News [H]ardOCP heading for another lawsuit

Earlier today, Kyle Bennett, Editor in Chief of HardOCP, sparked an uproar with a newspost made on the HardOCP front page.

This was then followed by an uproar from a FutureMark representative, specifically Tero Sarkkinen, who is the Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing of Futuremark Corporation.

You can check out our thoughts on 3DMark05 over here. We too have an upcoming article in progress that will further investigate 3DMark05.

It would appear that Kyle is heading towards another lengthy court case - I wonder when we will be able to have an opinion on something without having to pass everything we write through a lawyer?

I think he's more than entitled to have an opinion on 3DMark05, what are your thoughts?

 

Oh dear, oh dear

What ever happened to freedom of speach. I don't know the history of this slander of the 3DMark product... but really.

It seems to be fairly widely acknowledged in the 'techy' community that 3DMark 'benchmarks' don't always present a true reflection of the way any given game will actually play.

I'd wager that the big 2 gfx manufacturers put a darn sight more effort into optimising drivers for 3DMark than they do for the average game. How thencan the test provide an unbiased representation of 'real world' performance.

 

Interesting. They're certainly warming up the flame-throwers in that [H] thread...

TBH, I think everyone would be much more interested in 3DMark '05 if it was based on Unreal Engine 3 or something. It does seem kind of useless when the Doom 3 and Source engines will be used in games for years to come. Really only particularly useful for a burn-in test.

 

Im just glad that HardOCP has the balls to stand up to corporate bs and baseless lawsuits against them for stating thier opinions based on the facts. Is anyone else losing respect for the industry as a whole or is it just me...

 

you'd think that people would realise that [H] and /. are 2 news sites you really dont wanna piss off.

Look at where Infinium Labs are now.

'nuff sed.

 

So if you have an opinion, you are liable to be sue'd.

Nice one Futuremark

 

FFS. So noone can have an opinion about something? The website, as a whole, is his opinion! That's the point that people read review sites - to read peoples opinions.

However, 3dmark itself may only "suck" because of the "optimisation war" that graphics card companies have doing in it. It may not be Futuremarks fault, but they are still accepting copious amounts of money from these companies none the less.

Infinium labs are small fry compared to Futuremark though.

 

Two points here really:

1. What a ridiculous over reaction to a fairly harmless comment.

2. Why do people think that a benchmark should have anything to do with how any specific game runs?! A benchmark is used as a standard for comparing other variables. Ok it may be biased one way or the other but those biases become irrelavent after a while (the community becomes aware of them and takes them into account) therefore it still has a viable use as a comparative tool. Anyway it's not like the games we play aren't biased!

P.S. It really is stunning.

 

WTG Futuremark

 

That sucks tbh, freedom of speech is something they can't really take away from you. Perhaps slandering it in an unjust way is a silly thing to do, but giving a solid opinion (which he gave basis for, and which is actually correct in my opinion too) is perfectly fine. Plenty of people out there sing Futuremark's praises most of the time, so it's tough if they can't take the good with the bad. I hope they lose.

 

Futuremark's representative looks ridiculous from the little snippets I see above. Kyle is perfectly entitled to his opinion, as he has said. I can't really see this going anywhere in court. Saying that something "sucks" is so open to interpretation that it can't really be classed as slanderous in a courtroom.

 

hmmm. this seems to be an open and shut case in my books. not lengthy at all, if it does come to court anyway.

HardOCP is fully within its rights to express its views on 3dmark, as i am to express my views on, say, Sony Music.

i haven't downloaded 3dmark05 as yet, never really bothered with benchmarks (does it play the game with high settigns smoothly? sorted) so, err, yeah.

that email does seem pretty childish, though. it made me smile.

 

be nice.

That [H] thread makes some good reading got bored after the first 150 posts thou.

 

Kyle is the only thing I still like about the [H]. Figures he's a Texan

And I like how the Futuremark rep said he's been slandering 3dmark for years... but, if you look back, Kyle and the [H] didn't start slandering 3dmark until it started sucking (optimizing for one vendor more than another, ect)... (by the way, if Future mark wants to sue me I don't have pricey lawyers, so they'd probably win... GO AHEAD! TAKE MY DEBT! FUTUREMARK SUCKS!)

 

2 thoughts on this :

there is obviously more communications than kyle is letting on , and he chooses now to print what he did ;


is he ignoring the usual comany disclaimer (on every email i`ve ever had from companies) that states something like *express permission is required to reprint this etc etc etc*


oh and what is this `first ammendment` he`s on about? is it some kind of local law to his home country? im not from the usa if that helps.....

 

LOL!

http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.overview.html

 

why LOL?

im not from the usa , nor have ever been there.

 

even still most people who watch films/ broswe online etc know it.. either way....


the internet was made for geeks to be slanderous to companies... they cant remove that or the internet will end and geeks will have to go outside, god knows what that would do to the world.

 

Well although it technically could have been called slandering, I think he made his justifications quite clear in his response. The number of 3dMarks doesn't tell you anything about how games will actually play... just the more the better (in general)

I totally agree with him, but you would think after one court case he would stop shooting his mouth off.

 

Slander:
1 : the utterance of false charges or misrepresentations which defame and damage another's reputation
2 : a false and defamatory oral statement about a person

If he has a justification that he believes, then it is NOT slander - even if its not true. It only matters if he thinks its true.

As to the US constitution - if a company wants to sell their product in the US, they have to abide US law. Ergo - the US Constitution is the legal document that applies in this case - even if no one from the company ever enters the country.