Gamespot’s Jeff Gerstmann: fired?
p2pnet news | Games:- Advertisers are benign entities who’d never in a million years dream of interfering with the editorial staff or editorial content.
Right?
However, it could be Gamespot editorial director and reviewer Jeff Gerstmann might differ.
Gamespot is owned by CNET Networks and rumour has it Gerstmann received the Award of the Golden Goonah —- he was fired, in other words —- because he displeased Eidos, creators of Kane & Lynch: Dead Men, when he gave the game a less than golden write-up.
Says kotaku.com:
“A visit to Gamespot shows that the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 game has taken over the site very prominently, with backgrounds and multiple banner ads all pitching Kane & Lynch. Allegedly, publisher Eidos “took issue with the review and threatened to pull its ad campaign.”
“Jeff’s review was certainly less than glowing. He assigned the game a 6.0, otherwise known as ‘Fair’ on the Gamespot scale. The game is currently enjoying a Metacritic score in the 65 to 69 range, which the site describes as ‘mixed or average reviews.’ According to our tipster, it wasn’t necessarily the score that was reason for Gerstmann’s rumored axing, but the ‘tone’ of the review.”
However, Wired quotes a post which has since been taken offline which claimed Eidos was indeed upset. It goes on:
“The ads went up and the Eidos brouhaha was settled over two weeks ago. Jeff got fired yesterday. Furthermore, I’d heard a few people tell that he’d already been skating on thin ice for “unprofessional reviews and review practices.” I don’t know much about that, though, so I can’t say one way or the other. My gut tells me that he got canned for larger reasons. Maybe the Eidos debacle was part of it – I don’t know. But I sincerely doubt that Eidos made Gamespot fire him. CNET doesn’t kowtow to its advertisers, and I’ve more than once seen the higher-ups turn away big advertising dollars for the sake of the company’s integrity.I think the whole thing is likely a combination of factors, the biggest being poor timing.”
Says GameDaily:
“Given Gerstmann’s unique style of storytelling and rating video games, when he is able to talk, we can’t wait to listen.”
And in an update, “CNET replied to a Joystiq inquiry with an official response that offered very little detail regarding the firing, ‘GameSpot takes its editorial integrity extremely seriously. For over a decade, Gamespot and the many members of its editorial team have produced thousands of unbiased reviews that have been a valuable resource for the gaming community. At CNET Networks, we stand behind the editorial content that our teams produce on a daily basis’.”
Finally (???), “Has anyone thought that Eidos has as much to lose as CNET here, with customers turning against the games studio over claims it muscled out a popular reviewer?” – wonders Valleywag, adding:
“We hear Eidos is “freaking out” over l’affaire Gerstmann; top management there, an insider says, sincerely believes they didn’t prompt CNET to fire Gerstmann, but fears they’ll get the blame anyway. Michelle Curran, Eidos’s director of public relations, says, “Yeah, we’re not commenting on that right now.”
Also See:
kotaku.com – Gamespot Editor Fired Over Kane & Lynch Review?, November 29, 2007
Wired – Rumor: GameSpot Editor Was Fired for ‘Larger Reasons’, November 30, 2007
GameDaily – Jeff Gerstmann Departs GameSpot, November 30, 2007
Valleywag – ‘Freaked-Out’ Eidos ducks CNET rumor, November 30, 2007
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December 1st, 2007 at 12:01 pm
If Jeff really was fired because of his review, GameSpot’s credibility is fucking DEAD.
December 1st, 2007 at 1:00 pm
CNET, Gamespot and Eidos all deserve having heads rolled on this one. Integrity is dead all over the shop, fucking corporate whores.
December 1st, 2007 at 9:48 pm
I love gamespot and go there to find out what games I should download.
December 2nd, 2007 at 6:10 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBD0cUeeEQc
December 3rd, 2007 at 10:16 am
I’m broken hearted over this. Jeff Gerstmann is my very favorite podcast personalities… In fact, ever since Luke Smith went from 1Up to Bungie and Rich Gallup left Gamespot. And frankly, I wouldn’t call his tone that off-kilter. He just put things in simple language. He was fair. But he was real.
I’m looking forward to supporting his next endeavor.
March 10th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
Gamespot takes bribes for reviews this is well known. They gave Driver 3 a 9.0 and later admitted they were paid to rate it a 9 or higher. Though the copy they reviewed (the final retail one) had flaws, they were promised they’d be fixed before release. They weren’t. That’s just 1 example.