New cheeseball ATi slides bashing 512MB 7800 GTX

[Jawed]

Worse? If this were a moral debate maybe. But it's not - is it?

I guess my point is that AEG's actions should not alter the environment in any significant way. We already had entire forums and websites being accused of bias in the past. Nearly everyone has an opinion whenever the topic is Nvidia vs ATi. Some people are concerned that Nvidia can tip the balance by selecting a few choice individuals to rally their cause. I just don't see it happening given the size of the community and the other (more effective) sources of influence out there.

What you fail to take into account is that there'd be no point in employing a single shill on a forum. The effect comes from employing lots. And the shills have to appear to be "normal" people, not fanbois.

Fanbois are easy to spot and disregard.

It's the mealy-mouthed veiled dishonesty of shills who are being paid to talk-up products, en masse, that turn forums into something rather less open than a forum.

A group of high-volume posters who appear to independently say that a product is great and pooh-pooh driver-quality, SLI-compatibility, manufacturer-service and image quality problems at every turn is very useful, no?

The Halo Effect no longer solely consists of the top of the range cards winning benchmarks.

Jawed