The State Of bit-tech

I looked into that a bit. A few reviews deem Uniblue Driver Scanner mediocre, but legit software. Users on other forums complain that it badgers you with adverts for its other products, called SpeedUpMyPC, considered of doubtful effectiveness and Registry Booster, which is alleged to not work very well at all, missing some broken entries and creating false positives. Uniblue is also accused of using scareware tactics in their programs.

 

FWIW, which isn't much. I've noticed an increadible drop in quality since I started reading BT a long time before I signed up to the forum.

I like reading old reviews on here, the writing is evocative, informed, interesting. As far as I'm concerned, some of the best hardware writing that's out there. It's a pleasure to sit and read. I've not read an article on here for a while that felt anything other than generic and frankly, just incredibly dull writing. I can't remember the last time I read anything in a review that made me laugh or even actually think about the dullness I was reading through. It's not just that there's nothing in the articles to laugh at, I'm not here to laugh but there's also nothing in the articles to encapsulate or interest.

A friend of mine posted a "review" of some laptop on a student website she blogs for, it was typical awful student journalism along the lines of "The new sony bla bla has FOUR GB of memories and it has lovely sleek lines and looks pretty" (Paraphrasing but you get the point) and I genuinely considered that it might have been a bit-tech article.

I pay no notice to BT reviews any more, once upon a time it was almost my *only* source of tech info but now I don't take any information from it. There are far more things to say about it but frankly I don't really have the wont. The only reason I come here is the forum.

P.S - Please can you stop considering "Previews" as anything other than the filler material that they are. They aren't real articles and they shouldn't be put on the front page as though they are.

P.P.S - If you're going to do a review on an AIO water cooling loop, please can you compare it to comparable products?

It's not nice to have negative opinions when essentially this is real people at their job, but really, things need to improve or BT will die.

 

First of all, I'd like to thank everyone for their feedback - we are reading it and I'm trying to make sure we react to it.

Second of all, can I ask if you feel that these complaints are valid across both the Hardware and Gaming sections (because the latter is directly my responsibility)?

Thirdly, do you feel that these complaints are valid across the website and the magazine, or do you feel that one is stronger than the other in certain ways?

 

I just feel the mag and website are being treated the same, and although the writing style works for a published mag it fails as a website.

 

I know im very knew to the block, but i'll throw my $.02 in

I picked up my first cpc last year when i built my first pc. Back then, i basically knew **** all about the parts of a pc, how they go together, what they do. I found that CPC gave a good grounding, a sort of middle ground. It taught me some basics and got me more interested in the "hobby" if i can call it that. However, it wasnt till i hit the forum that i found the most useful relevant data. Flicking though some threads I got the impression that there were a couple of heros in each forum helping out, but they were just getting washed out in masses of threads.

I can see what a difficult position you are in. On one hand, you are teaching newbs like me the basics, which will only irrate the old wizenned nam veterns in the corner - "ive seen some **** man...." Yet on the other hand, you'll never increase the readership if you just keep producing very intensive techy articles - pc building and modding is already seen as a difficult technical thing to do by those who dont know much about it. I think that you are kinda in a catch 22.

i think that if you take on some of the sensible advice that has been posted here, you'll be fine! keep it up lads and ladies!

 

SolidShot said it, basically.

You're catering to two different audiences. I know it's hard/impossible to do but if you'd separate Mag and B-T content, with only a handful of crossovers (MOTM, MOTY, the odd feature article) I think you'd be able to give the CPC "newbies", as SolidShot put it, what they are used to and the hardcore interwebz junkies what we were used to.

Right now it feels like BT is getting the short end of the stick.

 

Good to see you Joe, I have a showing of FO this weekend with a MUCH better demo than last time.

I decided to not wander off into the sunset, rather I'm gonna help how I can.

The CPC crowd isn't looking for what the Bit crowd is. I'm starting to get that. We want in-depth, drawn out over the top articles-because that's what drew us to Bit in the first place. Sharing a photographer with Dennis is a sure way to upset your readers. We want pictures, we want wit (Joe I'm looking at you) and we want depth-things that are sadly missing everywhere now, and we want them back.

Bit has one HELL of a games writer in Joe. Lock him in his office with something new on PC, shove pizzas under the door and give him a portajohn. Let him stretch his legs, he's a seriously good writer (and I'm a reviewer as well as a published writer, and have a degree in lit-he's a serious asset by all those standards.)

Bravo to bringing Mankz back on board. I really enjoy seeing what he thinks is impressive out there.

People here are trying. I reminded myself of that when I saw that ad and got upset. For many years I made a living removing junk like that from people's PCs, and I just don't think it has a place here. The Scan ads, the other hardware vendors all have their place here and I don't mind them at all. But it is an affront to any of us who do (or did) fix these things for the general public for a living. I wasn't the only one that made an outcry, though. I think enough people did so that someone took notice.

Right now, I'm here for the excellent friends I've made over the years. I happen to count Joe and Nexxo among them, and Tim and Rich when they're here as well. That is part of it, seeing some of the new staff I simply don't have the rapport with them I did with the previous members. I can tell, however that they do know their stuff-I'd like to see them get their hands dirty and throw out some of their knowledge too.

We understand everyone has a lot on their plate. But the people of Bit want to help just as much as the staff. Mankz doesn't have to be the only one-we have a few indie designers here, some very famous modders and some rather decent overclockers. Leverage the readership of the site to help you create the content we used to love so much. As I've said, I won't complain without offering to help.

 

Same here. I've been rather busy lately but I still want to write the definite article on "Do video games make you violent?" or games addiction from a review of the psychological literature... You have professionals here, from engineers to counsellors. May as well use them.

 

Thanks for your feedback guys. Striking the right balance between bit and CPC remains our biggest challenge, and something we recognise still isn't quite right.

As several of you have mentioned that you'd like to get more involved in bit yourselves, the best thing to do is send me an email (editor@bit-tech.net) with an outline of the article you'd like to write, and we'll take it from there.

After all, bit is host to a hugely knowledgable and friendly community, and we can all help each other to learn more about our favourite hobby.

 

While I have a small slobbering crisis here right now, I'll be e-mailing you.

I must say, while I've not known you nearly as long as everyone on the bit staff (pre-CPC) you've been most willing to listen to the community. I think we all want Bit to continue to dominate as it has in the past-and if we all help, it will.

 

there is something that's bothered me about this forum for awhile.. but it probably was done on purpose, and not too big a deal

but when you use the image tags and your image is too large, it gets resized.. but when you click top tab on the picture for the full image.. you don't end up with 1:1 pixels and it makes the image blurry

could be

might make some of the photos posted look a bit better

 

This part has confused me too, isn't there enough places that these games are reviewed. I can maybe understand the want to compare the platforms but I don't care how good or bad the consoles are/aren't.

If others care however I can ignore it but I have a feeling from reading comment sections that most don't and would prefer the time to be spent creating a more in depth review of another product.

Just my 2 cents.

 

There does seem to be a lot of stuff that isn't about custom PC building in recent issues, I would subscribe if there was more technical content like the computers in space article.

Currently the mag is just a bit... disappointing.

 

Is Joe still with you?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit-tech He's missing under Staff, I suppose he IS staff.

Cheers,

Xir

 

He's just written some news...he must still be there

 

I will start with all the positive things about this still great site and community. I used hardware reviews from this site to build my computer - they were helpful and accurate. It has good staff and a pretty good community (in the Hardware and Marketplace sections especially). Now the rest;

I was never very active on the forums, but I did read the articles avidly - especially the games ones. There is no comparison between the way they were then and the way they are now. I think it was CardJoe who said there was no time to do them the old way (with in depth graphics testing etc). Frankly they are boring now, and not really worth reading. They reflect the amount of time that goes into them.

Xbox and mobile games need to go - this is not a multiplatform site, it is a PC site. If publishers don't send you PC review copies then don't review them. With a limited number of staff and time you cannot realistically hope to cover multiple platforms effectively. Please stick to what you are good at - hardware, modding and pc games.

 

I'm still here. I've added myself back on to the Wiki - don't know why I wasn't there.

I agree that Bit-Gamer needs to focus itself more and that's something we do try to do and which I will work on correcting in the future. The problem with graphics analysis wasn't purely a time issue however, it was also a matter of utility - where's the value in saying "High settings look better, but require more resources" over and over. It just wasn't interesting for most games and, while we'll do stuff like that for Crysis (and with Crysis 2 we actually did separate articles about it), we're not going to do it for every game.

I disagree with a lot of what I read about my old reviews being better in other fronts too. I read that stuff now and...eugh. So much ego, so much baseless criticism and points that weren't clarified or which were disguised with jokes. I feel the work we do now is a lot more professional and correct and, while I recognise that sometimes that means it isn't quite as anarchic or personal as some may want it to be, I'm willing to accept that if it means the quality is there in other ways. If people enjoy hearing me rant like a crazy person then they can listen to the podcast or read my blogs, either here or on my personal blog. This is Bit-Gamer, not Destructoid and I want to bloody keep it that way.

That said, I do recognise that we're not giving some readers what they want.

So, starting soon (we'd start now, but I'm about to go on my first proper holiday in about five years) we'll be bringing back graphics analysis of games, but as separate articles. This is something I've been considering for a while and I want to start with The Witcher 2 if possible, once it gets its new update. These articles won't be as regular as they once were, but they will be more focused to the games that require them and kept separate from normal reviews. My hope is to do one a month and to bring more to these articles than we used to offer - there'll be more of a focus on exploring the details and getting comment from developers when we can.

I'd be interested to know all your thoughts on this, but more critically I'm going to need your support too. This sort of content is demanding on my limited time (there's one of me and I sometimes manage as many articles as the rest of the staff together!) and will only continue if readers are ready to take an active, constructive interest.

Man, I wish I had more time to cruise the forums and talk to you guys these days.

Spoiler

And, to be fair, we've done one console review in a month. There's no way we aren't predominantly PC.

 

Well Joe, since you feel that way, I'm gonna send you something, see what you think. I might be able to help.

 

On reflection I think perhaps I was a little too critical. What drew me into bit-tech were your games reviews. I thought the idea of doing some reasonably focused analysis of the practical effects of the game engines was interesting - it certainly made your articles stand out. You are a more mature writer now, and your writing is probably better as a result of this. However, the articles as a whole are still what draw people here, not the quality of the writing. Gonzo journalism is interesting and entertaining! Striking a balance between now and then may be the best option. As you are a one man team people will be quite happy for you to put in your ego - apart from the fact that a lot of games cannot be objectively reviewed in the same way that a CPU cooler can, people tend to like writing with character in it.

Also the last thing I want is for this site to become Destructoid - bit-tech is a refuge for me against the horrors of that site!

 

What kind of "active, constructive interest" are you looking for Joe?

I'm sure many people (Including me) would be happy to help, but I'm not sure what you'd be looking for people to do?