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Game Journalist May Have Been Fired Over Negative Review
It started as a rumour post on Kotaku and a Penny Arcade comic strip: reviewer Jeff Gerstmann was fired from the gaming news site Gamespot for giving the co-op action title Kane and Lynch a low score, and snarking on the game in the review. The catch? The firing was dictated by games publisher Eidos, who didn't appreciate the veteran reviewer's tone in the piece. Their ad campaign (spread across the entirety of the Gamespot site) may have been used as a bargaining tool of some kind. Joystiq has a lengthy, detailed summary of this event and its implications, which is no longer technically a rumour. Gerstmann confirmed to the blog that he has been let go from the C|Net-affiliated site, but as of right now can't talk about the details. "The ramifications of the story, if true, are huge. Readers should fairly expect there to be an inviolable firewall between advertising and editorial in journalism, and game journalism (yes, that includes "just reviews") is no different. While our industry has had its fair share of accusations of impropriety, nothing so far has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. Giving a publisher the power to fire a senior editor is a line no outlet should be willing to cross." Update: 11/30 17:40 GMT by Z : The Joystiq story continues to be updated, and Tycho has put up what the PA guys heard about the tale in text. Joystiq also has an additional post about the story, with a brief (noncommittal) response from Gamespot.
I frequent Gamespot often enough that I set up a Firefox quick search ("gs gamename" in my address bar), and I recognize Gerstmann as one of their senior, more talented writers and personalities. I actually thought he was one of the founders of Gamespot, considering his seniority and tendency to review many of the more anticipated AAA titles.
The site won't be the same without him. I may even change my quick search to 1up.com or metacritic.com as a result. I can't attest to the veracity of this gossipey claim in the article but Gerstmann has earned enough journalistic integrity that I'm not surprised that he'd review high profile games honestly.
Really, is getting fired for accurate journalism a curse or a great bullet point on your resume? I'd wish Jeff luck but thanks to his outstanding track record I'm sure he won't need any.
I really enjoyed listening to Roger Ebert's opinions when he was alive and doing his movie review show. I also love the Filthy Critic and his lively take on modern movies.
But as much as I like them, I find that I disagree with them almost all the time. My own movie experience is so different from theirs, my reaction to the movies being sometimes in direct opposition, that the only benefit I get from reading their "reviews" is the entertainment value.
I can't imagine how much more divergent something like a game would make these types of opinions. After all, you're not just a passive viewer of a game anymore. You're actually taking part in it and shaping the outcome as you play. How can someone's impressions of something as personal as this be of any value to anyone else?
I like gamespot reviews because they're usually quite tough with the games. Most games get an inferior mark on gamespot that in most other sites, which I find nice. I like to know that if they give a game an 8, it's probably a really good game. And that if they give it a 7, and I like the genre, it's a solid buy too. Now I'll start questioning their reviews. If I see a game advertising at gamespot, then I'll go to read that game review somewhere else, just in case.
To me, this doesn't really represent any kind of crisis of gaming journalism, so much as it just highlights how pointless most "magazine" game review sites are. Does anyone still go to Gamestop caring what one of their reviewers think of a game? Or IGN or Gamespy or any of those places? What do I care what one guy who is trying to play through a game on a deadline thinks about it?
Say what you will about amateur game reviewers, the fact of the matter is that when it comes to games, the wisdom of the masses usually holds true. If I'm not sure about a game, or I have a choice between two similar games to make, I'd much rather go look at GameRankings, or heck even the GameFAQ's reviews.
I don't even think it goes that far. I know plenty of restaurant reviewers for news print magazines that refuse to have their poor experiences published. Only the good restaurants (according to their opinions) get exposure and the others don't get jack. It's disappointing that our media culture is full of a bunch of pansy motherfuckers who are afraid to say exactly what they think.
Bloggers are happy to write their opinions honestly and truthfully and I'm glad they exist. I refuse to believe any "real" restaurant reviewer. They're all full of shit and in my experience have never hit the nail on the head.
All this (and many other examples) prove is that for-profit journalism is really declining fast. I just hope that the government, the advertisers and whatever future groups don't get a stranglehold on the citizen journalists too.
I was the head reviewer for AGN3D (allgames.com). I gave Turok 2 a fairly scathing
review and Acclaim contacted my boss (Jeremy Alford) and tried to have him pull it
or give it a higher rating.
Thankfully, Jeremy had high integrity and he stood behind my review.
We didn't say anything about the matter on the site, but now I'm starting to think
that all sites should expose publishers/developers who try to coerce review sites.
I will quote from this thread on Gamespot: http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/kanelynchdeadmen/show_msgs.php?topic_id=m-1-39530902&pid=934403 I'm sure some of you are aware Jeff Gertsmann, now the face of GameSpot is responsible for the review. It should come as no surprise he played this game on an Xbox 360 for the review and like most people with a 360 he has a GamerTag attached to his account... as I gazed upon his weak gamescore I found only two achievements had been unlocked. One for beating the first mission and one for trying the co-op. It should be noted that the OP is dated prior to the firing, so perhaps Gertsmann wasn't sacked for a bad review, but sacked for not doing his job.
Sigs are awesome huh?
Difficult to say if it is related to the events described above, but the editor Tim Tracy appears to be leaving Gamespot as well.
His (exceedingly brief) post on the site blog: http://www.gamespot.com/users/TimT/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=m-100-25233420
A comment or two on destructiod.com http://www.destructoid.com/gamespot-drops-reviewer-to-appease-eidos-w-r-hearst-rolls-in-his-grave-56683.phtml