Tom's Hardware To Cardmakers : Game Over

Merlynnus writes "Today, Tom's Hardware has announced that they're tired of being jerked around by the video card manufacturers and are going to publish reviews on their own schedule rather than one dictated by ATI or NVidia. From the site: "Reviews of cards with pre-launch buggy drivers and yet-to-come updates do no service to the user. We explain why we will no longer play that game."

Hopeful

[HappyKleenexDude]

A lot of that message, especially the end, sounds like it's directed more towards other review sites than their to their general readers. Maybe they're hoping others will follow their precedent.

They're a large enough review site that they could hold out by themselves, but I doubt it will make any real difference unless some of the others adopt a similar position.

Good for them

[sevensharpnine]

I started reading Pabst's site way back when his book was still relevant. I quit vising a few years ago due to the stupid advertisement-driven paginations and reviews that were evident of either stupidity or bribery. But if the review team is serious enough about their job to anger the two card manufacturers, I can give Tom's another chance. I, like many, will be watching closely for any signs of favoring certain manufacturers/advertisers (including the suspicious fact that most reviews just happen to take place with a cutting-edge Intel CPU--not like there's a contract in place...).

So I'll put Tom's site back in my bookmark folder for now. If this is some stupid PR stunt, then I'll see it soon enough. But I seriously hope the reviewers over there are trying to bring back the credibility they once had. We really need more honest review sites to break away from the vendor's strong-arm tactics.

Re:Hopeful

[general_re]

... I doubt it will make any real difference unless some of the others adopt a similar position.

...which they, for the most part, won't - there's too many sites out there wrapped up in being the first one to post "SNE4K p33K A+ THe H0t N3W C4Rd OMG 1+ phUck1N9 R0x0ReZ!!!!", and it basically ends up looking like PRNewswire with extra ads on top. Oh, well - if Tommy holds the line on this, the hell with the 0-day reviewers. I know who'll get my page views.

There's a reason why I don't read Tom's anymore ..

[SuperRob]

I stopped reading Tom's a LONG time ago. He loves mudslinging, both with manufacturers and with other enthusiast sites. I'm close to giving HardOCP the heave-ho as well. I want INFORMATION, not grousing about how this company did so-and-so wrong, or what site is faking their benchmarks. I can figure that stuff out for myself.

Re:Hopeful

[SuperRob]

"Oh, well - if Tommy holds the line on this, the hell with the 0-day reviewers. I know who'll get my page views."

So do I, and it'll be the one that gets the review up first. Information is free, and as soon as it's out there, the cat's out of the bag. What on earth could Tom's do better with more time? Another graph? Please. I want to know clock speeds and RAM size, general performance metrics, and if it'll fit in my case. Anything else is pretty pointless. If Tom's can't get that done in the same amount of time as the HUNDREDS of other enthusiast sites out there, then that's their problem. If they can do it, but not with quality, guess what? Still their problem.

Not to mention that I'd be willing to bet that companies will realize that they'd be better off sending that review card to a site that will get the review done in a timeframe that THEY want. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.

I stopped reading Tom's a long time ago because of the constant grousing and airing of thier dirty laundry. It's the same thing here. Why post a huge announcement ... just make the change and do it because you think it's the right thing to do ... don't wear it on your sleeve. I can get the exact same information from other sites, that's the beauty of the internet.

Re:who's fault is this?

[Anonymous Coward]

You keep mentioning TH wanting to get the first review out. At best, they are guilty of wanting to be in on the NDA-lift-day first looks. Keep in mind that the "first" review goes to anyone and everyone who publishes at 12:01am on that day. No, TH isn't blameless, but their complaints are not without merit ... if NV and ATI change the drivers every coupld days leading up to the lift of the NDA, TH (and all the other sites) are stuck with a lot of running and rerunning to keep from being left out.

Re:perhaps I'm on the wrong page

[Anonymous Coward]

"To me the guy seems to think his job is really that important, when it's not..."

250,000 fanboys deciding which $600 card to buy on the basis of your website and, say, four others.... you don't think that's important? We're talking about $150,000,000 in revenue that's directly tied to what these sites write.

People base card buying decisions on reviews, not advertisements. Being ethical when in a position like that is not self-important.

And fuck it all anyway.... since when is it self-important to do your job right in ANY situation? The only reason he made this announcement is that if he didn't, people would think his site hadn't been able to *get* the new card, and he'd lose his business. If you're going to take a stand, you have to tell the people who are affected why things have changed.

Re:Hopeful

[general_re]

I don't run out and buy $400 video cards on a whim, just so I can have bragging rights about riding the cutting edge. A fast card that crashes hourly is no good to me. A card that runs like a champ on game "X" when I don't play X is not valuable to me, especially if it turns out that it runs like a dog under my favorite game, Y. A card where half of the advanced hardware features are disabled because the drivers don't work yet is no good to me.

Which car review would you put more stock in - the one written by a person who got to take the car home for a couple of weeks and subject it to regular daily usage, or the one written by the guy who got to drive it around the block twice while the salesguy was sitting right next to him? I mean, if all you want is info as fast as possible and you really don't care about the source, well, both ATI and nVidia put their press releases on their websites - just bookmark those pages and call it a day.

Re:who's fault is this?

[MMaestro]

The fault is the hardcore readers who bitch and gripe about a certain news site not having 'the most recent' information up A.S.A.P. even if that information is not yet reliable. If news sites stopped making reviews of early buggy drivers, why not stop making previews? Just about every EA game keeps getting marked as 'could use more polish' or 'it'd be interesting to see what they do between now and launch day'. Yet when games from EA get released, they turn out to be buggy pieces of shit but succeed thanks to the hype machine. You can say this about every game, from the heavily hyped Doom 3 (which most people ended up flaming) to the silent yet still crashed and burned Breed (which was hyped to be a 'Halo killer').

Objective Reviews

[drivers]

If they really wanted to be objective the review sites would buy their own products retail with no indication that it is for a review site. This is what Consumer Reports does. The goes for software reviews as well. Yes, this requires a different business model than review sites are using now, but right now they are not objective; they are a part of the business they are covering.

Re:Objective Reviews

[fireduck]

exactly. and perhaps they shouldn't be accepting ad revenue directly or indirectly from companies they review. (the current ad i get when loading the homepage is an MSI motherboard based on nVidia's nforce3, which interestingly quotes an Anandtech review in it.)

but this is internet journalism, where ethical rules don't seem to apply...

Re:There's a reason why I don't read Tom's anymore

[Blakey Rat]

The problem, or at least the thing that makes it different from everything else, is that in the world of gaming video cards, NOBODY has any customer loyalty. Gamer A doesn't care if ATI has always provided them a solid package if NVidia's new whiz-bang card is .04% faster at some benchmark that doesn't have anything to do with real gameplay.

I buy ATI because I like the company and because I didn't like how NVidia basically killed of 3DFX. Does that mean I sometimes get video cards that aren't as fast as I could be getting? Most likely. Does that .04% of FPS loss bother me? Not at all.

The whole industry needs to get a grip.

Re:perhaps I'm on the wrong page

[Deliveranc3]

Toms is the site majorly responsible for the AMD heat issue scandal, the ATI and NVidia optimization and quality scandals and other's.

They may not be the first to market or have the most popular products but they often have the best reviews and it's investigative journalism.

Basically they are saying that many of the products that pass through their labs have glaring faults that they simply cannot assess with 12 hours of benchmarking.

They also need to look around at some of the customer complaints and assess the level of problems for themselves, I have to RFA crap all the time and it pisses me off. There is nowhere where you can get statistics on this kind of thing but Tom's takes the time to check out "common complaints" and see if there is a problem with the manufacturing.

Strings attached

[DarrinWest]

There are always strings attached. "We'll give you this pre-release card if you promise to get the review out on the 12th.".

If they insult the manufacturers, or blow them off, they won't get an early card next time. There are only a few available anyway.

What would happen if TH had to buy a card off the shelf? They'd have late reviews. Would they still get readers? Depends if the readers want a quick review of a pre-release card, or an indepth review that can be trusted. Both readers exist.