Gamespot Is In The Pocket of Major Developers
Confirmed today, even though a Wired article seem to denied it, the firing of Gamespot’s editor Jeff Gerstmann after giving Kane & Lynch a low review score forced Gamespot to fire him in a hasty move that has proven to be more than just coincidence, giving us readers a taste for what happens when honest journalism meets corporate advertising powers, let’s take a look inside the facts.
Eidos launches a very prominent Kane & Lynch advertising campaign on Gamespot, head banners and backgrounds and even allowing their members to cut their own Kane & Lynch trailers, obviously spending a considerable amount of money on Gamespot.
Update: could this video review be the one that got Mr. Gerstmann fired?
Jeff Gerstmann’s Kane & Lynch review is released, giving the game a low 6.0, otherwise know as a “Fair” rating, not much better than the game’s Metacritic combined score of 68%.
Eidos reacts, initially not pulling their advertising campaign from Gamespot and according to the Wire article sources: “Eidos was indeed ticked off, but decided against pulling the spots, opting instead to have the ads retooled to point readers to the game’s official site instead of its review page” but has since removed their Gamespot Kane and Lynch advertising campaign and Gamestop has removed Gerstmann’s review.
Gamespot fires Jeff Gerstmann quoting “larger reasons”, stating Mr. Gerstmann’s Kane and Lynch review a coincidence.
So what now?
Gamespot’s editor Jeff Gerstmann had caused controversy before after giving Twilight Princess an 8.8, which he stands by up to this date on NextGen forums, but the fact still remains, Gamespot has since removed Gerstmann’s Kane & Lynch review from public view, and now what remains is a semi-formatted html page with the review which I manage to save on a .txt document, furthermore, many questions still remain: how can Gamespot suddenly let go Mr. Gerstmann for such “larger reasons”? We are talking about the same man Gamespot put in charge to revived their reviewing system, and was schedule to appear online live the day of his firing?
Can anyone else smell the foul odor around this coincidence? is Gamespot in the pocket of major developers? according the facts at hand, it most certainly looks this way, then again if thousands of thousands of dollars were at stake for a gaming site like Gamespot, the firing of one of their best editors would simply seem logical if not reasonable, after all, we all need to pay our bills, even if some lose some if not all of their credibility while doing so.
How about the game, is it really that bad? in the words of the original Kane and Lynch review by Mr. Jeff Gerstmann we can conclude that:
“Kane & Lynch: Dead Men is a premise with promise, and if you’ve been waiting patiently for a game to really dive into the whole “crew-based heist tale” concept, you might be able to look past some of the story flaws. But when you consider the nearly ridiculous number of extremely high-quality shooters available recently, there’s not much room for something like Kane & Lynch”
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On other rather fake and funny rumors Gamespot fires all employees after learning of Kane and Lynch sequel: “Kane and Lynch 2: Big Gun Go Boom”
Images thanks to Kotaku
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Posted in Industry News
That’s what you get sucker for giving Twilight Princess a 8.8. I’m glad justice still exists in society.
damn…what’s wrong with free speech around here?
Maybe my above comment was a little harsh. I hate Gamespot as an entity, not necessarily Jeff Gerstmann.
Last post I promise. I wish I could edit my previous one. It’s gamespot, NOT gamestop. I tend to get those two confused.
That was a harsh comment.
There I helped you out.
Wow……that’s…………………………………………………………………………………..
Thats just sad. The only reason he got fired was because his bad review could have pulled all the advertisements losing gamespot a hell of a lot of money. But when people only care about money…
First of all, TP deserved what it deserved in his opinion. Learn to respect other people’s opinions.
Second, wow, eidos…you just lost much of your already mediocre sales for the game…and you earned a horrible reputation. Congrats…
I agree with the reviewer– there ARE really too many M-rated over-serious shooters out there. Glad this guy’s putting the overly-clichéd excuse for a next-gen gaming genre in its place.
Simply put, I too think there are way too many Lethal Weapon clones in gaming.
I wonder if Gerstmann is going to take legal action. He had every right, as a member of the media, to say what he thought about the game. And I don’t even consider 6.0 a bad score, really. Not worth firing someone over.
I will never hold GameSpot reviews in high regard anymore knowing that advertising takes higher priority than honest opinion.
@Evil Player: I believe there’s something called an OPINION.
This news makes me wonder what sources can we trust for honest opinions on games.
It only shows how coperations have taken over the gaming world.
Wow, for the most part I’ve never really liked Jeff, but as ironic as it is, the review I completely agree with him on, is the one that takes his job.
[...] Gamespot just released a special report on the reason why of the firing of 13 year reviewer veteran editor Jeff Gerstmann after giving Kane & Lynch a low review score, after Eidos had originally plug an excessive amount of adds into Gamespot’s site, you can read this article first to get caught up with this controversy. [...]
Oh I hate this Jeff Gerstman guy.
He’s such a moron! Kane & Lynch is soooo awesome guys believe me! It’s the same with Tarantino movies: Either you see how great and ingenious they are, or you’re just to stupid to see it. I mean alright of course theres this discussion: It’s his opinion, he can say what he wants to, and blahblahblah but cmon how would you guys react when somebody gave bioshock a 6.0 rating.. Actually I like kane and lynch much more than bioshock, but for some reason almost noone is really taking k&l seriously… thats sad. But if you want to watch a good kane and lynch review just go to gametrailers.com