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Nvidia Apologizes
BuRzMaLy writes: "Read out the next round in Nvidia ethic story. The guy at Hypothermia does
an interview with Nvidia where they in fact admit to all the charges against them, and they apologize to Hypothermia as well."
This is a followup to a
recent story where Nvidia was accused of trying to bully around various Web sites.
I can only shake my head after reading Hypothermia's summary. Did he have the same conversation he posted on his site? Are the Slashdot posters reading the same thing I read? This is what I saw in that conversation:
Here at NVIDIA we have over 60 people in marketing and unfortunately, someone who thought he was doing the correct thing was not. The contract that is on Hypothermia (sp?) is a document that we use for corporate to corporate promotions.
Translation: Someone here really f**cked up. (Note lack of apology).
Let's say if and OEM would like to do a banner for a show this agreement assures us that we have top billing with that promotion.
Then why is there all this text in the agreement about web sites? What does this have to do with a show?
Whatever you review is whatever you review...we've never asked anyone to pull a review for competitive reasons.
Yeah, but you guys sure have no problem pressuring reviewers into biasing for your card's strengths.
I feel really bad in your situation, because for the last 7 months you have been misled by a non-NVIDIA employee (intern, contractor, etc...). To Hypothermia, who had thought that this was an accurate PR rep, I apologize and for all of the grief/headache this has caused I apologize for that too.
What kind of company allows this to happen? Is NVIDIA such a loose operation as to allow non-NVIDIA employees to use their corporate email? Note that this does not satisfactorily explain Hypothermia's situation, because in the evolution of this whole ordeal Hypothermia clearly states that he spoke to at least two different people.
So this apology means nothing to me because none of Derek's explanations hold water. The apology I see only really applies to allowing someone to impersonate an NVIDIA employee.
All the opinions expressed above do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
The opinions I post here have nothing to do with my employer.
Who gives a crap? Really! Oh no! nVidia did THIS and THAT to me and now I won't get free cards so I'm going to publicly whine about it
It's sickening to see that people are in this type of "biz" only to get free stuff and go to their friends and say "Hey man! Look what XXX sent me! nah nah nah!" Pathetic. I really wish I could do this sort of thing only because I love messing with hardware and writing about it. Unlike some people over at *cough* HardOCP who start writing editorials the minute nVidia says they won't send him a Geforce 2 MX card.
To those of you who fall in that category I say the hell with you and you will fall by the wayside to websites which don't give us this soap opera style crap. Anand comes to mind, no wonder he has the largest internet/hardware e-mag on the net. (Note to anand: can we have different benchmarks OTHER than Q3? =))
When death looks you in the eye, smile. Someone needs to cheer him up.
Substitute ink for light. Good design/type in print relies on using small amounts of ink on a largely uninked page.
Good design/type on screen should (IMO, obviously) rely on using small amounts of light on a largely unlit screen.
Perhaps more important on tech sites where people are more likely to have high resolutions with larger areas of white.
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Most 3d board vendors will give developers and reviewers demo boards before they hit the shelves. Meaning - you couldn't buy them if you wanted to. A magazine usually has to have a 1-3 month lead time to finish the next issue before it goes off to the presses. After all, it has to be printed, bound, and mailed.
And with technology related items, people are much more interested in new stuff. Magazines that reviewed only products that were on the shelves would have a hard time competing with magazines that review stuff that will be out next week.
Getting free hardware doesn't usually make for a better experience anyway. You often get beta drivers that have all sorts of conflicts with other drivers. I still have all sorts of 3d boards that I can't use anymore because they use beta drivers that don't exsist anymore and I didn't have the mind to save them.
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-- Virtual Windows Project
Right, blame it on the fan sites, who usually start their sites out of love for the product.
Hmm... ya, that sounds like journalistic ethics.
[quote]
Distinguish between advocacy and news reporting. Analysis and commentary should be labeled and not misrepresent fact or context.
Distinguish news from advertising and shun hybrids that blur the lines between the two.
[...]
Act Independently
Journalists should be free of obligation to any interest other than the public's right to know.
Journalists should:
Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived.
Remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility.
Refuse gifts, favors, fees, free travel and special treatment, and shun secondary employment, political involvement, public office and service in community organizations if they compromise journalistic integrity.
Disclose unavoidable conflicts.
Be vigilant and courageous about holding those with power accountable.
Deny favored treatment to advertisers and special interests and resist their pressure to influence news coverage.
Be wary of sources offering information for favors or money; avoid bidding for news.
[unquote]
source: http://www.publicintegrity.org/ethics.html
And that's why I said this kind of thing wouldn't be a problem if the sites had any kind of independence (which equals ethics in this case).
Heh. Now 3dfx is the saint, and nvidia is the devil? It seems a lot of people suffer from short term memory. Remeber GLide? How did that help the community? By forcing people to buy 3dfx cards? OpenGL support was slow to sppear because of 3dfx pushing GLide. Oh sure, it was great when 3dfx was alone in the high end, but then other players started to creep their way up. Do you think 3dfx sat back and said "let the best card win"? They spin reviews and press articles just as much as nvidia does, I gar-ron-tee. Let people make their own decisions based on the card, and lets all drop this good versus evil crap.
"I live in a world of make-believe, with faeries and leprechauns and tiny little frogs with funny hats."
I'm using ad hominem attacks becuase you keep perpetuating a bunch of bullshit. Yes, corporations have a fiduciary duty, but there are no instances in the law stating that corporations must take every opportunity to make money. Furthermore, they cannot be "acting illegally" since cases involving management misconduct are civil, not crimial cases. If you can find some cases which contradict me, please feel free to post the appropriate citations, otherwise, I still content... you are full of shit.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
People speak of "nvidia feeling sorry" or "nvidia doing this or that". There is no sentient entity called nvidia. It's a corporation. Sometimes they hire good PR people who slick things over, sometimes they hire morons. In this case, they hired a moron.
A corporation simply exists to make profits for its shareholders. Stop associating these touchy-feely qualities of niceness and morality with corporations. It's naive and silly.
Sure, sometimes companies donate to charity to improve their image, or sponsor sports and crap like that, but it's still the same thing. Ultimately, it's a big building with cubicles and paid PR people. Don't confuse a company with being good or bad. It's just there to make money. MS, oracle, Sun, napster - they're all there to make money, and they just bitch about justice and morality when it suits them.
Don't be so naive. Being loyal to a company or thinking it's ethical is as silly as like having feelings for your gas station. Even if the company happens to make software/hardware you like.
w/m
I seem to remember an episode where there were stickers being put on game software boxes that implied that you needed a 3dfx card to run that game even though that wasn't true. Anyone remember who ended up being responsible for that?
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Sure, they produced a better piece of hardware. That doesn't give them the right to bully reviewers into changing their reviews or review methods.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Several magazines that I read and trust, have a policy of buying review items off-the-shelf. They sell or auction off the items after they are done with the review.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
s/capitalist/corporatist/g
They have no right to make money. They have no right to FORCE others to take down logos, or say "sure, we'll do that," get the contract signed and then proceed to harass them.
An insightful poster recently remarked that the only way to ensure true independence from the companies you review is to:
1) purchase your own, off-the-shelf copy of the product - to ensure you experience what customers experience
2) politely return all unsolicited "gifts"
Consumer Reports does it, and their reputation is unimpugnable. Regrettably, in the hardware and software business, prices for off-the-shelf products often exceed the budget of enthusiasts. We're talking $100's to $1000's of dollars in most cases, especially for hardware.
The solution I would suggest is this. Establish a "blind" company that federates reviewers. This company accepts contributions from its members, pools them, purchases a sample product at the lowest price it can find, then allows the reviewers to share the sample product for their reviews. When all reviews are complete, the product can be auctioned off or resold in some other fashion. The companies bacing the reviewed products will never have contact directly with the reviewers, and the monetary issue is alleviated.
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
Why oh why do so many tech sites (/. fortunately excepted) insist on using white text on a black background? Attn Webmasters: This is unreadable!
Now, to the point. It's great that NVidia apologized. It's even greater that they admitted wrongdoing. But the question is: What steps are being taken to ensure it never happens again?
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Linux MAPI Server!
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It is good to see them fessing up to strong arming their way through business. This is something that some companies never admit to who are even worse about it. I like their chips, but they should achieve their gains through hard work and being better than the other guy (and those of us who have had the pleasure to look at their graphics know that they can do this).
Still, it is good that they have fessed up to this, but someone had to call them on it. Nobody admits that they have done this sort of thing when they have done it, so you can't blame them for not fessing up, hardly anyone on this board can claim that they would have fessed up after the fact, I don't fault them for that at all. What I fault them for is for bullying their way around in the first place. I think that people should concentrate less on the fact that they wouldn't have fessed up and more on the fact that they did this in the first place. Also, it is VERY big of them to admit this, this is really bad press, and fessing up isn't really going to help it (yes, arguably it can, but really, admitting to something that you don't have to doesn't really help people's opinion of you. You altruists should know that their cup is half empty in doing this, not half full).
Anyways, good for them for fessing up, it takes guts. Bad for them for doing it in the first place, and nobody can blame them for not fessing up sooner.
Eh...
nVidia was one of the worst offendors in telling review sites to downplay 16-bit color benchmarks on games... even on ones where the textures were in 16-bit color (so no benifit to 32 bit!) for the sole benifit of making 3dfx's faster card look worse. (ATI was particuarly bad, as well).
nVidia also "wants" reviewers to focus on speed instead of quality now - and encourages them to benchmark FSAA, because nVidia's approach is faster (and less good-looking) than 3dfx's.
nVidia has gotten used to playing a little bit dirty - that's how they managed to overthrow 3dfx. But now is the time that they need to step back and let fair reviews be fair reviews. If your card is fairly the best in the market, then you don't need to play Microsoft.
Corporations do not have the right to do anything to make money, otherwise they'd all be selling class A drugs.
I hadn't realized that Nvidia was responsible for hypothermia. Wow, they're more powerful than I previously thought.
Blaming outside contractors is a cheesy excuse. When you hire contractors to represent your company, then you need to verify everything that they say is in line with your company. And you need to stand behind, or directly take responsibility, for the actions of that contractor.
They at least admit that it was wrong, but they didn't exactly take responsibility. One step forward, one step back, and we're still where we started.
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
1. I don't know what Steve really does at Hypothermia except fill in for Kyle at the HardOCP and dog him every time he gets a chance to post. I liked the site when it was Kyle posting, and Steve was just a standin, not just a friendly pissing contest between the two of them.
2. Nvidia should be spelled NVIDIA.
3. Is this really an apology or just a pacifier? To me, it sounds like the kind of thing that any other PR department would come up with after a similar debacle. "Oh, it was a mistake", "It wasn't _us_ doing that per se", "it won't happen again" -- you get the picture. M$ has done this how many times???
4. There are three kinds of people in this world: those who can count, and those who can't.
I registered my hate for Jon Katz
Those evil bad interns eh? ;>
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Andy (currently an Intern although, not at nvidia)
I was pretty shocked when I first heard of these tactics but this interview is really encouraging.
It looks like this was a few loose cannons in a large department. If anything this will have served to help nVidia clarify and communicate their own practices internally. I expect we won't see this kind of thing from them again in a hurry now they've had a chance to calibrate their moral compass.
By giving away an expensive piece of hardware in exchange for a review, companies like NVidia are using similar tactics to the record execs who paid off radio stations to play their label's songs. The fact is that those Geforce2 cards cost a few hundred dollars apiece and the banner-revenue from the reviewer's site may not even be equivalent to the value of the card.
All hardware submitted for review should be sent with pre-paid return packaging. After the company receives the hardware in return, they can ship the same unit to another reviewer. In this model, sites receive no financial incentive to review specific products, while even the smallest sites will be able to receive hardware to review. The manufacturers safe a few dollars and the sites have no ethical dillemas.
ByteMyCode.com: A Web 2.0 code sharing community.
> Whether we like it or not, we live in a capitalist world where people need to fend for themselves rather than being supported by the state. Corporations, the lifeblood of our economy, have every right to do whatever it takes to make money, and this was what an Nvidia contractor attempted to do for them.
Yeah, you're right. We should throw out all our silly inhibitions against theft and murder, since all they are is a mechanism that lets the sheep keep the lion from rising to his rightful position on top of the heap.
Too bad you posted as an A/C. Otherwise we could all steal your credit card number and use it without fear of you complaining to the police, since you would surely acknowledge our "right to do whatever it takes to make money".
Oops, I did it again, I responded to a troll.
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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Seriously, how nice that Derek Perez apologized. Anyone who seriously follows 3d stuff knows that Derek Perez is one of the loudest, abrasive, and derogatory. He'll be back to his usual antics within no time. He represents Nvidia's attitude, and I'm surprised that so many people at slashdot just let slide.
You don't see 3dfx pulling any crap like this. You don't see Nvidia opening their specs or giving free open source technology like FXT1 away. That's why I support 3dfx.
I honestly believe, and actions speak louder than words (well..maybe not in Derek Perez's case!), that 3dfx is a good corporation. They really care about the community.
Scott
From Derek's answer to Hypothermia:
"I feel really bad in your situation, because for the last 7 months you have been misled by a non-NVIDIA employee (intern, contractor, etc...). This situation has been rectified and we have put in the necessary steps so this doesn't happen again..."
Translation: We're not going to take the blame, so this disposable Intern will be ordered to fall on his own sword.
Free hardware to reviewers is a good thing, when handled responsibly by all parties involved.
As the former Technical Editor (responsible for untold amounts on benchmarking) of 'boot Magazine' (now known as 'Maximum PC') - I know what I am talking about. Let me explain why some of the proposed 'sollutions' don't work.
A: Buying the hardware retail.
This chief value of many reviews is to allow people to get a feel for a product before they can buy it. Reviews that come out weeks (or even months) after a product is on store shelves lose an immense amount of value. Particularly with a print magazine, lead times are such that it is not at all practical to delay a review until the propper retail experience can be tried.
B: Loaner hardware.
This seems nice in theory - ask for the boards back to make sure that the reviewer has nothing to gain by keeping it. But - reviewers NEED to keep boards they test around so that they can later be held accountable for recreating their results, and so that they have boards handy to do comparative reviews.
Imagine if all the Voodoo 5 reviews on the net came out with no comparative results with a GeForce2. It doesn't work. Reviewers need to be able to build a library of all the products that they test.
The real problem here is small, not very credible sites that are pushing one-off reviews. Anyone who is getting paid to professionally review products should be smart enough to have no conflicts of interest caused by the free hardware around them. But fan sites that crank out a review or two every month or so - well, they have to go a lot further to prove their credibility and lack of bias.
- chris dunphy