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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.
"While our industry has had its fair share of accusations of impropriety,..."
Actually, I think your industry has its fair share of genuine corruption. What make you think you're any better than other industries?
why else are there so many fawning reviews of hardware in computer magazines... and why else doesn't Linux get any real press in the same magazines when there's no advertising money in Linux anyway... just remember the "Golden Rule" folks... who pays the piper calls the tune... magazines etc. are not gonna jeopardise their major advertising accounts... when it comes to the crunch, they'll buckle...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
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 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.
From Joystiq:
Update - 7:12 AM EST: Jeff has confirmed his firing to us via e-mail, but says he's "not really able to comment on the specifics of my termination." He added that he's "looking forward to getting back out there and figuring out what's next." We're still digging.
I haven't given Gamespot reviews any real thought in a long time, due to the massive amount of advertising games would get on the main page at the same time the review was out.
rm -rf
Being Republican myself, I do not like censorship, which I guess is an oddity perhaps?
It only seems like an oddity because you think a single name can sum up your political orientation, especially one that doesn't really define any. It is actually little more than the name of a football team that has a high player turnover rate.
- These characters were randomly selected.
My post was written to pre-emptively handle his death. Useful for future web searches that may reach this post.
There seems to be a huge community backlash in the user scores section: http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/kanelynchdeadmen/players.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=gssummary&tag=summary;yousay
What can we do?
Avoid Gamespot like the FN plague. Do what we all have the right to do, go somewhere else.
### Is the game as bad as he said?
He gave it a 6/10, Metacritic had an average of 6.5/10 last time I looked, so he isn't alone with his opinion.
You are cynical.
We can live in a civilized society where publications are known for accurately rating things. Where the media does not takes bribes. Where reporters have ethics, and say what they see, not what they're told to say. Especially when they claim they are unbiased.
We should demand such a world, and we can.
There's a lot of talk around how the internet is killing journalism with blogs and whatnot, because the professionals have less clout and amateurs can't be trusted, but perhaps the internet can free journalism. The fact that we're discussing this know is a victory for ethics.
No one who reads this story can trust a Gamespot review again. The more corruption is exposed and reacted to (by not going to gamespot ever again) the more likely we can select what mediums have not been corrupted. If we teach our children to shun corruption, perhaps there is hope for the future.
All it would have taken is for the lead men at Gamespot to have a spine and say 'we won't sacrifice our site for your shitty game'. But they thought they could cut corners, and deserve to loss their business.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
If he ends up living forever you'll be soooo screwed - the entire Internet's laughing stock.
You can't handle the truth.
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.
Actually, reviewers use a separate live service called PartnerNet instead of the one the public does. Otherwise there'd be huge problems with secret achievements being unlocked before a game is even released, info leaks etc., and not to mention there'd be problems from hell where reviewer accounts would get banned for playing games before release dates. Example: people got nailed for playing Halo3 copies that were picked up before the launch date.
That particular Intarwebz Forumz Detective has forgotten his common sense; please don't follow him around just because he has his siren blaring. If anything, seeing achievements on Gerstmann's normal account could just as easily mean he tried to give it another shot or was doing even more research or something.
Links of interest because I'm too lazy to figure out how to properly tag the words I was going to tag in the paragraph:
PartnerNet info: http://www.google.com/search?q=xbox+PartnerNet&hl=en
Halo3 Bans: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=halo+3+banned+before+release+date&btnG=Search
...I have little doubt of the "darker" side of the Gamespot tale.
My own tale comes from what you might call the Dark Ages, back in the dim days of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Back then, I was a monthly columnist for the now-extinct life-form known as a "programming magazine."
My specialty was comparative reviews of compilers -- back in those days, there existed A LARGE NUMBER OF CHOICES as to which compiler you could use for C or Fortran programming on PCs. And, in a review of Fortran compilers, I stated (correctly) that a certain vendor's product failed miserably at a well-known benchmark.
The vendor pulled several full page adds; I was fired. The editor was quite honest in admitting that my dismissal was entirely based on placating a disturbed source of income.
The purpose of any business -- even television shows, magazines, and commercial web sites -- is to generate REVENUE. They do NOT exist for the greater public good, or for the search for truth, or for any other reason than to make money.
What amazes me is not that someone is fired for telling the truth or expressing an opinion -- what amazes me is how many people EXPECT morals or ethics from profit-oriented entities.
All about me