly don't want that. That's... Actually kind of surprising?

 

[sandorski]

Maybe Dude just had a little too much 2020 Drinking.

 

[AtenRa]

No, a moderator here, joined a focus group. That doesn't make him a shill.

I would bet the majority of people on forums would accept free hardware in exchange for providing feedback.

Doing so doesn't make someone a shill.

Practically all reviewers outside of Consumer Reports, accept company freebies in one form or another.

That doesn't mean all reviewers are shills.

Keysplayer was not a shill, but he was a member of the NVIDIA focus group and that made him biased towards anything NVIDIA. Every member of the NVIDIA Focus Group would loose their privilege's if they wouldnt promote and be pro NVIDIA.
It is another thing to be a reviewer with a tech site/forum or youtube channel and receive hardware from all hardware companies and another thing for a forum member/admin to receive free hardware from single company in order to promote their products.

A shill, also called a plant or a stooge, is a person who publicly helps or gives credibility to a person or organization without disclosing that they have a close relationship with the person or organization.

Rollo on the other hand was a shill because he concealed the fact he had direct ties with NVIDIA and a hidden agenda to FUD AMD.

 

[Stuka87]

Sounds a lot like they're not taking the PR hit well. Overall feedback after the first e-mail was that people don't believe them, and Nvidia clearly don't want that. That's... Actually kind of surprising?

I would say the majority of people were very unhappy about it, but many say they will still only buy nVidia. This is what I have gathered in YouTube comments and forum posts anyway. Hardly scientific. Of course fanboys would outright refuse any bad news from the company that they seemingly worship, but these people are in the minority.

I am actually half surprised AMD didn't try to make some sort of PR move around all of this. It could have easily backfired on them, but could have also been good for them if they played it right. But not sure AMD's GPU PR team could pull it off.

 

[Hail The Brain Slug]

I would say the majority of people were very unhappy about it, but many say they will still only buy nVidia. This is what I have gathered in YouTube comments and forum posts anyway. Hardly scientific. Of course fanboys would outright refuse any bad news from the company that they seemingly worship, but these people are in the minority.

I am actually half surprised AMD didn't try to make some sort of PR move around all of this. It could have easily backfired on them, but could have also been good for them if they played it right. But not sure AMD's GPU PR team could pull it off.

I think no matter what they did it would have been easy to see it was some kind of opportunistic marketing.

They made the right choice to say and do nothing.

 

[Mopetar]

Bryan reached out to HUB again. It's in the community tab on their YT.

That almost reads like a completely different person wrote it. The HUB video on the whole thing seemed to echo that sentiment where Steve assumed that the first letter was something put together by some underling that just got signed off on by Bryan who probably should have read it a little closer, but may be used to trusting his team not to do something like this in the first place.

You'd have to think there's going to be an opening in that team soon because whoever was ultimately responsible for this PR disaster has to know where some bodies are buried if they want to stick around.

 

[Steltek]

Sounds a lot like they're not taking the PR hit well. Overall feedback after the first e-mail was that people don't believe them, and Nvidia clearly don't want that. That's... Actually kind of surprising?

I can guarantee you that the only thing Nvidia learned from this debacle is that they should do their corporate bullying via phone calls instead of email -- just so there is no way anybody can prove it actually happened.

Big corporations are gonna do what big corporations do. Remember Google and "Don't be evil"? Yeah, that worked out really well....

 

[ozzy702]

That almost reads like a completely different person wrote it. The HUB video on the whole thing seemed to echo that sentiment where Steve assumed that the first letter was something put together by some underling that just got signed off on by Bryan who probably should have read it a little closer, but may be used to trusting his team not to do something like this in the first place.

You'd have to think there's going to be an opening in that team soon because whoever was ultimately responsible for this PR disaster has to know where some bodies are buried if they want to stick around.

Yeah, there's no way you get to where Bryan is and sign off on an email like that going out. I doubt he was even aware of it but he's falling on the sword to do damage control. All the reviewers said this is 100% out of character for him and that he was always great to work with. I bet some overzealous underling that hated Steve just sent it out without Bryan even knowing. In my organization secretaries have access to the director's email and send things out all the time without their knowledge to coordinate meetings and respond to low level stuff. I bet the same happened here.

 

[Iron Woode]

Falling on your sword is never pretty.

Glad Bryan did the right thing.

 

[Mopetar]

It would be far worse from a PR perspective to admit that anyone else wrote it and sent it out with no or minimal oversight from Bryan. That's the kind of thing that's going to get investors asking questions

 

[ozzy702]

It would be far worse from a PR perspective to admit that anyone else wrote it and sent it out with no or minimal oversight from Bryan. That's the kind of thing that's going to get investors asking questions

Yep, which is why Bryan is just owning it. It still sucks and is a huge black eye, but admitting that he wasn't aware of it would mean immediate termination in a case this big.

 

[DJinPrime]

It would be far worse from a PR perspective to admit that anyone else wrote it and sent it out with no or minimal oversight from Bryan. That's the kind of thing that's going to get investors asking questions

This was why I previously said that Steve should have try to clarify with BDR first instead of posting it in public. You owe it to your colleague to try to fix things before doing something that could be embarrassing or damaging to that person's career. And I'm not talking about just getting the ban lifted, it's an opportunity to make NV see that their policy (if it was even a policy and not just some guy being a dick with hwub) was wrong and change it. I done that many times where a manager or peer said/email something wrong, I would do a side chat to have them fix their mistake and not me telling them they're wrong in front of everyone. That's why I found Steve's response disappointing, especially with his explain video where it was clear that he/Linus didn't think it was in character of the PR head. Yet they released the internet on him.
Be nicer to your fellow man. Not everything should be treated like a forum flame war

 

[kawi6rr]

I've read quite a few pages of posts and noticed the same few Nvidia "holdouts", can't use the term "fanboy", actually defending Nvidia's actions. I hope you're getting kick backs from Nvidia because blindly defending a tech company for no money is just utterly stupid.

 

[Hail The Brain Slug]

This was why I previously said that Steve should have try to clarify with BDR first instead of posting it in public. You owe it to your colleague to try to fix things before doing something that could be embarrassing or damaging to that person's career. And I'm not talking about just getting the ban lifted, it's an opportunity to make NV see that their policy (if it was even a policy and not just some guy being a dick with hwub) was wrong and change it. I done that many times where a manager or peer said/email something wrong, I would do a side chat to have them fix their mistake and not me telling them they're wrong in front of everyone. That's why I found Steve's response disappointing, especially with his explain video where it was clear that he/Linus didn't think it was in character of the PR head. Yet they released the internet on him.
Be nicer to your fellow man. Not everything should be treated like a forum flame war

You apparently didn't watch his video where he explained the series of events.



They were skipped over for 3060ti FE samples with no word from nvidia.

He emailed them to inquire.

Days later, he emailed them to inquire a second time.

Days later, he emailed them to inquire a third time.

They replied to let him know they would look into it.

Then this email was sent to him.



It wasn't a drunk email out of the blue. It wasn't an isolated situation. There was premeditation leading up to it with skipping his review samples and then ghosting him. The amount of time it took for this reply to be sent to him after his persistent inquiries indicates it wasn't off-the-cuff, either.

 

[ozzy702]

This was why I previously said that Steve should have try to clarify with BDR first instead of posting it in public. You owe it to your colleague to try to fix things before doing something that could be embarrassing or damaging to that person's career. And I'm not talking about just getting the ban lifted, it's an opportunity to make NV see that their policy (if it was even a policy and not just some guy being a dick with hwub) was wrong and change it. I done that many times where a manager or peer said/email something wrong, I would do a side chat to have them fix their mistake and not me telling them they're wrong in front of everyone. That's why I found Steve's response disappointing, especially with his explain video where it was clear that he/Linus didn't think it was in character of the PR head. Yet they released the internet on him.
Be nicer to your fellow man. Not everything should be treated like a forum flame war

I see that, but also see NVIDIA's extremely poor track record and the need for them to be put in check. Yes, it sucks for Bryan, but he should be running a tighter ship, and if there are bad actors on his teem, he should have done his job and removed them before they pulled something like this. In this case, I feel that sweeping it under the rug, while much nicer for Bryan, wouldn't change behavior and wouldn't nudge them in the right direction. This is a large enough PR nightmare that heads should roll and pain needs to be felt.

 

[dr1337]

This was why I previously said that Steve should have try to clarify with BDR first instead of posting it in public. You owe it to your colleague to try to fix things before doing something that could be embarrassing or damaging to that person's career. And I'm not talking about just getting the ban lifted, it's an opportunity to make NV see that their policy (if it was even a policy and not just some guy being a dick with hwub) was wrong and change it. I done that many times where a manager or peer said/email something wrong, I would do a side chat to have them fix their mistake and not me telling them they're wrong in front of everyone. That's why I found Steve's response disappointing, especially with his explain video where it was clear that he/Linus didn't think it was in character of the PR head. Yet they released the internet on him.
Be nicer to your fellow man. Not everything should be treated like a forum flame war

I completely disagree and pretty much for the same reasons you argued. BDR should have a grip on what emails he's letting his PR team send out; A sudden outright ban because of "editorial direction" without any sort or prior discussion also isn't very nice to your fellow man

 

[gdansk]

In the future, no company will explain why they aren't giving out review samples. I'm actually amazed Nvidia did, it shows they thought they could get compliance (presumably from past experience?)

 

[MrTeal]

In the future, no company will explain why they aren't giving out review samples. I'm actually amazed Nvidia did, it shows they thought they could get compliance (presumably from past experience?)

Because the point wasn't to stop giving FE samples to a large review channel because you don't like the way they cover you. The point was to make it abundantly clear to that site that their editorial direction needs to change if they want to continue to be able to provide day 1 reviews of nVidia products which is something that probably makes up a decent part of their revenue stream.

 

[Hail The Brain Slug]

Because the point wasn't to stop giving FE samples to a large review channel because you don't like the way they cover you. The point was to make it abundantly clear to that site that their editorial direction needs to change if they want to continue to be able to provide day 1 reviews of nVidia products which is something that probably makes up a decent part of their revenue stream.

I agree.

The added layer of hilarity is the objective proof that Hardware Unboxed did indeed cover and positively review the very features nvidia claimed they didn't.

 

[EXCellR8]

We didn't already know that NVIDIA was evil? I feel like they're entire business revolves around child labor and burning whale oil to keep the lights on...

Props to Linus for giving us AT'ers a quick shout tho out haha

 

[Hail The Brain Slug]

We didn't already know that NVIDIA was evil? I feel like they're entire business revolves around child labor and burning whale oil to keep the lights on...

Props to Linus for giving us AT'ers a quick shout tho out haha

I must have missed it. Was it in the WAN show episode?

 

[Mopetar]

I see that, but also see NVIDIA's extremely poor track record and the need for them to be put in check. Yes, it sucks for Bryan, but he should be running a tighter ship, and if there are bad actors on his teem, he should have done his job and removed them before they pulled something like this. In this case, I feel that sweeping it under the rug, while much nicer for Bryan, wouldn't change behavior and wouldn't nudge them in the right direction. This is a large enough PR nightmare that heads should roll and pain needs to be felt.

I wouldn't be surprised if some people are fired over this, but don't expect some kind of big announcement. Better to keep it quiet and let everyone move on instead of picking at scabs.

Just because he's falling on the sword in public doesn't mean no one else is getting the axe in private. Things are going to certainly change so something like this doesn't happen again.

 

[EXCellR8]

I must have missed it. Was it in the WAN show episode?

yea, like 13 min or so in

 

[MrTeal]

yea, like 13 min or so in

Wait, Anandtech does GPU reviews?