[H]ardOCP wrote:3DMark Makers Upset with [H]:
Tero Sarkkinen, Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing of Futuremark, wrote in this morning with a directive for HardOCP to stop slandering their 3Dmark product line and threatens to bring in lawyers. I do have to think that this is a shot across our bow as surely ATI and NVIDIA have told Futuremark about recent interviews we have done with the video giants in preparation for an upcoming HardOCP editorial.
I strongly advise you to not to slander our product, 3DMark, on your web site. Take down all your false and unjustified and baseless claims about 3DMark.
As is normal operating procedure, we like to be specific as to what exactly the company wants removed. So I responded, " I have reviewed the document that you sent (Tero sent a 15 page PDF that was a reproduction of today's HardOCP news page in full (possibly a copyright violation in itself News Image)) and see no slanderous, false, unjustified, or baseless claims whatsoever about "3DMark." Could you please be more specific as to your allegations and advice?
Tero replied... You know what I mean. Your articles have consistently discredited 3DMark for years now and the few justifications there have sometimes been have been without merit. It seems to us as if you have something against our product personally and are using your popular website as a platform to attack and trying to discredit on purpose and with baseless claims and sometimes also with erroneous information.
I will no longer communicate with you after this. Our attorney is looking that this situation will get resolved and will contact you if necessary.
"You know what I mean," was hardly the answer I expected. But just remember that having an opinion these days means having a band of high priced lawyers at your side.
I do stand by the opinion that 3DMark05 "sucks" as a benchmark based on the fact that it does not tell me anything specifically about the games I play. Did 3DMark tell us how DOOM3 was going to play? No. Will 3DMark tell us how HL2 or STALKER will play on a given system? No. Does that mean 3DMark is worthless? Surely not. 3DMark has a ton of great and fun uses; I just don't find any of them as a benefit to our readers or myself directly. On that note, the entire 3DMark series can be a great tool for end users testing tweaks and such on their systems and it can be a great source of fun competition across the Net.
Our editorial on the state of 3DMark will be published soon, and I guess this one will be another that we have to pay the lawyers to read before it goes out the door. But if Futuremark thinks their baseless threats and attacks on our opinions will gain them ground with the hardware community, or us they are badly mistaken.
And Tero, I know you guys are not Americans, so you might want to catch up with The United States Constitution and specifically the First Amendment to it. I guarantee you that HardOCP is very much inside its legal rights to express opinions about your products and will continue to do so. What amazes me is that you are stepping on some of the very toes that Futuremark relies on to make its money, and those toes belong to the gaming and hardware communities that we share the truth with on a daily basis. Now take our advice. You are barking up the wrong tree little doggy.
I'm not much of a fan of Kyle Bennett or his page, but this sort of corporate strongarming is absolutely despicable. This is actually the SECOND time a company has tried to go after his page (the first is a pending case from Infinium Labs which [H]ardOCP has already spent $150k on) and it looks like the vulutres at Futuremark are trying to have their go at them.
What the fuck is this companies problem? Do they really think anything positive can be gained by sending threatening letters to tech websites that argue against the usefullness of their product?
Bleh, fuck Futuremark and their bloated BS program. If I wanted something to tell me my penis is too small, I'd watch a damned enzyte ad on TV.
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Big wig wrote:--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please accept my sincererest apologies for myself reacting the way I did yesterday morning and for sending those emails to Kyle that he posted on the news page. I would like to hereby let everyone know that I am withdrawing all of that. Also, I feel that I owe everyone an explanation of why it happened.
For years, we have been trying to get constructive cooperation going with the HardOCP team. However, for one reason or another none of these attempts have succeeded. So, naturally we have been little bit frustrated by it. Then, I again saw a newspost yesterday morning with just a statement that our product sucks without any explanation or argumentation or technical reason of why they so think.
This just caused an immediate, and I have to add, rather immature, reaction in myself and I sent off those emails without really thinking.
So, as a summary, I hope that we can all move forward from here. We do wish more constructive critique and I would like to emphasize that we really encourage everyone to send and publish any and all feedback, good or bad, as long as it is reasonably argumented, since only that helps this industry move forward.
Sincerely,
Tero Sarkkinen
Someone honestly apologizing, or covering up a shitstorm?
Brotherhood of the Bear | HAB | Mess | SDnet archivist |
Ten bucks says Tero had a coversation with the lawyers and he didn't like what they said...
It startled him even more when just after he was awarded the Galactic Institute's Prize for Extreme Cleverness he got lynched by a rampaging mob of respectable physicists who had finally realized that the one thing they really couldn't stand was a smart ass. - The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. - Douglas Adams
No bet, that is very likely what happened. Damage is done to Futuremark regardless.
“There are two kinds of people in the world: the kind who think it’s perfectly reasonable to strip-search a 13-year-old girl suspected of bringing ibuprofen to school, and the kind who think those people should be kept as far away from children as possible … Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between drug warriors and child molesters.” - Jacob Sullum[/size][/align]
This is actually the SECOND time a company has tried to go after his page (the first is a pending case from Infinium Labs which [H]ardOCP has already spent $150k on)
Didn't someone else go after them before Infinium?
After doing some digging into the history of [H] and Kyle B, I've decided to say fuck him. That son of a bitch is the last person who should be whining about freedom of speech. He banned over 100 people from his forums a few years ago, when they pointed out that he fuxored a graph in one of his reviews. He denied denied denied and then threw those people out. I don't give a shit if banning people from a forum is a different matter legally - he's still a dishonest fuck.
Back when Nvidia was spreading lies about 3dm03 he pulled the same shit on dissenters who pointed out that he was full of crap. The following is proof of slander:
Quotes from the HOCP website.
1. "In a related FutureMark fiasco today, this press release was sent to us by Tero Darkkinen of FutureMark."
- DARKkinen? Slandering. HOCP knows very well his name is Sarkkinen. Maybe next time they will call him Sharkkinen or something else. Basically they call that man stupid, or dark.
1. "TeroS
n00bie"
- In the post that according to HOCP is written by Tero Sarkkinen he is ranked as n00bie.
2. "Some companies pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to be members of this "program". In exchange for that cash, they get to have input on the benchmarks that FutureMark develops."
2B. "In my opinion, 3DMark03 is a paid for tool."
- HOCP claims that Futuremark takes bribes and falsifies the results.
3. "I humbly ask that anyone evaluating computer hardware to stop publishing the game demo scores taken from 3DMark03."
- This might make Futuremark lose money.
---------------
There is a lot of other similar slandering and claims of cheating and dishonesty against Futuremark in the HOCP website. Seems like they really have a vendetta against Futuremark. I wonder what causes this. I would not be surprised if someone from Futuremark reacted to this.
Calling man a to be "dark" and a "noobie", claiming company to cheat with their results and favoring those who pay... whew. That really could cause someone to sue.
Tech-report at least stays on the facts with the reviews and articles. When I visit a tech-website I want to read well-written articles about computers and such, not someones personal attacks or slandering.
"Right now we can tell you a report was filed by the family of a 12 year old boy yesterday afternoon alleging Mr. Michael Jackson of criminal activity. A search warrant has been filed and that search is currently taking place. Mr. Jackson has not been charged with any crime. We cannot specifically address the content of the police report as it is confidential information at the present time, however, we can confirm that Mr. Jackson forced the boy to listen to the Howard Stern show and watch the movie Private Parts over and over again."
The Kernel wrote:Kyle is a fucking ass for that incident. Doesn't change the fact that these accusations are almost certainly completely true.
So Futuremark takes bribes and falsifies results? You know this to be true?
"Right now we can tell you a report was filed by the family of a 12 year old boy yesterday afternoon alleging Mr. Michael Jackson of criminal activity. A search warrant has been filed and that search is currently taking place. Mr. Jackson has not been charged with any crime. We cannot specifically address the content of the police report as it is confidential information at the present time, however, we can confirm that Mr. Jackson forced the boy to listen to the Howard Stern show and watch the movie Private Parts over and over again."
The Kernel wrote:Kyle is a fucking ass for that incident. Doesn't change the fact that these accusations are almost certainly completely true.
So Futuremark takes bribes and falsifies results? You know this to be true?
When did Hardocp allege this?
"In my opinion, 3DMark03 is a paid for tool."
Pretty obvious what it means.
"Right now we can tell you a report was filed by the family of a 12 year old boy yesterday afternoon alleging Mr. Michael Jackson of criminal activity. A search warrant has been filed and that search is currently taking place. Mr. Jackson has not been charged with any crime. We cannot specifically address the content of the police report as it is confidential information at the present time, however, we can confirm that Mr. Jackson forced the boy to listen to the Howard Stern show and watch the movie Private Parts over and over again."
1. "In a related FutureMark fiasco today, this press release was sent to us by Tero Darkkinen of FutureMark."
- DARKkinen? Slandering. HOCP knows very well his name is Sarkkinen. Maybe next time they will call him Sharkkinen or something else. Basically they call that man stupid, or dark.
Come on, have you seen the left side of your keyboard lately? Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill.
Come on, have you seen the left side of your keyboard lately? Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill.