Gamespot Editor Fired Over Kane & Lynch Review?
 

If this is true, then Gamespot has really made me think less of them and their reviews.

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First Greg left and now Jeff is fired?

A lot of it is still unconfirmed rumour (apart from the firing, that's been confirmed by Jeff), and there's an ever-growing thread about it at GS. Many people have cancelled their paid subscriptions because of it.

Yeah I'm not a subscriber, but I'm done listening to The Hotspot.

First Carrie left, then Rich... It hadn't been the same for a while, but at least Jeff was still keeping it occasionally entertaining. No disrespect to the rest of the crew as they all made for a good listen, but above three were really what made the hilarity for me.

It was fun while it lasted.

Bunch of people from Gamespot offering various comments... this guy perhaps has a point.

You are right This Guy does have a point. He "reads" as concerned and he should be. The writer says the firestorm unfairly questions everyone's (still at GS) credibility. He is correct about the credibility issue. Did GS pull the review? If so it makes them look guilty.

What it comes down to is, ( A Big If) if this story is true and Edios bullied GS to can the guy then GS's credibility is down the toilet. It reflects on all the people who work there. They have to know if a poor review is written about a client's product they could be next to go.

It makes it appear that the message is loud and clear, if a critic wants to work she/he Must not offend the paying customer. It is pretty simple the fellow who expressed those concerns has every reason to wonder if he is on the same short leash.

I guess until proven otherwise take those favorable reviews with a grain of salt. Whatever, the fact of the matter is GS has a major public relations headache.

I think the only way they can save their reputation at this point is if they oust management and either bring back Jeff or promote one of the other Gamespot veterans to restore sanity.

Some other Gamespot oldtimer left the building also now.
it was some editor or something?

Yep, I got rid of my subscription, I used to be a total access subscriber. When Carrie, Rich and Greg left i was completely devastated, THE reason I went to gamespot all the time was almost purely to hear Carrie on the hotspot and on the spot. Jeff was the last one keeping me mildly entertained, but now ALL the old schoolers are gone. :frusty: :shifty:

I cancelled my subscription as well.

The Gamespot guys talked about it on The Hotspot. Does some to restore the credibility of the editorial team, but then that was never really what was in question. Management still seems like a bunch of fucking idiots with zero interest in journalism.

Best of luck to Jeff though and the staff that remains at Gamespot. Maybe they'll be able to fix this.

The issue comes down to sponsorships and what those sponsors pay to advertise on the GS site. The GS management people are interested in protecting their profits. When you have a staff member say bad things in a game review it could damage game sales. (advertiser's view ) This validates people like Consumers Reports, no sponsors to placate.

The game publisher reacted as a paying customer might be expected to. Management, to protect profits appeared to have little regard for journalistic integrity. That's the way of it when you have conflicting criteria. On the one hand it is the perception of credible reporting you hope will keep the reader's faith. On the other is management's best interest to keep advertisers and sustain cash flow. Management in this case appears to have chosen to neglect credibility for the greater good.

This natural conflict of interest places readers in a position where they should regard GS reviews for entertainment purposes only. You can no longer accept a GS review with full faith in the reviewer. It is fair to suspect future review text is under heavy scrutiny. Credibility has taken a hit not only at GS but with similar sites, ( advertising dollars ). Don't they all have to be regarded with a jaundiced eye? Consider the advertiser sitting behind his desk rubbing his chin, "Hmm if it worked with GS I wonder---."

We don't know what took place behind closed doors. Management may have been right in their reaction. We don't really know what forced the firing decision, nor will we likely get the whole story. The bottom line is advertising pays the bills and salaries etc. It sounds harsh and makes management look bad. Perhaps it was a bad game, perhaps the reviewer had a bad day, perhaps management was wrong, perhaps the game publisher was thin skinned. It looks like in the end nobody won.

I don't really believe he was fired simply for an overly negative review. The quality of the review was actually worse than usual for GameSpot, maybe that had something to do with it, or maybe it was something else -- who knows. It definitely seems to be connected to the Kane & Lynch thing in some way. I don't really doubt the integrity of the editorial team at GS, but like many others, for me the people behind gamespot whom I most respected/liked are now gone (Greg Kasavin, Rich Gallup, Jeff Gerstmann). And firing Jeff like this definitely was badly handled, whatever the reasons. Even a hint that publishers may have some say over the review content should be taken seriously and a lot of people cancelling their subscription is a message to the managers, I hope.

Actually, since my total access privileges still last for about half a year, I may change my mind by then and subscribe again.

Last night, I watched the original unedited video review of Kane and Lynch: Dead men, which was attached to the article about Jeff being fired from his job. As usual, I found it to be a good and informative review, but it was really depressing to know that this was the final video review from a great Senior editor who worked at gamespot for over 10 years. :frown:

All I can say is that I'm sad and frustrated that this has happened, and I'm going to miss Jeff Gerstmann just like I do with Greg Kasavin. They were both two of my favorite critics for Gamespot, and now they don't work there anymore.

Thankfully, Alex Navarro, Ryan Davis, and Jason Ocampo are still there. They are still old-schoolers in my opinion.

There's a tribute to Jeff in On the Spot. They seem pretty shaken, all of them. It's kind of unfair all the crap that's coming their way. CNET exec Josh Larson should retire and write a book on the synergy of disaster or something and leave these guys and girls to get on with doing their thing.

I stopped visiting Gamespot years ago except when I read some articles once every year or 2. Can't really recall why I stopped visiting, though I sort of suspected the site would soon be bombarded with lots of advertising.

Well, that did take quite a few years to occur but then again, weren't quite a number of their articles written rather favourably, despite the faults and designing inbalances in certain games? That was quite some time ago, way back in 2000 or 2001 when I stopped reading their articles. You could see that as GS became more and more popular, their content sort of dropped in quality and the site became flashier(not always a bad thing) and there seemed to be a lot more ads.

Well, aside from the occasional feature I have to admit I was never really a reader of Gamespot - if I'm going to read anything long I'd rather do it on paper - but I always enjoyed listening to The Hotspot. Some of the older ishditions are hilarious, like the one about Duke Nukem Forever and Hammer pants...

So what exactly happened?

I stopped listening to GS reviews once they rate Halo 2 and some Tony Hawk game higher than Half-Life 2.

Nobody is saying what exactly happened, and I imagine it will stay that way.

What I meant was, why did the person get fired, and what was this about Eidos paying Gamespot for a good review.

That is all of the stuff that will likely never fully be known by anyone outside of the company.

Here's a link to some Shacknews coverage.