This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things...

[Daveman]

The guy has always come across as a bit immature to be honest. His motto seems to be "I'm right and have these opinions and if you disagree I don't care about your opinion and stop watching my videos". I mean shouldn't people be allowed to have one or two differing opinions without you throwing a hissy fit? I know there are the obvious trolls but talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

So from what I've heard the situation is this. A subsection of his audience complains because they feel they are being left out, so he cancels the entire thing and blames those people, thus creating even more division.

Smooth.

 

[Smeatza]

There is no point in running a competition if the winners have to spend more than the prize is worth to actually get the prize.
If you hide the fact that competition winners will have to do the above, they are going to get pissed when they do find out. What other reason was there for him to leave out that piece of information from the video and separately announce it on twitter? Besides the fact the competition would get more interest that way.
I've always been indifferent of TotalBiscuit but m opinion of him has soured now.

 

[Lazy Kitty]

Well, what do you expect when the rest of us is being left out again.
It's always US/Canada.
Europe never seems to be included.
Probably the same for the rest of the world.

If you're gonna do something only a limited number of people can benefit from, at least make sure the rest of us don't know about it, so you don't get our hopes up.

 

[Yopaz]

OK, so I can't say TotalBiscuit is in the wrong for making the contest US/Canada only. It makes sense.

People will ***** about it and I feel myself getting really annoyed every time something like this happens to me, but we should be able to act like reasonable people. However this goes both ways. He could simply have explained that rather than cancelling the contest.

 

[ramboondiea]

Couldn't he just buy a few cards in Europe and have them shipped directly from there?

I don't see why it's an issue, or is the GPU in question only available in America?

With giveaways, it's often never a case of going into a store, buying the cards and sending them out. The cost will have been subsidized by Nvidia, who will do so because it gets them great publicity. Any region restriction is probably going to have been imposed by them.

Surely it's not outside the realms of possibility for TB to request that a few be set aside in Europe for winners there?

I don't really like the guy, so I have no interest in the competition.

It just seems like something that could be easily remedied with a bit of communication.

The company sent him some cards (or he already owned them, i cant remember), but all of the transport of the cards was down to him, so he physically had them there physically with him, so to send them out internationally would have literally cost him thousands due to insurance and the like.

Then a shit storm happened when he told people he would only send them to north america and Canada and people demanding that he should make it available to everyone, he got pissed and decided to send the cards back to navidi. but before all this he did say that if anyone with an american P.O.box was more then welcome to enter, then they could deal with shipping themselves. ultimately it was a nice giveaway gesture that was met with bile.

ot: I really don't see why people where so pissed, "OH NO!!! i don't have a chance to win some free crap because he wont spend thousands to send them to me on the off-chance i win" because as we all know every contest ever always includes everyone in the world,

I am more annoyed because its like the guy said, if you were that desperate to enter you could have set up a p.o box, a massive arseache and likely going to cost you more then the cards value but hey, you could have done.

 

[Lazy Kitty]

Well, what do you expect when the rest of us is being left out again.
It's always US/Canada.
Europe never seems to be included.
Probably the same for the rest of the world.

If you're gonna do something only a limited number of people can benefit from, at least make sure the rest of us don't know about it, so you don't get our hopes up.

Hope that is sarcasm, this is the internet how was he supposed to only let those in the US/Canada know?

It was on youtube, right?
He could always do one of those "This video is unavailable in your country" things youtube does for the rest of us.

Anyway, it's not sarcasm.
It's just how people react.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

It's all over the world. People in America get super pissy because they can't watch Doctor Who at the same time as us. Fuck people.

But TB is calling people "entitled fucks" rather than explaining things carefully. And he apparently didn't mention it in the original video? He should take some of the blame.

To be fair, it's mostly about iPlayer access. I understand they TV licenses are pretty cheap over there, and the fact that you're only supposed to use it if you have a TV license is why you can't use it outside of the UK. Well, as a US citizen I'd probably be willing to slip the British government a reasonable amount of money to have full access to their online content, and help pay for the production of some of my favorite shows. Then you have things like Hulu, where it's ad supported and there's absolutely no excuse for region restriction. Region restrictions on pretty much anything digitally distributed are ridiculous.

Physical products, on the other hand? Yeah, it's kind of silly to expect to get free overseas shipping on something like that. I mean I guess if the person who won was willing to cover shipping it would be one thing, but making sure that whoever won actually followed through would be a nightmare, so I don't really blame Total Biscuit for doing this.

 

[Da Orky Man]

http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/entitlement


Seriously


What kind of special toll fees are there for computer parts?

As the EU and the US have no free trade agreement, there are various extra fees and tolls and suh that need to be taken into account. Not only does he have to pay shipping, but also import VAT and possibly duty tax. It all adds up.

On the other hand, if he got one in the EU to begin with, as there are no trade restrictions, you only pay shipping.

 

[Pink Gregory]

He's based in the US. What were people expecting?

 

[Henrik Knudsen]

Who cares about TotalHypocrite anyway? The person that says he dislikes fanboys but if you are not a fanboy of him and dares criticize anything he does you're entitled, whiny and not worth anything.

Only thing he got going for him is his accent, his videos are not even good anymore.

Anyway, alienating your followers that way even more is just stupid from any PR view, Bioware had a similiar backlash with some big community event that turned out was only for US residents.

Yeah no surprise, if he had any brain and was not stuck up on his "Oh I am TH, I am infallible in the eyes of myself" he should never have started the event in the first place.

 

[Angie7F]

It is free stuff. Why should the guy holding the competition have to cover shipping expenses. Some people just dont understand the nature of business. lol

 

[Use_Imagination_here]

What?

I don't understand, what's the problem?

So he wanted to give shit away, but only in a certain area? So what?

People are always gonna ***** and moan, he completely over reacted.

 

[Dark Knifer]

Speaking as an Australian, dunno what's with the whining. If he didn't make it clear that it's for USA/Canada only then thats an error that should be rectified, and was if a bit hostile, and that should be that really.

I dunno, maybe I'm just used to this being unable to contribute to kickstarter etc.

 

[Henrik Knudsen]

The problem lies in saying to your regular followers that they are worth less than other regular followers.

If you say that some followers are worth less than other followers you are in deep shit which TB found out.

It is not because people can't win per se, but the competition should have been held on some channel exclusive to US/Canada.

It is a natural reaction. It has nothing to do with entitlement, you treat your fanbase poorly (as he does) you lose fans! If said fans feel betrayed because they followed him for a long time, generating his fucking income by sitting through his commercials, expect a backlash.

If he didn't live by ad income and instead just reviewed games on a hobby basis and had an actual fucking job like a used car salesman the backlash wouldn't be as huge, sure some idiot will always whine but this time it is justified.

IMO

 

[Simple Bluff]

The problem lies in saying to your regular followers that they are worth less than other regular followers.

I'm not a TB apologist or anything, but if that presumption ("He considers us inferior") is your honest to goodness reaction to "I can't do this giveaway everywhere" then... well, that's not a healthy mindset. Especially considering he had a pretty valid reason.

 

[Henrik Knudsen]

Well then he should perhaps have considered offering it through alternate channels and not on his global channel where everyone should be treated equally poorly by him.

Anyway haven't followed TotalHypocrites channel for quite a while, since he reviews shitty games mostly and is uninspiring.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

Since this is a mostly US-based website, I think a lot of people don't understand the feeling us europeans can get when this kind of stuff happens. It reminds of a dismissive and downright condescending attitude some Americans have in the past had towards Europe, i.e. viewing the whole continent as a bunch of bickering stereotypes and wusses not worth bothering with. We often get most big movies later than the US, not to mention tv shows, games etc. Though in this case it was perfectly justifiable to make it a US/CA only competition.

What?

I don't understand, what's the problem?

So he wanted to give shit away, but only in a certain area? So what?

People are always gonna ***** and moan, he completely over reacted.

He held the competition on the World Wide Web. He's a very popular internet persona with a worldwide fanbase. Not mentioning that the contest will be held only in a specific area right off the bat when you're in such a high position can be very harmful to your reputation.

 

[Aeshi]

Modern Generation is a nutshell my friend.

"I can't have that, so I don't want anyone else to have it either"