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A couple of days in the past, Avid gamers Nexus launched an exposé calling NZXT’s gaming PC rental service NZXT Flex a “predatory, evil rental pc rip-off”. This brought about fairly a stir in on-line PC gaming communities, and it appears NZXT’s taken notice, as the corporate has now issued an official assertion concerning the challenge.
In a weblog publish, NZXT outlines some actions being taken in response, in addition to some clarifications about this system. In a YouTube video, NZXT founder and CEO Johnny Hou expands on this and acknowledges the errors the corporate has made, stating, “I need to acknowledge that we tousled.”
The issues that Avid gamers Nexus seemingly recognized with the Flex program primarily amounted to an image of a service that misrepresents merchandise, locks customers into an unfair contract and has predatory pricing. As an example, this consists of swapping out elements for much less highly effective ones, utilizing the identical names for Flex PCs as extra highly effective non-Flex ones, and exhibiting seemingly deceptive or false benchmarks.
At the least, that is insofar because the case Avid gamers Nexus lays out is correct, and on this entrance Hou and NZXT have tried to make clear some potential misconceptions.
Relating to these, NZXT says: “NZXT Flex clients have by no means skilled a pre-tax subscription worth improve and can by no means expertise one until they resolve to modify subscription tiers.
“In the course of the common course of enterprise, particularly throughout excessive seasonality moments, the provision of various elements requires specification modifications, generally in real-time. In reality, clients could expertise a free improve primarily based on altering stock ranges.
“NZXT’s Flex program is a subscription-based gaming PC different that doesn’t lock clients right into a long-term dedication” and “we’ve got up to date the subscriber settlement to make sure every side is even clearer.”
Within the video, Hou additionally states: “Let me be completely clear, we aren’t within the enterprise of promoting your knowledge. Each Flex PC that comes again is totally wiped.”
However in addition to making an attempt to clear up some misconceptions, NZXT has recognised the seriousness and legitimacy of at the least a number of the considerations that have been raised. Hou says, “Quite a lot of the problems are very severe and it is actually vital to us that we deal with each one in all them.”
Along with updating the subscriber settlement to make it clearer, the corporate has taken actions to enhance sure issues Avid gamers Nexus criticised. The corporate states it has “pulled all influencer-led Flex promoting and have instituted a extra sturdy inventive evaluate course of” as a result of “it isn’t acceptable for our promoting to speak issues that aren’t true.” It’s going to even be “altering the names of merchandise supplied by way of our Flex subscription, offering a really clear distinction between the 2.”
Extra typically, Hou emphasises that the PC rental service serves a real objective: “I feel there’s an actual use case for it.” For instance, somebody would possibly need to check out streaming with out dedication, or somebody coming over from console gaming would possibly need to check out PC gaming basically only for a month. And on this level, NZXT clarifies that the Flex program “doesn’t lock clients right into a long-term dedication.”
Whereas Hou’s video acknowledging the problems does appear honest to my ears, and whereas a number of the clarifications do at the least make clear the corporate’s aspect of the story, I can not assist however really feel that some large points have not been totally addressed, particularly the costly pricing.
However I suppose one may make the identical argument in opposition to many rental companies: Sure, they’re costlier in the long term, however you are paying a premium to forestall having to pay for no matter it’s up-front, in full. I suppose so long as merchandise are represented clearly and precisely, this should not be an issue. Let’s simply hope the actions NZXT says it is taking will carry extra accuracy and readability to the service and its advertising and marketing and promoting.
