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The Death of Gamespotting

Posted by Zonk on from the better-a-bullet-to-the-head-than-other-places dept.

Gamespot editor Greg Kasavin had the news via his journal that next week Gamespotting will receive a bullet to the head. The longrunning feature on the site is being replaced with a running commentary on games and the industry entitled Freeplay. From the article: "I've always found it flattering how much some people seem to like that feature, which was, above all, an outlet. It's the sort of outlet I've always personally needed while working here, because the standard types of content I help to produce don't give me the context to talk about some of the issues that really matter to me. Now the same itch can be scratched by blogging or whatever, though as some of you have observed, it's just not the same." Seen via the Video Game Ombudsman.

11 comments

  1. Never heard of it by APE992 · · Score: 1

    So popular a feature it took Slashdot to inform me of it's existance. Granted I never did hover over Gamespot a whole lot.

    1. Re:Never heard of it by Seumas · · Score: 1

      So popular, there's only two posts after all this time.

    2. Re:Never heard of it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And I still don't even know what it is. Looks like some sort of general articles about game reviews. Or something.

      This is really very sloppy reporting. The blurb could contained a few sentences, link to high quality past articles, and so on, so we could understand what it is...

  2. Reason? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Anyone know why? The article doesn't say.

    1. Re:Reason? by ElectricBrain · · Score: 1

      Probably to create buzz and generate traffic.

  3. Such a bad metaphor by Dancin_Santa · · Score: 1

    I guess that the gaming culture breeds a sort of insensitivity to death, and that's the reason Kasavin is so easily able to put a "bullet to the head" of his column. Forgive me if I find such phrasing to be in bad taste.

    1. Re:Such a bad metaphor by cowscows · · Score: 1

      Yeah, and besides that, it doesn't make any sense. He says:

      "it's getting a bullet in the head, which is to say, it's gonna go out with a bang. That's right, our long-running staff feature will be going on a permanent vacation real soon."

      It sounds to me that it's going out fairly quietly. It'll just stop being there. Going out "with a bang" should be a little more exciting and provocative than that. Going out with a bang means that in the final installment, they tell us how all the writers have spent the last four years locked in a closet, eating nothing but human fetuses, and here's the pictures to prove it.

      Maybe there's something more controversial in the works for the finale that he forgot to mention, but he didn't sound too excited about it.

      --

      One time I threw a brick at a duck.

  4. You guys crack me up! by dreamquick · · Score: 1

    As if there'd be any worthwhile content on Gamespot... hehe...

    Being serious though, gamespot was never "all that" with their biased and uninformative reviews - the final nail in their coffin was their delusions of grandure when they decided that they'd *charge* for access to older reviews and content without improving their quality in the process.

    Hello? Charging for crappy reviews on the web is a waste of time - "Oh woe is me, Gamespot won't let me access this review unless I sign up for their service, whatever will I do?"

    "Oh wait, there are several hundred other sites with superior & less publisher-biased reviews who are happy to welcome an extra visitor with open arms."

    Gamespot - nice name, crap site, avoid it like the plague my friends...

    1. Re:You guys crack me up! by 77Punker · · Score: 1

      This is what "gamespotting" is? Who gives a damn about any single game review site? I get nearly all of my game information from http://gamerankings.com/ and http://gamefaqs.com/. If it isn't there, it's on Google.

    2. Re:You guys crack me up! by dreamquick · · Score: 1

      "Gamespotting" is/was an editorial/bloggy column that featured on the gamespot site (hence the name), and from what I've looked at while reading TFA I'm suprised the series survived this long because it's pretty poor even by gamespot standards...

      It's an online version of the "filler" page they used to use in games magazines to occupy otherwise wasted space - you know the one where each staff member gets a sentence to sum up their thoughts on the current issue.

      The concept sucked in the 90's, still sucks now - basically it's content-devoid ego stroking of the first order IMHO.

  5. A little late... by Dissonant · · Score: 1

    The last Gamespotting has already been posted. The article in the link is almost two weeks old.

    http://www.gamespot.com/features/6128136/index.htm l