Oh la la ...
First a little summary for those just tuning in now. TweakTown and NVIDIA once enjoyed a fruitful manufacturer / media relationship that worked really well. Old NVIDIA employees back in the day knew how to treat media people with respect and not carry some type of arrogant attitude that seems like a prerequisite for some (not all) NVIDIA employees these days. Our issues with NVIDIA started with not being invited to media events and later not being review sampled on various GPU launches. Sure, back then, we weren't a leading technology website as we are today, but we weren't a small fish either.
This went on for years and we were put into a position where if we wanted a launch day review of a new GPU, we really had to fight for it, beyond on what we thought was reasonable. We had to work with NVIDIA partners to get a review sample if we wanted one at all. After countless anger fueled emails to NVIDIA, we eventually realized we were fighting a losing battle. It and the associated anger and stress was just a waste of our time and surely wasn't healthy for our wellbeing. We decided at some point (I can't remember exactly) that we would just acquire samples early on our own and post the reviews when we wished. We were not under NDA by NVIDIA - heck, they'd need to have a working open dialogue with us for that to even happen.
We enjoyed massive surges in website traffic every time we posted an NDA-free review, usually one or two weeks ahead of the actual NVIDIA launch day. I've said it before, but I don't know if I've said it many times publically, but this was not to alienate our friends from other websites and magazines, and it certainly was not done out of disrespect. Some of our media friends understand the situation and others want our heads on a platter. Those in the latter category need to realize that NVIDIA could have solved this issue by supporting us just the same as any other key media partner they work with. We were not looking for any type of special treatment - just not to be treated like worthless dogs. We were put into a position where we had no other choice. Case in point right here: Shane Baxtor (our VGA editor) moved to Taiwan at the end of 2011. We contacted Melody Tu who is the local PR person looking after things for NVIDIA in the Asian region. We asked her to meet up for a meeting to try and resolve our issues. Her response was that she was "too busy" to meet us. Too busy? Fair enough.
NVIDIA's response on our early release of reviews was to prevent certain video card vendor partners from sending us video cards. I recall Galaxy being one of the first and in more recent times GIGABYTE was told not to send us samples. NVIDIA must have suspected the aforementioned companies of supplying us with video cards early and supposedly assume they have no respect for the NVIDIA NDA. But that's not true; any partner NDA we receive or told about is honored. Much like with our recent MSI GTX 660 Ti coverage - we were told the NDA and adhered to it, we even posted the review two or three minutes later to be on the safe side.
more here
Mano ... the man is really angry ...
First a little summary for those just tuning in now. TweakTown and NVIDIA once enjoyed a fruitful manufacturer / media relationship that worked really well. Old NVIDIA employees back in the day knew how to treat media people with respect and not carry some type of arrogant attitude that seems like a prerequisite for some (not all) NVIDIA employees these days. Our issues with NVIDIA started with not being invited to media events and later not being review sampled on various GPU launches. Sure, back then, we weren't a leading technology website as we are today, but we weren't a small fish either.
This went on for years and we were put into a position where if we wanted a launch day review of a new GPU, we really had to fight for it, beyond on what we thought was reasonable. We had to work with NVIDIA partners to get a review sample if we wanted one at all. After countless anger fueled emails to NVIDIA, we eventually realized we were fighting a losing battle. It and the associated anger and stress was just a waste of our time and surely wasn't healthy for our wellbeing. We decided at some point (I can't remember exactly) that we would just acquire samples early on our own and post the reviews when we wished. We were not under NDA by NVIDIA - heck, they'd need to have a working open dialogue with us for that to even happen.
We enjoyed massive surges in website traffic every time we posted an NDA-free review, usually one or two weeks ahead of the actual NVIDIA launch day. I've said it before, but I don't know if I've said it many times publically, but this was not to alienate our friends from other websites and magazines, and it certainly was not done out of disrespect. Some of our media friends understand the situation and others want our heads on a platter. Those in the latter category need to realize that NVIDIA could have solved this issue by supporting us just the same as any other key media partner they work with. We were not looking for any type of special treatment - just not to be treated like worthless dogs. We were put into a position where we had no other choice. Case in point right here: Shane Baxtor (our VGA editor) moved to Taiwan at the end of 2011. We contacted Melody Tu who is the local PR person looking after things for NVIDIA in the Asian region. We asked her to meet up for a meeting to try and resolve our issues. Her response was that she was "too busy" to meet us. Too busy? Fair enough.
NVIDIA's response on our early release of reviews was to prevent certain video card vendor partners from sending us video cards. I recall Galaxy being one of the first and in more recent times GIGABYTE was told not to send us samples. NVIDIA must have suspected the aforementioned companies of supplying us with video cards early and supposedly assume they have no respect for the NVIDIA NDA. But that's not true; any partner NDA we receive or told about is honored. Much like with our recent MSI GTX 660 Ti coverage - we were told the NDA and adhered to it, we even posted the review two or three minutes later to be on the safe side.
more here
Mano ... the man is really angry ...
