Game Journalist May Have Been Fired Over Negative Review 397
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.
Update - 7:12 AM EST (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Ebert, Filthy, and game reviewers (Score:5, Informative)
Community blacklash (Score:5, Informative)
It's the same in Finance (Score:4, Informative)
I know to take reviews left on online retailers with a pinch of salt, ie they are probably more shills writing for most products than genuine reviews - how many times have I left a +ve review? None. How many times have I left a -ve review? Often. Even when reading reviews written by supposedly authoritative journalists working for supposedly independent journals, one must always my mindful the likelihood that the author is not just writing out of a passion for the subject, but just because he has been financially rewarded for writing +ve spin to his/her readership. Evil I know.
There is a magazine in the UK called Which? I believe it is a not-for-profit organisation that carries out reviews of a wide range of products. I recommend.
[I didn't get paid by Which? to say that]
Re:And where is the original review by the above ? (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/kanelynchdeadmen/review.html [gamespot.com]
Re:But, my question is... (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Unsurprising (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Nothing new here... (Score:3, Informative)
You've got that very slightly wrong. The Golden Rule is "Those with the gold make the rules".
Re:Crysis, Bioshock, Unreal Tournament III (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Corporate Censorship (Score:4, Informative)
1797. The last President who was not from one of the two big parties was George Washington, who wasn't a member of any party, nor was Congress divided into parties during his administration. The original framers of the Constitution disliked parties and had attempted to craft a system of government that wouldn't require them (as a Parliamentary system like Britain's does). However, inevitably, after Washington, the US political scene was always divided up into two parties, and the President always came from one of those two parties. One party was always the Democratic Party (originally the Democratic-Republican Party), while the other was replaced several times (the Federalist Party, then the National-Republican Party, then the Whigs and finally the modern Republican party in the 1850s). If you only want to count Democrats and Republicans, than the last one was Millard Fillmore, President from 1850 to 1853, who was a Whig.
Chris Mattern
Re:Update - 7:12 AM EST (Score:5, Informative)
What's funny is that the same thing happened back when the Spiderman 3 game came out. There was a similar advertising deal where the site was skinned with spiderman artwork and there was even a "countdown" clock leading up to it's release. The trick is that the review was held until launch day. Sure enough, clock hit zero and the review hit: 6.6 [gamespot.com]. I'm sure Activision was pissed but it earned Gamespot some respect. Jeff Gerstmann didn't do the review, but as the editorial director I'm sure he took the heat. I wonder if the Kane and Lynch review was the final straw.
Re:This is not the whole story! (Score:5, Informative)
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 [google.com]
Halo3 Bans: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=halo+3+banned+before+release+date&btnG=Search [google.com]
As someone fired over a review... (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:But, my question is... (Score:3, Informative)
Maximum PC has addressed this; they are better than some about the wall between advertising and reviews. I remember once they called some iomega product the worst tragedy ever for data storage, and two pages earlier was a full page iomega spread. Someone wrote in and asked about it, and they said the advertisers don't get to know the content of the reviews, and everyone who sends a product to them for review basically signs something that says they understand this product might get a bad review.
Anyway, as far as the "out of bounds" stuff, basically, Maximum PC says if it's a "bad product", they'll give it a 5. To get below 5, the product actually has to cause grief outside of just the frustration at how bad it is, i.e. software that corrupts your registry, or deletes your mp3s via changing them to a proprietary media format and adding DRM. Once a "home networking over powerline" product got like a 2, because not only was it's speed slower than literally 56k modem speed, but it didn't work as advertised (only on same electrical circuit, no crossing circuit breakers), AND it interrupted the flow of electricity (lights would flicker when data was being transfered.
So, basically, to get a 1-4 rating, your product has to damage existing setups, corrupt files, or include the possibility for human harm.
~Wx
Re:But, my question is... (Score:3, Informative)
I've played ET on the 2600, and it deserved a 1 (thankfully, it was rented). When you have that as your bottom standard it skews the curve, as well. Top is harder for me, as it varies by game type (my personal favs by genre are Fallout [RPG], The Longest Journey [Adv], UT2004 [shooter], Civilization [strategy], Starcraft [RTS], Gran Turismo [racing], and still Wing Commander [space] because I've never really loved a space sim since - I have no opinion on Flight Sims).