The State Of bit-tech

I've been a very happy member of the community here for the last 5 and a half years, and have loved it. The Forums are fantastic and the sense of community seems to have come back well in the last few months, but I now find I can't quite keep my tongue about the main site any more.

Bit-tech used to be my first place to look for reviews, comments and especially modding. Emphasis on the word used. Since joining with Custom PC the quality and quantity has simply plummeted.

Custom PC on its own used to be great. Bit-tech on its own was wonderful. Together, I find Bit-tech to be awful. I've kept my tongue on this for a long while, but I finally feel the need to vent. Bit used to be able to bring out massive reviews of the newest parts as soon as the NDA's came off, but now its part of CPC we don't. They come out in the mag first as you lot actually get money from the mag, as opposed to ad revenue from the site, I understand Dennis needs to make money to pay you guys, but stop shafting the site. Without the site bit wouldn't exist.

The other problem I find, and which has been brought up over and over and over is whats happened to the modding love?

Lets have a look on the modding tab... the 1st page covers the dates of 13th December 2011 to 6th June 2011. Thats 14 articles. Back in 2007 we were getting more than 10 in 2 months! Modding is bigger than ever, but is being completely and utterly sidelined, and instead we just get Xbox game review after xbox game review after ipod game review.

Isn't this supposed to be a PC site? Isn't the back ground image of PC parts?

Oh, and dont get me started on the search function. Will someone please just install a google search on it instead?

This used to be my first stop for reviews but now google is. I don't want to see bit wither and die, but im pretty sure it has already become a shadow of its former self.

 

^ This

 

I really couldn't agree more.

What I found even worse is the concept that "throw money at it" modders have gotten MOTM nominations-where are they guys like acey that made papier-mache mods on a shoestring budget? I know I've been a sponsored modder for a long time (and still am) but the people I really care about are the young, up and coming modders with a lot of idea, a lot of talent and little else-while stuff like Boddaker's TROM lightcycle certainly deserves recognition, there are a lot of other deserving people that get shafted.

I simply don't read the reviews here any more. The copy is incredibly sloppy (and I work for another review site, I know how to proofread before publication) and the forums spend more time correcting spelling and grammar than they do commenting on the news/article. I must admit, certain columns are really great, but Xbox and iPad game reviews? Last I checked, this was a PC site, and while we do game on both I would read reviews for either on sites devoted to the specific platforms. Especially seeing as it's muscled out PC game coverage.

The departure of almost all the old staff kinda clued me in there was something wrong. Like Mankz, I'm simply not sure where this site thinks it's going, but it's not in the same direction as its members.

 

Agreed with everything above, sadly. I've been lurking around bit and the forums for about 5 years, registered in 2007.

I've held my tongue on the sheer lack of articles and reviews lately because I've been giving the site the benefit of the doubt and thinking "Maybe it's just been a slow few months for hardware" or "I don't want to jump on an anti-CPC bandwagon", but it's been months now since I first noticed the decline and I don't know how much longer I should wait for the site to pick up and become the site it was when I first started reading years ago.


As I've said elsewhere on the forum (with no comments or replies from staff at all), the worst part about the reviews on bit-tech that we do get lately is that they don't give me what I came to bit-tech for in the first place, they just give me the same content as I can get on other sites these days with better focus.
A huge part of what I liked about bit-tech's reviews in the past was the fact that over time I became familiar to some extent with the review style and personalities of the writers such as Tim, Rich, Harry and Joe.
With Tim and Bindi gone (along with their amazing, in-depth tech articles) and fewer and fewer reviews/articles from Joe and Harry lately I feel entirely detached from the reviews that I do read.

I'm sure some of the long-time CPC readers enjoy reading reviews from the CPC staff that came in; but the writers are strangers to me and bit-tech no longer feels like the site it was, with the personality and personalities it had before.
Compounding that problem is that the staff barely ever seem to post in the forums any more. As I understand it, their presence in the forums is a personal thing, something they do in their own time and not as part of the job; but I can't help but wonder what it says about the changes in bit-tech's overall atmosphere and community when even the staff are barely interacting with the community any more except to respond to the occasional article comment.


I used to come to bit-tech for game reviews and news, but over time the focus shifted away from PC gaming and a lot towards stuff like iPad games, Console games etc. and while I don't have a problem with the contents of the reviews themselves, I do have a problem with the fact that there are a million sites out there reviewing those games and few sites still reviewing PC games seriously. If I wanted console & casual games reviews I'd go to some other site, I came to bit-tech for PC games and enthusiast hardware - Not the same mainstream drivel I can see on a multitude of other sites.
This problem has been raised before and addressed to some extent by Joe, but the fact remains that we still see very few PC game reviews on bit-tech these days; whether because the site's reach is extending too far into areas beyond its original remit, or because you just need some more staff writers to give Joe a hand; I don't know.

The simple fact of the matter is that these days I pay little attention to the main site and hang around only for the forums. I get the content I want from other sites now, which is a shame, because bit-tech once felt like a nexus of everything that a PC gaming/hardware enthusiast could want. Nowadays it just feels like a watered down advertisement for CPC, and not the enthusiast-oriented site it was when I first found it.
I'm sure someone will post links to recent reviews as counter-examples to what's being said here, and I'm not claiming to have made some kind of empirical study of the rate of reviews being published etc; but to me the whole site feels different, feels more corporate; and the reviews seem to come on a slow, half-interested dripfeed instead of the enthusiastic, enthusiast-oriented torrent that we used to get.
Seeing the thread for an MNPC review of a case closed with a cold & unfriendly comment by a bit/CPC staff member said a lot for me and made me realise just how different things are around here these days; but that's a whole other can of worms right there.

As someone who has never read an issue of CPC in his life, I find myself less and less inclined to ever do so as this decline continues; and I find my pageviews consistently going elsewhere when I habitually click my favourites toolbar in my browser every day.

Edit:
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Let it be said that I think the site has also seen some huge improvements lately, too - The addition of staff blogs was fantastic and the layout is better than ever.
As I said on this general topic of complaint before:

 

Thanks for your feedback Zurechial, we (the staff) are on the forum every day, though with only a small team and many sub-forums, we're not as active in some forums as others. Still, if you feel that a thread is being ignored by my team then you can always drop me a PM.

I'll try and address your points, even though Antony (Combatus) has already done a very good job of this above.

While we've had a few off days, we've still hit our target of 2 main articles per day (typically, one gaming, one hardware) during the week and one article per day during the weekend most days over the last few months. Back in 2007 we were only publishing one article a day, so I don't know what you mean about the lack of articles. Maybe it's more that the articles that we have published haven't interested you?

Yes, we do now cover console/mobile gaming more than we used to. However, nobody is holding a gun to your head making you read them. You also have to realise that the only reason we're writing these new types of additional articles is because like them, i.e. bit-tech's traffic is significantly more than its ever been before.

 

I'm a little sad that's that how Mankz and Zurechial feel

I've been here for more than 3 years, and while bit-tech has changed since joining Dennis, it's mostly been for the better.

We always do our best to hit major NDAs. We've hit every major GeForce and Radeon launch of the last 2 years, every major CPU launch, and I've seen the guys working over time to hit these, often tight deadlines. We publish more content now than ever, with what is still a pretty small team, in addition to producing a high quality mag every month. Yes, we do hold some copy over for the mag, but it's never NDA'd stuff we've held off from the site to give the mag the scoop - it'll typically be labs, or a specific review or two.

While Rich and Tim have left bit-tech and Dennis, they did so not for a competing publication, but because they'd changed as people and wanted a whole new job. Saying they left because bit-tech changed for the worse is just plain wrong. Rich is still active on these forums (albeit working for Asus in Taiwan) and Tim is now 100% dedicated to his photography; I don't think we could get him to review a GPU for all the chips in China! We still cover new architectures and announcements, although I'll admit not in quite such exhaustive detail. This is partly in response to our own traffic stats; writing a 20 page graphics card review is pointless when people only read the first page, last page, and ARMA 2 results.

There are also a lot of ways that bit-tech has improved over the last few years. With a dedicated photography studio, the quality of our photos has risen massively. We also now get to host awesome events like the Asus motherboard events and the Western Digital day at Gamerbase, not to mention our stand at LITS later this year. We also do more competitions and the like, giving readers opportunities to score free stuff. That's on top of publishing more reviews than ever.

Yes, we do now cover console gamers, but often PRs will only send us out XB360 or PS3 code to review. For big PC centric launches like the Witcher 2, Starcraft 2 and the upcoming Battlefield 3, we put in a hell of a lot of coverage and effort. We're all still PC gamers at heart here at Bit and CPC and it'll always be our first platform; we just play games on XBox360 and our phones too, as we know you guys do too! We want the site to represent what our readers are doing after all.

In the end, I'm proud to work for bit-tech and CPC. I think we strike a good balance of being accessible, and detailed, with a greater depth of content signifying what our readers spend their time doing.

The search is rubbish though.

 

It's not so much a concern about threads being ignored as just lamenting the general decline in the involvement of the staff in the forums. I don't think that's really an issue with bit/CPC persay, I just happen to enjoy their contributions in threads, whether it be serious, site-related stuff or just opinions in modding/hardware/gaming/general threads.
The main reason I bring it up is that I just think it's indicative of the change in the atmosphere around here - The place doesn't feel the same as it used to for various reasons; and whether that's something that can/could/should actually be addressed by the staff or not I have no idea.

I think this is the crux of my main complaints and the point of what I was saying. I came to bit-tech for its nature as a friendly, somewhat niche, enthusiast-centric site with a lot of modding content and because its content in the past did interest me.
I don't feel the same about the content these days and I may well be in a minority in feeling that way; and the people who come here for the content we get today may outnumber people who have been here for a few years (and hell knows there are many major contributors to the forums who have been here a lot longer than I have); but my point is simply that the site isn't catering to my demographic as a reader in the way that it used to. It just feels like the site has become more mainstream-focused for the sake of garnering a bigger/wider readership at the expense of what made bit-tech bit-tech a few years ago.

Nobody is holding a gun to my head to read them - Of course - But that also means that as a 'customer' of sorts (or an ad-viewer, to put it financially) I'm also free to go elsewhere for my news, reviews and articles - Which I have been doing lately because bit-tech isn't delivering for me the way it used to.
The reason I post my complaints here is that I like bit-tech, I like what it used to be and I still like the site for what it is today, just not as much as I used to; and I believe in sticking around and trying to help improve something I like instead of just abandoning it and writing it off as not being 'for me' any more.
It's not a question of being forced to like the content that's here now, it's a question of feeling there's a lot less compelling me to stay and to visit every day; as much as I want to.

I understand as well that devices like smartphones, iPads and their related content (such as casual games) have become hugely significant in the wider tech world in the past couple of years, but for me that just makes it all the more important that niche sites like bit-tech remain niche as a safe-haven from the same boring iPad/iPhone/Android/PS3/Wii/X360 news that a million other sites are already doing, sometimes in greater detail due to a more focused remit.
Maybe that's an idealistic view of things, and I know money has to play a part no matter what - That's something I accept, but I'd just rather not see bit-tech turn into generic tech news site # 456289.

As I said above - I like bit-tech and I like the staff, both past and present and I certainly don't want to leave; I just don't like the direction the site has been heading in the past year or so and the shifting focus of the site has meant that my attention has just been taken elsewhere by default.

Edit:
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Baz Ninja'd while I was writing this typically longwinded post, sorry!

I don't want to put words in Mankz' mouth (or anything else for that matter ) but I know I for one am just posting my views here because I feel passionate about the site, so I really hope nobody takes anything I'm saying personally. I wouldn't be saying what I'm saying if I didn't care for bit-tech; and it should be noted that it's still my first port of call every morning when I first open my browser.

I can accept this and I don't want to make any claims about content being held back for the mag because, as I said above; I don't read CPC - I'm a bit-tech reader; so I just don't know enough to make any claims in that regard. I've always had a worry/suspicion that it is the case, but I don't want to assume anything without having the mag in my hands to compare fairly.

I didn't mean to give the impression that I thought Rich and Tim left for the wrong reasons, sorry! My comment about their departure was just that I personally miss their contributions to the site as someone who respects their insights and enjoys their writing style, nothing more. If you and Joe left bit-tech as well I'd be really lost; as I've always enjoyed your contributions as well. Frankly, I just want to see more of them! Within reason, of course - I know you guys can't write about nothing for the sake of appeasing people.

I agree with this. As I've said, it's not all negativity on my part; there have been huge improvements to things here; my concerns are focused solely on the direction of the site. The site itself has improved immensely in a number of ways over the past few months.

I understand this, too - I know that PC games are being pushed less and less by publishers and bit-tech is far from the only site which is showing more console games and fewer PC games; but the reason I make such a point of that is simply that as an enthusiast-centric site I sort of expect (maybe unfairly) bit-tech not to cave to that. Maybe I'm spoiled by the likes of Rock, Paper, Shotgun who somehow manage to remain PC only despite the current state of the industry. I don't know how they do that, and I can understand that being entirely PC-centric is risky for any ad-funded site.

If I worked for bit-tech/CPC, I would be proud too.


--

Apologies, this post is ridiculously long. I don't mean to take over here and the length of my post gives the impression that I'm excessively passionate or worked up over this; I'm just a very long-winded poster with too many things to say.
TL;DR: bit-tech is great, but I fear for its direction, personality and uniqueness as a concermed fan of the site and its staff.

 

Can I just say I was impressed by the coverage you gave World of Tanks - a PC exclusive game and one that's free to play too!

 

Thanks for your comments Zurechial, I won't do any more quotes as these mega quotes we keep sending doing are getting a bit out of hand.

I'm glad you can see by our replies that we do care - everybody on the bit team is a PC enthusiast first are foremost, and a professional journalist second.

Unfortunately however, the way the market is going right now, PC gaming is less important than it was, so we have to cover a wider variety of gaming platforms, to keep growing the readership and number of advertisers.

That way, bit-tech will continue to get good funding, which we can then spend (most of) doing the fun stuff: overclocking, modding and as sp4nky pointed out, playing with tanks, because as red blooded males know: tanks

 

I've just come in and am shattered, so I'll give your replies and thought a proper and just read and reply in the morning, thank you for responding anyway

 

Lines like this make me a little sad :-\

Let's go to a review from 2008, Left 4 Dead.. Four pages spent describing game mechanics and the underlying technology, one page dedicated to examining the graphics, and a nice conclusion. Back to 2007 now, Crysis. One page on background and story, two pages on gameplay, five pages on graphics, one page on multiplayer and a nice conclusion. These reviews are tailored very well to the specific game reviewed. Left 4 Dead had intriguing AI and gameplay mechanics, Crysis was (is) a graphical powerhouse, and time was spent accordingly in the review. Going even further back to Oblivion and FEAR show similarly top notch quality. These are game reviews truly from the point of view of PC hardware enthusiasts!

More recent reviews? Look at Duke Nukem Forever, the new Red Faction, Darkspore, etc. Two pages of the same stuff I could get from Gamespot, IGN, PC Gamer..

To continually grow the readership and number of advertisers, you have to cater to a wider audience, which naturally moves you away from your base, the PC modders and enthusiasts.

What interest does Dennis have in keeping Bit-Tech in its niche? None, when there's more money to be made by producing content of a wider variety at a higher rate. You guys have done an admirable job keeping the quality of writing high, and I still read quite a few of the published articles and comment fairly often.. It's just not at the level that drew me to read pretty much every article published. Bit has lost that ultra-nerd depth that it once had.

 

+1 to everything docodine said TBH.

I'm not a game reviewer, but I find it hard to believe that adding a few more pages to a review will take that much more time or effort. I would think the majority of the time would be spent actually playing the game and formulating/organising your thoughts and ideas, and the opportunity to have more space to express them should be welcomed. Unfortunately I find I read fewer game reviews on this site these days because they're so much shorter and less in depth, that I can find more useful ones elsewhere. So if it's just a matter of time, then I don't really see the justification for cutting the length of reviews in half (unless I'm wrong on that), but if you are saying that a 5-page review gets overall fewer views than a 2-page review, then I find that very interesting.

Personally, I think you're putting to much emphasis on traffic stats that it's declining to quality of reviews - if I'm interested in a product then I want to read the whole thing, not just the first and last pages (as I might if I was just curious or didn't have time to read the whole thing).

 

I think so.

The logs are all that keeps me here (and General. Gosh, that's always hopping).

Personally, I want (knowing that it is unlikely to happen) Bit to be the maverick - do more PC gaming stuff even if it means less cash. Do piles of modding features even if no one outside the site is going to read it. Et cetera et cetera.

Maybe I'm just a romantic.

 

I've read comments by disgruntled forum members many times over the years, and always wondered what they were on about. I thought the modding thing was going along
swimmingly and that bit-tech's commitment was the same as always. But lately I've taken to thinking about this a bit, and now I'm not so sure. I've had a feeling that
'modding' is perhaps past it's peak as a pastime and that bit-tech is merely riding the down slope as well as they can. I dont have any hard evidence about this, I
couldn't tell you how sales of modding gear have declined, or, how traffic to modding forums is lower than it once was. I also dont want to spend weeks researching
bit-tech to see how things may have changed over the years. But I did spend a couple of hours going through what ever info was available regarding the bit-tech Mod of
the year comps.There has only been five of these and being yearly they should give an overview I can research quickly.

Here's what I found. Nothing earth shattering, but I think you can notice a trend, and it's not necessarily bit-techs fault, though you can see how the sites emphasis
on modding 'as our reason for existing' has changed over the years.



So lets start with the comps and all the details that go with them plus any figures I could get. Bit-tech is not too forth-comming when it comes to voting numbers, but
this may well be due to commercial considerations. Numbers we do have are the post numbers in the forums. These can show the level of interest in the comp itself in any
particular year, and also interest in the winners after they are decided.I'll lay out all that I could get and include some summaries here and there.



Mod of the year 2006

This was the first Moty comp and bit-techs commitment to modding was made very clear in the opening paragraph. Only the first placed mod was given a prize (I'll disregard
readers/voters prizes) and in this case it was $500 cash.



Here is the original article - http://www.bit-tech.net/modding/2006/12/17/Mod_of_the_Year_2006/1

The forum thread for the article- http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=125685

The result article - http://www.bit-tech.net/news/modding/2007/01/02/mod_of_the_year_result/1

The forum thread - http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?p=1395056

A couple of points here., the reaction in the forum to the original article resulted in 142 posts.
The post count in the forum thread for the winner article was 43 comments.
According to bit-tech, 'over 1500' was the vote count.

Mod of the year 2007

This time the prizes for the winner were increased greatly. Just the CPU part of the prize was worth about 600 pounds, and $200 cash was also included. Again, the first paragraph of the article re-affirms
bit-techs commitment to all things modding.





The original article - http://www.bit-tech.net/modding/2007/12/24/mod_of_the_year_2007/1

The forum thread - http://www.bit-tech.net/modding/2007/12/24/mod_of_the_year_2007/comments

Result - http://www.bit-tech.net/news/modding/2008/01/14/mod_of_the_year_2007_winner_announced/1

Discussion - http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=145290

Cant find a link to the forum thread for the article so have linked to the comments page.
Still a large number of comments to the article, 93.
And 43 comments in reply to the winner article.
Bit-tech says about the number who voted, 'more than double' last years vote count, so lets say 3000. Wow.

Mod of the year 2008

This is the first year that second and third place prizes were awarded. The prize list is large and of high quality.
A slightly different tone to the article here compared to the previous two years.

Article - http://www.bit-tech.net/modding/2008/12/24/bit-tech-mod-of-the-year-2008/1

Comments -http://www.bit-tech.net/modding/2008/12/24/bit-tech-mod-of-the-year-2008/comments

Results - http://www.bit-tech.net/news/bits/2009/01/07/mod-of-the-year-2008-winner-announced/1

Comments - http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=162582

Already a trend can be seen in the number of comments to the comp articles.
For the original article there was 84 comments and for the results article the comment count was 23.
For this year bit-tech released voting percentages but no absolute numbers.


Mod of the year 2009

No new developments here. Prizes are more or less similar to the previous year.Plenty of them and high quality.

Article - http://www.bit-tech.net/modding/2009/12/24/mod-of-the-year-2009/1

Comments - http://www.bit-tech.net/modding/2009/12/24/mod-of-the-year-2009/comments

Results - http://www.bit-tech.net/news/modding/2010/01/14/mod-of-the-year-the-winners/1

Comments - http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=181514

Again, reader interest (at least that which can be surmised from comments) is less than the year before.
Just 68 comments to the article and 37 comments to the result.
The voting also seems to have plunged. bit-tech states, 'Hundreds of you have turned out to vote'.

Mod of the year 2010

Here the only general difference is that the prize list has been consolidated.

Article - http://www.bit-tech.net/modding/2010/12/24/mod-of-the-year-2010/1

Comments - http://www.bit-tech.net/modding/2010/12/24/mod-of-the-year-2010/comments

Results - http://www.bit-tech.net/news/modding/2011/01/07/mod-of-the-year-2010-the-winner/1

Comments - http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=201022

The trend continues with just 55 comments for the article and 35 for the result.
According to bit-tech, 'nearly 1200 votes' were cast. On the surface this sounds better than last year.



Hmmm, interesting.


My opinion? I think modding peaked in 2007/08. I didn't come to this conclusion because of the info in this post, though if you look at the mods in the comps for 06/07/08, WOW, what a bunch of great mods. I don't think bit-tech can do anything but carry on the way they are going now. There are still a lot of modders here and they buy stuff but there are a lot more tech heads and gamers. I'm still looking at great work here all the time.

I will add one more point., It cant be doing modding any good when every second project in the project log section looks almost exactly the same. You know what I'm talking about, this wasn't the case a few years ago and I skip many threads in that section because of this.

 

I agree, it doesn't take skill to use a laser cutter and put the acrylic together. It may look good, but to me it's no match on going cheap and pulling out a dremel. Like we've seen so many times in the forums with people using generic cases and making them awesome.

 

Just read through, and have to say I'm very intrigued by some of the points made. I guess it's evolution at the end of the day. Things change some better some worse. The only tech forum I really take part in is the Bit-Tech one. It used to be Egosoft's X3 forum but we won't go there

Sure sometimes a new architecture comes out and I want a little more detail so I'll head over to Anandtech or Guru3D but bit-tech is firmly in my bookmark bar and it's not going anywhere soon

 

Im affraid i have to agree with mankz, when i signed up bit was just what i needed in a sea of mediocre/generic review sites.

Things change but bit hasnt just changed its totally lost its way imo, this could be down to cpc taking over, or the loss of staff members or other reasons.

Like mankz though the site is no longer the first place i look for reviews, and imo isnt anywhere near as 'useful' as it once was.

Sent from my Desire HD using Tapatalk

 

Take a case in point - http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/pc/2011/07/03/hunted-the-demon-s-forge/2

The style of writing is very good and what's there is perfectly readable, it's just that there's clearly not enough. A 70% game is historically a 'if you like this sorta thing'. How can it be expected to play on an 8800GT - or the gfx card that's currently flavour of the month? It would only take an extra paragraph or two and a couple of screenshots (or even a video) to show how the gfx options affect how the game looks. I could only hope that the sound is any good because there's little mention of it.

This is what I've noticed a lot of in PC game reviews on the site though - they offer a sometimes alternative insight but there's nothing to get your teeth into.