How nVidia blacklists review sites: example Hardware Secrets

[MagickMan]

The guy at HS is editor in chief at Clube do Hardware, its at 5,324 world rank

Damn, NV didn't just shoot themselves in the foot, they went ahead and blew that motherf*cker right off.

 

[thilanliyan]

For example, reporting Ati cypress series without mentioning Dx11 support, stream, and eyefinity, or reporting Nvidia Fermi series without cuda, physX and 3D vision. It really isn't a surprise. What surprises me though is this particular site that got black listed don't have a clue of why and believe it isn't for a legit reason.

Did all 58XX series reviews on launch day have Eyefinity or Stream benchmarks/impressions? I don't think so (usually the most they did was mention it...not actually benchmark it). The reviewer at HS is right...PhysX and Cuda (like Eyefinity and Stream) are not important for most. Most people I'm guessing wouldn't be peeved at a particular site for not including it in their review. By blacklisting sites nV is just ensuring there is less exposure for their products...but what do I know?...I'm not in marketing.

 

[PingviN]

They should blacklist all of them. The gtx 465 reviews were just horrible. No one was getting results comparable to another site. Simply nothing to compare it to.

Could be because chip quality differs. I mean, those are still chipsets that were not up to GTX470 standards. Current leakage could play part in this.

 

[BFG10K]

Wow are you saying that the ABT review upset nVidia? If so, Nvidia is nuts! I thought that it was the most positive review of the gtx465 I've read at any site so far!

It wasn’t the GTX465 review, it was my two GTX470 reviews.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Or nVidia was unaware of the process....

What are you not understanding? Nvidia paid a third party to post on forums and push their products, but they did not label themselves and compensated by Nvidia.

It's like if AMD sent me hardware or paid me (either directly or through a different company) to just tell people how great AMD's parts are compared to the competition. I may not give someone an accurate assessment/good advice when they have a question, my opinion is bought.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Wow are you saying that the ABT review upset nVidia? If so, Nvidia is nuts! I thought that it was the most positive review of the gtx465 I've read at any site so far! In fact it went out of it's way to even run a PhysX benchmark! It portrayed the card in a positive light and really talked about how well it overclocked and scaled!

I really like ABT because they always seem to hit things from a little different perspective...they portrayed the gtx465 in a more positive light than other sites did...heh

I guess they are trying to get back in Nvidia's good graces.

By the way BFG10K, I like the CMHD.tv advertisement you guys have.

 

[nemesismk2]

your point? Nvidia payed a viral marketing firm and they got viral marketing.

Sort of like the Nvidia Focus Group? lol

 

[Idontcare]

What are you not understanding? Nvidia paid a third party to post on forums and push their products, but they did not label themselves and compensated by Nvidia.

It's like if AMD sent me hardware or paid me (either directly or through a different company) to just tell people how great AMD's parts are compared to the competition. I may not give someone an accurate assessment/good advice when they have a question, my opinion is bought.

What if AMD decided to make a price-cut, making the product all the cheaper for you to acquire (but at an expense of lowering revenue for AMD)...is your opinion regarding the value of the deal then become a purchased opinion as well?

How far along the money-trail are you willing to interrogate before resigning yourself to concluding your opinion of a product was not influenced or manipulated by way of marketing expense to some degree?

And if you can't be 100% positive that your opinion is not influenced then at what point do you decide to voluntarily withhold your opinion simply to reduce the likelihood of your unwittingly being played the pawn at the hands of the latest devilishly fiendish marketing scheme?

I'm not aware of any active manipulation of my opinion regarding video card products, but I'm not about to claim that I am unbiased as I can never be sure.

A great many years ago I decided I would buy an Nvidia graphics card (based on what I presumed to be impartial review data) but when it came to the brand I selected XFX literally for no other reason than that I thought there logo looked cool. In that case XFX marketing definitely biased my decision.

And then because the card never gave me any problems when family/friends asked for gpu recommend all I could say was that based on my experience XFX seemed like a good brand.

Just saying it seems like folks in this forum really really want this to be a black-and-white issue where we self-righteously vilify the faceless/nameless "enemy" that is marketing but I personally only see shades of gray on this topic and wonder just how many posters here don't realize they live in glass houses because sometimes marketing is just that good.

 

[Creig]

What if AMD decided to make a price-cut, making the product all the cheaper for you to acquire (but at an expense of lowering revenue for AMD)...is your opinion regarding the value of the deal then become a purchased opinion as well?

How far along the money-trail are you willing to interrogate before resigning yourself to concluding your opinion of a product was not influenced or manipulated by way of marketing expense to some degree?

There's a big difference between marketing and viral marketing. AEG, which Nvidia hired, was a viral marketer.

 

[sandorski]

Marketing: Dress a guy up in a King Suit and put him into "humorous" situations to Sell Burgers

Viral Marketing: Have someone go into the Competitions restaurant and have them explain loudly how they got Cancer from eating there.

 

[SlowSpyder]

< snip >

I think there is a difference. AMD or Nvidia having commercials, ads, having users who identify themselves and compensated by AMD or Nvidia post in forums is different than what I was referring to.

Let's say I'm a noob and asking a question about which video card to buy. If I were to see a post by a user who is compensated by AMD (and identifies himself as such) I would know to take that information with a grain of salt as his post is very likely to be pro-AMD because that person is more or less employed by AMD. But what do the enthusiasts, those who are knowledgeable and impartial on the subject, really think about the question I'm asking? What is really the best advice for what I'm asking?

I see what you are saying, that marketing may sway our opinions and therefore the content of our posts. But I think there is a big difference between suggesting a 5850 to someone because AMD lowers the price to say $199 and the viral marketing Nvidia took part in.

 

[Seero]

Did all 58XX series reviews on launch day have Eyefinity or Stream benchmarks/impressions? I don't think so (usually the most they did was mention it...not actually benchmark it). The reviewer at HS is right...PhysX and Cuda (like Eyefinity and Stream) are not important for most. Most people I'm guessing wouldn't be peeved at a particular site for not including it in their review. By blacklisting sites nV is just ensuring there is less exposure for their products...but what do I know?...I'm not in marketing.

Whether or not it is important should not depend on the reviewer, but the viewers themselves. Fail to report all aspects in a review is a fail. Remember those review exercises? They are suppose to cover everything in the book. Are they any good if it doesn't? For example, I say make a review on 5870 with just one line like:

Wow 5870 rocks, it does everything and beat Any Nvidia stuffs to dust!

So now am I automatically qualified to receive any new ATI products for free before release date?

No, it is simply incomplete and lack of data supporting what I stated. In HS review on MSI N260 GTX they focus on their AirForce Panel only, nothing else, probably because HS believes that other things are not worth mentioning. This is extremely unfair to MSI as most of the product are not reviewed. Yet there the conclusion doesn't conclude on what was reviewed. In other words, HS wanted to say that MSI N260 GTX is just another 260 GTX with a fancy panel. While this does not hurt Nvidia as the review more or less tells its readers to simply get a referenced card instead, it does hurt MSI.

In reality, it is always difficult. Writing in favor to the product will get you free stuffs easily so you can generate reviews before others, yet viewers don't like bias reviews. Writing in against the produce will get you lots of hits from people who don't like the product, in other words, you are writing what those like to hear. However, that doesn't mean the reviewer is telling the truth, or reviewing honestly. Deliberately skipping features from a product isn't call honest, but bias.

Although the scope simply stated what is different about MSI N260GTX compare to the reference card, which is fine, but the conclusion stated that there are drawbacks about games yet the the test on such field is missing completely. Is this fair to MSI on such claims? This fault by itself should not be the reason of getting black listed. What is the cause is whether the e-mail reply from HS to Nvidia. Basically HS thinks that they are right and refuse to change, correct or update their articles. In short, the communication was stopped by HS, not Nvidia.

I replied saying that we weren&#8217;t going to talk about these subjects because we thought they were not relevant to the average user, and we usually don&#8217;t re-write reviews.

The above statement is far more serious than not reporting CUDA and physX. It is simply a challenge to Nvidia, one that went too far...

After the fact, HS tries to blame Nvidia's PR. Deceiving their readers from Nvidia's recommendations to laws that reviewers must follow, and doesn't even hinted their own fault on their so called reviews.

Nvidia has a long checklist of what you should and should not write about. When they send you a new card, they give you a reviewers guide that basically shows what you should test, what benchmarks you should use, and what OSes and drivers are recommended. If you stray too far from those recommendations, or worse yet, don't say that PhysX or CUDA is the greatest thing on earth, you are on dangerous ground.

If you have the gall to say that a card is not absolutely and unquestionably better in every way than the competition, goodbye. Of course they will spin it to any site that questions Nvidia about blacklisting as the person being "unworkable" or funded by ATI/Intel, but the truth is that if anyone is honest, it makes it very hard for them to spin their own curious version of the truth. That makes Dear Leader sad, so it must be torpedoed.

How much truth are in the above paragraph? If it is indeed not true than does HS deserve a ban? Seriously, if you are going to bad mouth someone, or something, then you better cover your ass before hand with something like statistics and facts. They didn't got banned because of honesty, but arrogant and bias.

Lets bring Anandtech on the table and see the differences. Many know Anandtech because of their reviews on SSD. The JMicron event was what brought up the heat. It is clearly a bad mouthing, but with procedures to reproduce and data as support. They criticizes OCZ SSD badly, and OCZ can do nothing but to send new drives for future reviews. Why? because there are truth in the criticism. Once the voice gets out, others will repeat. Soon the voices will get so loud that it can't be ignored, which is the true power of medias. HS got big, but it doesn't mean that everything they said and done are correct. Read those link from OP carefully, then ask yourself, if your company makes video card based upon Nvidia's or ATi's reference card, will you want to free a simple before release date to HS after that review?

At any rate, black listing reviewers don't stop them from saying what they want to say. In fact, HS is still saying whatever they wanted to, but they no longer have the advantage to get the first hand news without working for it. No more free simple, no more free passes, that is all.

 

[SirPauly]

uh, no. In fact rollo had people banned for accusing him of being a stealth marketer. No he flew under the radar for a long time.

Rollo ( Brian) has always been pro-nVidia; as far back as the 3dfx days and using the alias Fred Sanford. His style never changed and has been consistent over the years.

Never had a single problem with him because I would debate points instead of attacking and personal shots when I gamed on ATI and 3dfx hardware. The key to forums is engaging and debating without the emotions of defending and blaming, which create off-topics and personal attacks.

Offered to Brian to try to be more diplomatic but he couldn't change being him.

 

[Edgy]

Two points from some personal experience:

I cannot speak for ATi in the pre-AMD era but I tend to place AMD on the better light in terms of "ethical" business practices even if the standards based on which to measure a company in this case is probably limited to 1, me. They are fairly up-front and composed mostly of hard-working people trying their best from my personal experience through contacts with them at my work.

They do, however, tend to annoy with their constant mantra of "partnership" which basically translates to "we don't have (most of the time) or want to spend the money so we'll open up for partners to do it" attitude. This can also be understandable since AMD is primarily a finance-driven company instead of sales/marketing.

Through AMD buying ATi, I believe that similar corporate business practices are inherited by ATi.

Secondly - Marketing has nothing to do with ethics or sensibilities - it's just that most of the time, in order to appeal to the target audience, ethics and sensibilities of the said audience need to be considered and catered to.

Best marketing I think are the ones that we probably don't even recognize as one but have influenced our opinions and/or decisions.

For every one we notice and are repulsed by it like Nvidia/AEG's efforts on various forums, there may be many more that we don't notice that may or may not be just as bad or even worse had we realized it.

Having said that - Nvidia/AEG definitely underestimated (severely) the typical demographics among the target audiences. The amount of knowledge and experience behind the participants of these forums surprises me more often than not too.

 

[sandorski]

Rollo ( Brian) has always been pro-nVidia; as far back as the 3dfx days and using the alias Fred Sanford. His style never changed and has been consistent over the years.

Never had a single problem with him because I would debate points instead of attacking and personal shots when I gamed on ATI and 3dfx hardware. The key to forums is engaging and debating without the emotions of defending and blaming, which create off-topics and personal attacks.

Offered to Brian to try to be more diplomatic but he couldn't change being him.

He didn't deserve "Debate".

 

[tincart]

What if AMD decided to make a price-cut, making the product all the cheaper for you to acquire (but at an expense of lowering revenue for AMD)...is your opinion regarding the value of the deal then become a purchased opinion as well?

How far along the money-trail are you willing to interrogate before resigning yourself to concluding your opinion of a product was not influenced or manipulated by way of marketing expense to some degree?

There seems to be some confusion here regarding both "marketing" and "bias" which I would like to discuss.

With respect to your point above about marketing, you are conflating two discrete concepts under the same term. Marketing (1) in the sense of advertising and promoting a product through the media and marketing with the intention of producing a positive consumer opinion and marketing (2) in terms of simply bringing a product to the market place at a specific price with a specific set of features. Tautologically speaking: A video card on the market has been "marketed."

Marketing (1) is the attempt to influence your opinion towards a favorable judgement regarding (2), one is operative upon the other. A change to any feature of (2) is not an attempt to influence your decision to purchase in the same way that (1) is since any feature of (2) is exactly what a completely non-biased, rational purchaser would look to when buying a product while anyone who said "I wonder which card I should buy, I'll go look at a bunch of advertisements produced by the manufacturer" would be rightly called a moron.

If you want to say that any change to price is commensurate with marketing (1) then you are committed to the conclusion that there is no rational basis for making purchasing decisions. Marketing (1) may still attempt to use price or a price drop to sway your opinion and it may certainly do so justifiably but to conflate the two is an error.

I think we can define bias fairly widely as "an inclination to judge in a manner that excludes an impartial judgement" or some permutation thereof. Marketing (1) is often an attempt to foster such a type of judgement about a specific product - I think we can all agree that marketing these days is not directed simply towards informing us about products, this is why we read tech sites. For your point about bias, I defer to my point above, that changes to features of (2) do not result in bias, but rather bias can only be applied to them since those features are the ones by which a non-biased agent would make their choice.

Further, telling another person about your positive experiences is not, so far as I can see, a case of bias. A positive recommendation from a friend is probably very poor information, given that the sample size is so small (maybe they got the only good one...) but it does not introduce bias unless there are additional conditions (e.g. the friend invests heavily in the manufacturer and has an interest in seeing sales climb, etc.).

 

[v8envy]

At any rate, black listing reviewers don't stop them from saying what they want to say. In fact, HS is still saying whatever they wanted to, but they no longer have the advantage to get the first hand news without working for it. No more free simple, no more free passes, that is all.

Here's the problem. This reviewer has now gained credibility with a certain set of potential customers since they are clearly "unbiased." You can see that's the impression of many, many posters in this thread. At the same time that reviewer feels slighted and wronged, which is evidenced by their strong anti-nv tone. They are biased -- and that bias has been increased due to bruised ego.

Not a good combination to strive for -- a suddenly toxic community member with an audience and strengthened credibility is right there with a hole in the head on the priority list. That is, if you want positive, feel good PR about your product.

If, on the other hand, you subscribe to the "no such thing as bad publicity" mindset then this is pure gold.

 

[extra]

I dunno... I just can't see AMD/ATI or Intel behaving like this. The thing with OCZ is like...no, OCZ acted like most companies would: professionally. Their product got a bad review and had problems so they asked themselves "why" and improved it. There's definately something weird about Nvidia, lol. I could see Apple doing it though, lol.

 

[thilanliyan]

Whether or not it is important should not depend on the reviewer, but the viewers themselves. Fail to report all aspects in a review is a fail.

I agree that sites should review everything pertaining to the card but sometimes they don't. In ATI's case I'm sure not every review benchmarked Eyefinity or Stream on the 58XX launch...but have they "blacklisted" sites for not doing it? I hope not because like someone else said they would be "shooting themselves in the foot". NVidia did not receive a BAD review about PhysX and CUDA from HS...they just didn't mention it...which is different from receiving negative publicity about PhysX/CUDA. By blacklisting they have removed one avenue for their products to get exposure and so have shot themselves in the foot.

 

[SirPauly]

He didn't deserve "Debate".

Sorry you feel this way. I would hope that everyone deserves debate instead of personal attacks.

 

[tincart]

I agree that sites should review everything pertaining to the card but sometimes they don't.

I conditionally disagree. Sites shouldn't review everything pertaining to the card but everything that it is reasonable to review. If you take an extreme form of the "everything" claim you get to a reductio ad absurdum pretty quick: We should review the smell? The color? The quality of the PCB materials? The twist ties that held together the DVI cord?

I know this is not what you're claiming so don't think I'm setting up a straw man here. What you really mean, I think, is that a site should review everything pertaining to a card that it would be reasonable to review - I will spare everyone my argument for why it is not reasonable to review the twist ties.

The one possible impetus for including coverage of features x, y and z that I claim can be categorically excluded from being included as "reasonable" is that "the company told us to mention x, y and z." I don't care what nVidia or any other company wants a reviewer to tell me about a product. I want to know what made an impression on that reviewer (presuming it is a reviewer or a website that I trust and read regularly).

One way of deciding on what features are reasonable that I can suggest relates to the audience. Simply put: In any publication, you write about the things your audience wants to read about. If I write reviews for a magazine devoted to high-end luxury cars focusing on performance, speed, etc. then it's probably not reasonable for me to devote a page to trunk space - my audience won't care, they want to know how fast it goes.

I will also allow that there are some features that should be mentioned no matter what the audience is since they are so central to the function of the product that not mentioning them would be a grace lacunae. If anyone takes this view about PhysX or CUDA, I would love to hear/debate the reasons for it.

This is pretty much what the reviewer is saying: He doesn't write about x, y and z because he doesn't think the audience cares. It is certainly possible that he is wrong - in which case the audience should post comments stating this or send E-mails challenging that opinion.

 

[bunit]

Or nVidia was unaware of the process....

Lol was this even a serious post? Like really? Come on..
anyways

I think its obvious that certain members here may even be a part of that! Or just die-hard fan boys. Think with your wallet and your benchmarks/FPS/heat/noise/etc, not anything else :thumbsdown:

 

[pmv]

What if AMD decided to make a price-cut, making the product all the cheaper for you to acquire (but at an expense of lowering revenue for AMD)...is your opinion regarding the value of the deal then become a purchased opinion as well?

How far along the money-trail are you willing to interrogate before resigning yourself to concluding your opinion of a product was not influenced or manipulated by way of marketing expense to some degree?
[/I].

Huh? Don't understand your point _at all_. If you buy a product at a certain price point and then tell others that you think its good value at that price, where's the problem?

I mean, _of course_ your opinion of a product will be influenced by how much you paid for it, because value for money is a big part of the equation, there's nothing underhand about that.

If the price then goes up an honest person will acknowledge that it might not be such a great buy at the new price.

That hardly compares with being personally, and secretly, paid to tell people a product is good (NOT that I'm saying this is what anyone here has done - I have only the haziest idea what that row is about exactly, to be honest - but that's the equivalence you seem to be claiming).

 

[thilanliyan]

*SNIP*The twist ties that held together the DVI cord?

I agree with everything but the twist ties.

 

[tincart]

I agree with everything but the twist ties.

Then I'm afraid there is no hope for you.