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NormanPride
11/30/2007, 05:19 PM
http://blog.wired.com/games/2007/11/gamespot-inside.html


One of the team members who worked on the Kane & Lynch ads for GameSpot says that the timing of editorial director Jeff Gerstmann's departure is a case of coincidence, not cause and effect.

The internet was rife with rumors Thursday that Gerstmann had been let go after giving Kane & Lynch: Dead Men a relatively low review score, which angered GameSpot advertiser Eidos. The video review has been removed from GameSpot, but you can see it here.

According to this post [UPDATE: the post has since been removed by the author], supposedly written by a member of the CNET ad team, Eidos was indeed ticked off. (GameSpot is a CNET site.)

But Eidos decided against pulling the ads from GameSpot, the forum poster writes, opting instead to have the spots retooled to point readers to the game's official site instead of GameSpot's review page:


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.

Game|Life has contacted both Gerstmann and CNET for comment, but has yet to receive a response. Gerstmann did, however, get in touch with Valleywag's Paul Boutin via, of all things, Facebook:


This probably won't come as much of a surprise, but I'm unable to comment on the rumors surrounding my termination. Though I will say that I wish people would stop calling my parents' house at 2AM looking for comment...I know the proper stereotype of a game critic is a guy that lives in his parents' basement and all, but jeez!

So parents, if you pay attention to these numbers that fly around games, don't. They're worthless. Young kids will like just about anything, and older kids should know where to look to find the games they want.

Rusher
12/1/2007, 01:52 AM
Dude, this news is BIG. It's been causing an uproar since yesterday. The gamespot forum is flooded with angry readers, and the game was bombarded with 1.0 user rating for retaliation.

I've been to Cnet looking for reviews and thought that they were kinda off. Now I know why...

This proves that money buys journalism integrity. All credibility to sites owned by CNET are gone now.

http://kotaku.com/gaming/rumor/gamespot-editor-fired-over-kane--lynch-review-328244.php

http://kotaku.com/gaming/jeff-gerstmann/cnet-comments-on-gamespot-controversy-328623.php

http://kotaku.com/gaming/rumor/alleged-gamespot-employee-spills-guts-on-valleywag-328797.php

http://valleywag.com/tech/jeff-gerstmann/gamespot-editor-on-fired-writer-328775.php