Gamers Nexus details the problems with Linus Tech Tips – LTT responds
Plenty of drama brewing in the Tech YouTube community
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Gamers Nexus has come out with a 44-minute video detailing all the problems it has found with the recent videos from Linus Tech Tips and its general philosophy. Highly detailed and with plenty of examples it gives a run-down on why LTT might not be the best reviewer and information source to go for.
In the video posted on the 14th of August, Steve takes us through all the accuracy, ethics, and responsibility problems that the LMG business has as it keeps on growing. Particularly with not taking time on rectifying mistakes, conflicts of interest, and the damage it has on small businesses.
Update: LTT posts a video on their YouTube channel in response to the recent criticisms
We didn’t expect anything to be posted on the LTT YouTube channel, especially after Linus’ comment on the LTT Forums. But here we are, and it seems to us like it’s s step in the right direction.
The video outlines a lot of the concerns put forward by Gamers Nexus and numerous members of the community, showing us that LTT at least heard what the community and other creators had to say. LTT is stopping all video content for the next week to take a long look at its processes and ways to fix the mistakes outlined by Gamers Nexus in its video.
If you’re unaware, both are tech YouTubers that post reviews of products, provide first looks at the latest hardware, and are behind the scenes in the industry we love. Previously they had been on good terms, as GN featured on the LTT channel and worked together. However, it started to fall apart as LMG expanded, especially with the LTT Store (merch brand). After releasing a $250 backpack with no warranty, Linus (CEO at the time) said there is no need for one and you can “trust me bro” to resolve any issues. As GN points out it shouldn’t be necessary but it is always good conduct to have a warranty. Yet that was just the tip of the iceberg, as now there is more to delve into.
Gamers Nexus responds to Linus’ post on the LTT Forums
Gamers Nexus released a weekly news video, as scheduled, on the 15th of August, but added a segment around Linus’ response to Gamers Nexus’ video and the situation as a whole. The Segment ate about 12 minutes of the start of the video but once again Steve remained professional in the delivery of criticism to the LMG.
Steve found the whole response to be “Disappointing nonsense” as noted by the video time stamps. Here is the full video featuring Gamers Nexus’ response to the post made by Linus.
While there is a lot to take in here, it’s important to understand that we aren’t taking any sides, but we do believe that no matter how big you are, you must be held accountable for your actions. If anything, it means you should be setting an example, and from where we sit, it seems like LMG might have taken a slight fall from grace over the events highlighted.
Allegations of misconduct
One of the more prominent ex-staff members Madison has tweeted about their experience at the company. After being a popular participant in a ROG Reboot they were hired as the social media person, had left that position and now outlines all the issues experienced as a female employee and working as a one-person team. Now LTT also responded promising to investigate and improve the workplace for the rest of the staff.
Mistakes from the rush to release videos
As LMG (Linus Media Group) grows, so does the output. The team has expanded into triple digits now as the brand grows into one of the biggest tech channels around, with over 15 million subscribers on the main channel. But they have also expanded their brand with plenty of other channels as well, with six in total to cover news, Apple, and first looks or quick information along with its own video hosting site (Floatplane) that gets two exclusives regularly.
With that, the output has grown significantly, and they now aim for 25 videos a week at a minimum; which is one of the biggest issues the employees have with working there, as mentioned in its own video. That seemingly means that many times videos are often rushed out without much quality control and are seemingly seen as just over and done with, as soon as uploaded.
This has led to a number of mistakes, one of which is prominent in some of LTT’s latest GPU reviews. The first of which mentioned by Gamers Nexus is the RTX 4090 review. There, quite clearly, LTT’s graph shows the 4090 achieving 97 FPS at 4K Ray-tracing in Cyberpunk 2077 whereas the 3090 Ti is only at 25 FPS. This should have raised red flags due to the massive 300% uptick in performance in comparison, where realistically it should be closer to just 10s of FPS higher. This mistake was only rectified after being called out in the comments.
GN states how this also occurs for other reviews as well, with mistakes occurring in even the specifications of the graphics cards like the RTX 4060 more recently. This could lead to misinformed customers, overall, getting the wrong idea, as the videos garner lots of views on release before the updated information is provided, especially as most won’t even read the comments either.
Simple mistake fixes
We can only assume, that some of these errors do get caught before a video is published. But most of the time seemingly new information is just overlaid on top of the content in YouTube’s edit feature, rather than the content being reshot with video or even new voice-over added. As such it could mean plenty of viewers might not even notice the change if they are just listening rather than watching.
This seems to happen a lot and shows how, for LTT, it’s just not worth the extra effort spent to spend record something new. As GN states it’s leading to more misinformed customers overall, particularly if the voice in the video is their primary source of information. This is particularly a problem if the conclusion might have changed with the advent of this new information.
Ethics and conflicts of interest
Another concern coming from the growth and expansion of the business is the partnerships it forms, particularly with companies in the industry. As the company regularly reviews products from ASUS, Noctua, and Framework in particular. All brands which have sponsored the LTX Expo (LMG convention), released branded products in its colorways (Noctua fan/ LTT screwdriver), and Linus’ own investment in the company.
As we saw in the secret shopping sponsors, where Linus gave ASUS 3 out of 5 stars even though they spent ages on the phone with their CS, and had to poke the support for the actual solution which was a light-way out, even after ASUS’s more recent troubles with products and customer support.
Billet Labs
In one recent video, LTT looked at a water block for a GPU made from solid copper. The Billet Labs product is undoubtedly expensive, coming in at $800, and was deemed too pricey. Not exactly a surprise given it is a pure copper block. However, the whole situation is more complicated than that and was incredibly unfair to the small startup company of two.
Why? Well simply put, this is because the block is made for an RTX 3090 T. However, in the video, LTT attempted to use it on an RTX 4090 instead. The company didn’t test it on this card, and unsurprisingly, it did not work with the RTX 4090, as it did not make direct correct contact with the GPU, to facilitate heat transfer. This led to a conclusion in the video, telling over a million people not to buy the product, despite the obvious error, and didn’t give Billet Labs a fair chance.
Billet Labs requested the water block back as it was its best prototype and sample to distribute to other media, they told GN. However, even after emails asking for it back, it seems LTT decided to, instead, auction off the product at LTX with the money going to charity, but leaving the manufacturer with nothing, and with the potential for its competitors to get hands-on with the prototype instead.
Pwnage mouse
In a ShortCircuit video the Pwnage Stormbreaker was said to have too much drag, and the video concluded it just wasn’t a good product. Even though the channel is meant to focus on unboxings, not conclusions.
However, it was spotted by many eagle-eyed viewers, and the company itself, that the protective film was still on the skates of the wireless mouse which would cause the drag issues that led to the wrong conclusion being drawn. It was a significant amount of time, before ShortCircuit even updated the comments with confirmation of this, or updated the video to reflect that news, which was particuylarly embarrassing, especially after they doubled down saying there was no film to begin with. After which they called out the company, blaming them for not making the film easier to spot.
The video had to get called out by Pwnage for spreading misinformation and the harm they could do.
Response and conclusion
Linus responded to the GN video over on the LTT forums. The short of it is that he’s annoyed GN didn’t reach out for comment first, and that he apologizes for the mistakes, as they are still a growing company, and things are hard. He was also shocked how everyone turned on them as soon as the video dropped and that they didn’t want to spend more money and people’s time on retesting products and would rather stick to the schedule instead.
Overall this does make us inevitably more wary of the content coming from LTT. We have watched the channel for many years and have seen the mistakes growing over time even as they try to expand what the brand does and the content it produces. But the self-induced KPIs and scheduling inevitably hurt the quality of the content. Unfortunately, errors like this can harm plenty of companies, particularly when that content reaches the large audience LKTT has accumulated. Hopefully, they take this to heart and try to improve moving forward.
