GameSpot editor-in-chief resigns, now a developer
by Ross Miller 
{ Jan 4th 2007 at 1:53AM }
Greg Kasavin, GameSpot's editor-in-chief, has announced his resignation from game journalism to work for the enemy, an as-of-yet-unnamed game developer, "a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get my foot in the door and contribute to one of my favorite gaming franchises." Kasavin, born 1977 in Moscow, joined the website in 1996. Regardless of what you may think of GameSpot and their review system (2-point inflation, anyone?), the gaming news site is a powerhouse in the industry that carries a lot of weight. We wish Kasavin the best of luck and hope, for sake of curiosity, that we find out soon what studio (and in what aspect) he has found himself a part of.
[Thanks, Einhanderkiller]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Hannibal @ Jan 4th 2007 2:02AM
Kasavin was one of the few reviewers still out there who wouldn't give a game a 9 unless it really deserved it.
Leggo @ Jan 4th 2007 2:04AM
Hey nice, my first first comment.
I wonder if this is going to become a new trend? First this dude Frank O'Conner wanders off from OXM to become the Community/Hype Leader/Shill for Bungie, and now this.
Hannibal @ Jan 4th 2007 3:21AM
Sorry to spoil your fun, Leggo.
ByungSuk @ Jan 7th 2007 12:26AM
Dude, he was totally awesome. He's like my favor Gamespot staff reviewer. I really like how he reviewed things. I really want to know what he'll do next. We'll miss ya or at least I will.. haha
EihBeir @ Jan 4th 2007 2:31AM
Glad he's gone, hope to never see his shiny head again.
smellytim @ Jan 4th 2007 2:21AM
good riddance
Andrew Yoon @ Jan 4th 2007 2:53AM
I don't understand either smellytim or EihBeir. Greg was an incredible reviewer, and the editorial tone he set for Gamespot is to be admired. Glad to see that he made the jump into game development, something I've always dreamed of.
Steve @ Jan 4th 2007 3:10AM
You rarely find nice and long game reviews. I've been a really big fan of his reviews for the past few years and you can honestly tell he loves games. I find fanboys funny though when they're favorite games don't receive a AAA score like they expected. He was always a true and honest reviewer, dont find those anymore
icruise @ Jan 4th 2007 3:19AM
This is a surprise, and an interesting development. Does being a game reviewer qualify one to create games? Maybe. Certainly reviewers should know what NOT to do. I mostly liked Kasavin's reviews, although I think giving a 9.0 to Perfect Dark Zero was a little questionable (man, was that game a disappointment).
Ryan @ Jan 4th 2007 1:27PM
Interesting news. I think I would prefer writing about games to making them for some reason. Other news: some other Gamespot staff member left to go make games a short while back as well.
Amos @ Jan 4th 2007 3:39AM
And his job his...? It's going to be a damn different skill set he's got to rely upon to run whatever position they gave him, that's for sure. I'm not even sure if he'd have enough developement skills to run the administrative side of things, unless he's a closet geek who keeps up on everything. I'd be interested to know what job a developer thought he could sync himself in...at least something attractive and permament enough to replace *Editor-in-chief*, obviously.
Thrawn @ Jan 4th 2007 3:41AM
Too bad it wasn't before let 8.8 slip by.
Did everyone here know that Perfect Dark Zero is better than Twilight Princess?
You know what else is better than Twilight Princess? Dead Rising. In fact I'd say someone should give it Action/Adventure Game of the Year over Twilight Princess.
Wokka Wokka Wokka
sploy @ Jan 4th 2007 3:50AM
you guys still havn't figured out that cross platform scores on gs are incomparable!! they say so themselves. Their scores are relative to other games on only the same platform at the time of reviewing. dumb-assess
Turo @ Jan 4th 2007 3:57AM
Greg was probably my most favored reviewer around. It's very sad to see him go as he always helped me stay away from poop games if i wasn't sure myself. He never really generalized claims about games in his reviews like so many others. Instead, he always pointed things out and thoroughly explained them and never left you scratching your head as to why he felt a certain way. Good luck, Greg :D
Thrawn @ Jan 4th 2007 4:46AM
Okay Mr. Smart Pants sploy since their scores are only relative to games from the same platform at the time of review that should make Twilight Princess a 10, no?
That's great that they said you shouldn't compare their review scores. Except for the fact that that's the whole point of a scored review system, to compare games. While the rest of the press understands that a major online game review website's score somehow holds water, Gamespot can put on the facade of candyland by stating its reviews are merely inoffensive cotton ball tufts and sparkling fairy dust. Then at the end of the year if you bought that line of hooey you can watch as Gamespot completely tears it down by having cross-platform genre awards and things like Game of the Year.
DrXym @ Jan 4th 2007 4:49AM
Listen to people still still bitching that Zelda got 8.8. Get over it, not everyone holds Zelda in the same regard as the most breathless partisan. The points made in the article were valid, and besides 8.8 is still a very good score.
More power to Gamespot for standing up to a bunch of whiny fanboys who would rate Miyamoto's turds a 10 for taste, texture and smell if given the chance.
Thrawn @ Jan 4th 2007 4:55AM
IRT 14. That's crap and you know it. You just want to jump on the "too cool for the room" bandwagon so you can bash a crowd of supposed fanboys.
Bottomline for the score controversy, if you played the game past its introductory sequence you understand why giving it an 8.8 is a travesty of score, both comparatively and on its own. The game has been declared by most as better than Ocarina of Time...the same game that scored perfect or near perfects across the board.
More to the point, Gamespot as of late for whatever reason seems to be very anti-Wii in its views.
PurpleSfinx @ Jan 4th 2007 7:47AM
@ Thrawn
8.8 is a fantastic score.
Slaziman @ Jan 4th 2007 5:13AM
It's not so much that they gave it an 8.8, it's that the other games that got an 8.8 and some even better are dogshit.
Deth @ Jan 4th 2007 5:21AM
Thrawn- I am near the end of Zelda, and I think an 8.8 is being generous. Zelda is a fun title, for sure, but if people got their heads out of Miyamoto's ass, they would see it is not as perfect as they think it is. Zelda is stuck in the 90's, imo.
*flame shield inititiate*
*flame shield on*
Cheers!
Noxat @ Jan 4th 2007 5:26AM
Christ give the 8.8 a rest, it wasn't even Greg's review.
I've been visiting Gamespot for nearly a decade. And Greg Kasavin was there the whole time, maintaining the dignity with his excellent reviews and editorials. He'll be missed (at least by Gamespot fans). I hope he is going on to do some great things in game development, he is fulfilling a life-long dream, if you can't respect him for his contributions to game reviews you can at least respect that he is reaching for his dreams.
MoonfirePewPEwPEw @ Jan 4th 2007 5:43AM
"Listen to people still still bitching that Zelda got 8.8. Get over it"
If you don't like it, you can shut the fuck up yourself and get the fuck out if you don't want to read it again. I am not one of those fanboys that cried over this, but why did Zelda get a 8.8 for being "just the same", while Gears of War get a 9.6 for the same damn thing? They even bitched about no voiceovers, while bashing Sonic the Hedgehog (360) for theirs.
It was clear backlash for it being delayed a year on purpose and the removal of the gamecube control scheme.
MoonfirePewPEwPEw @ Jan 4th 2007 5:49AM
"Thrawn- I am near the end of Zelda, and I think an 8.8 is being generous. Zelda is a fun title, for sure, but if people got their heads out of Miyamoto's ass, they would see it is not as perfect as they think it is."
The same thing can be said about Final Fantasy.
They are passed their prime (FF6), yet the fanboys buy the shit every time. The series has officially jump the shark with FFX-2, yet people still buys the shit. Now SE feels that we need 10+ different games per final fantasy now (generalization); I mean, 1 game isn't big enough to tell the story, we need sequels/Prequels/CG movies/spin offs/ ect...!
And don't get me started about Sonic and Gundam. There is a reason why we get flooded with Gundam games and piss poor Sonic ones, YOU FANBOYS BUY THE SHIT NO MATTER WHAT.
Jason @ Jan 4th 2007 6:27AM
i always liked greg because i thought he was very tough on games with few exceptions like PDZ.
The real star of that franchise is Gerstmann but I felt that greg always gave them a feeling of respectability (in my book anyways).
Nick @ Jan 4th 2007 6:22AM
"if you played the game past its introductory sequence you understand why giving it an 8.8 is a travesty of score, both comparatively and on its own."
QFT. TP has the worst music in all the Zeldas I've played, the wolf parts are boring, dungeons and combat are too easy, lack of voice overs ruins the cutscenes, and the towns are deserted or full of NPCs that don't say anything. TP Wii gets an 8.0 from me and the GCN version an 8.5 because of the graphics are better for a last generation console.
And btw, imagine if Ocarina had been released in 2001 for the GCN. Would it have gotten so many perfect tens? No freakin way. The graphics alone would have reduced a lot of scores to 8.5s and 9s. The same applies to TP and I feel Gamespots 8.8 is the most accurate TP score out there. Releasing a last generation game on a next generation console and giving it perfect scores is BS.
Jeff @ Jan 4th 2007 6:33AM
I'm a fair gamespot fan, always liked kasavin as well as most of the other reviewers and enjoyed his reviews.
But all this score crap is stupid. You just want an easy way to say "my game is better than yours!". Thats crap.
The important part of the review is the bit that you miss out....the actual words and reasoning that led them to that score.
You cant compare everything simply in terms of a 1-10 score system, its not that simple.
Its like saying PS3 is better than the wii because it has superior hardware (which it does). That completely neglects the fact that its nearly 3x more expensive.
The part of the review that the educated (read - non fanboy/score driven idiot) look at first isn't the big yellow number with 7.9 to see that "OMFG?! HOW IS SUPER MONKEY BALLS BETTER THAN MAH FAVURIT GAME?! OMFG HAX DODGY REVIEWS GS!" but its the text that says what the reviewer liked, what he didn't like, and which bits could be improved...How all these elements came together to make a game and what type of gamer will get the best use/most enjoyment out of this game.
Just because one game gets 0.2 more than another game on gamespot doesn't mean that it'll be 0.2 better for you. Learn to have your own tastes and respect other peoples' and stop being such typical internet fanboys/trollers.
Jeff @ Jan 4th 2007 6:39AM
(oh and btw...Alex Navarro's the best reviewer in there anyhoo. Funny guy and tells it like it is. His dead rising review is a perfect example of this:
"Sometimes you just wanna kill a whole mess of zombies...its got a lot of issues with the save system being basically gamebreaking and the mission system not making much sense but...sometimes you just wanna kill a lot of zombies...and this game does that very very well.")
MoonfirePewPEwPEw @ Jan 4th 2007 6:44AM
"And btw, imagine if Ocarina had been released in 2001 for the GCN. Would it have gotten so many perfect tens? No freakin way. The graphics alone would have reduced a lot of scores to 8.5s and 9s. The same applies to TP"
Thank you for bringing this up.
Okami got a 9.0 from GameSpot, which came out only a few months before TP, and despite having a very nice cel shaded graphics elements were still inferior to TP's graphics.
And your OoT example is horribly flawed and biased.
Explain this away. I dare you.
FSK405K @ Jan 4th 2007 7:15AM
Twilight Princess sucks. I mean it's great and all but the music is MIDI! PS1 games have real sountracks. Two generations later and Nintendo still hasn't added voice acting, either. 8.8, great score for it. "Great" but not "Superb." Exactly.
I will greatly miss Greg Kasavin. His mug was one of the indicators that the video review I was watching could be believed. Who can forget his hours-long play of Oblivion on its release? Good luck, whereever you go, Greg, and good luck turning all the stuff you know about great games into a great game. (Are you going to Bethesda Softworks? What's with the Oblivion boxshots?)
Slaziman @ Jan 4th 2007 7:43AM
No matter who they would hire for voice acting, it wouldn't do the Zelda characters justice. There were people CRYING that Link wasn't left handed on the Wii version, can you imagine the fanboy response to voice acting?
Lou D @ Jan 4th 2007 8:19AM
Back in my day, multi-player options were a bonus feature to a game, not something you based a review on. How does a game that you can finish in 2 afternoons get a 9.6? Oh, it has multi-player and that's EVERYTHING. Bullshit. Once a game finished, it took 1% of the total effort to make it multiplayer yet that accounts for 99% of the review score. With 12 hours of real gameplay, you just paid $5/hour to play it.
Here's what's so simple about multi-player - NO ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TO CODE. Wow, that was hard. Let's charge $60 per game because now we don't need a big story and don't need AI and all the visuals we'd have to cram into 20 hours of gameplay, now get digitized in a higher resolution(no effort) and get crammed into 12 hours of gameplay. Oh yes, the polygons...so when a renderer is told to draw a sphere, the programmer punches in 200 instead of 120 polygons since the hardware is more capable now... Yes, I see where the higher cost of "next-gen" development is coming from now - MULTI-PLAYER & PAID DOWNLOADABLE CONTENT!
Yahoo Games - Texas Hold'em Poker is online, multiplayer and free, so it must get a 10.0++ Extra Extra!
Me @ Jan 4th 2007 8:21AM
So people are still up in arms over some dude's opinion on a videogame? Oh boy, it must be nice to have a life where this is your biggest source of stress. Try having a mortgage, a wife (or husband), and a couple of kids, then come back to me and tell me where the '8.8' ranks on your list of priorities. Not that high, I would hope.
D @ Jan 4th 2007 8:25AM
So some guy's opinion of the game was different than your own, why stress over it? Isn't it enough for you guys (Zelda fans) to love the game? Why does every other person have to love it? Just play the game, enjoy it, spread the word and chill out. Greg is just some guy who works at a videogame news site who just disagreed with most people, what's the big deal?
HeyNow @ Jan 4th 2007 8:50AM
I never found Gamespot to have nearly the score inflation of a site like ign.
Jason @ Jan 4th 2007 9:17AM
I have to agree with the comments on IGN - many of the reviews sound like fanboy cheering sessions rather than review.
For a perfect example, constrast Gamespot's review of MA2:Lone Wolf (XBox) and IGN's. IGN's glows and gives no mention to the rather bad glitches, while Gamespot gives praise where due but warns of the problems.
Only on very rare occasions (Gerstmann - Gears of War) does the fanboy in Gamespot emerge. Even then, Jeff gives fair time to what's not great in the game.
Ian @ Jan 4th 2007 9:43AM
It's wasn't even Greg's review for crying out loud, it was Jeff's. Greg could possibly have over-ruled the review, but it's not like Jeff was unfair in the slightest if you actually read the damn thing. It's hardly on a par with the 1up reivew of NWN2 in which the rewiew just raved about how much D&D sucks. The review contained a list of points that he personally thought were bad about the game, which were all perfectly reasonable.
#27 said:
'"I mean it's great and all but the music is MIDI!"
If it is true, which I doubt, so what? Did you expect 7.1 surround sound?'
MIDI music means synthesised music like a keyboard, he wanted recorded orchestral music like games have been doing for 10 years. 7.1 surround sound has nothing to do with this.
DrXym @ Jan 4th 2007 9:10AM
@15, actually no it isn't crap and you've demonstrated it right here in this thread. You just can't get over the fact that some people think Zelda is not a perfect game. It actually amuses me that anybody can think that it could be considering that it is virtually a straight port of the Gamecube version. A straight port of a five year old console with a few motion controls tacked on. If the PS3 or XBox 360 tried to pull a stunt like that, then idiots like you would be first on this thread crowing about the shoddy graphics or last gen gameplay. But in your world view Nintendo should be immune from such criticism. Nice double standards. Get over it, 8.8 is as much as it deserves. Still a good score, but that's it.
Terry @ Jan 4th 2007 9:14AM
Seriously, he was the only reviewer with half a friggin' brain. He was the only one who ever seemed like he had experienced life outside of video games to any sort, and it showed in his reviews.
Now I there is no reason at all to ever go back to gamespot. Glad for that!
Zach @ Jan 4th 2007 9:18AM
Really, is MIDI all that bad? The music is still nice and I enjoy listening to it while playing, and I wouldn't subtract points just because their wasn't orchestral music or for lack of voice-overs. Really, does it truly hurt you people to have to read from a box of text? Jeff bashed Zelda for no voice-overs but was forgiving of Gears of War's horrible ones.
It's hipocritical to bash Zelda for not doing anything new (The Zelda formula is great, there is no reason to change it) and then give Gears of War, which is just another futuristic shooter, high marks for doing everything the same.
Antonio @ Jan 4th 2007 9:31AM
I know it sounds odd, but I actually felt sad when I read the news of Greg leaving Gamespot. He was my favorite reviewer. You always knew the kind of games Greg would review (Otogi, Ikaruga, etc.) and in my opinion he was almost always accurate (I think PGR 2 should of been 9.0 and not 8.6). Anyway, he will be missed. I look forward to seeing his game contributions.
Me @ Jan 4th 2007 9:35AM
"And what the fuck does your inability to provide for you and your family have on a bias review score? Not that much, I would hope."
Wow, I wasn't expecting that kind of reaction. Sorry if I insulted you, all I'm saying is that some dude's opinion of a videogame doesn't mean that much and isn't worth getting upset about. By that same rationale, some dude's posting (mine) on a videogame blog shouldn't get you that upset either, chill out bud.
Ian @ Jan 4th 2007 9:43AM
"And how the fuck does this make the game "suck"? Please explain it, since you are acting like you know everything."
Huh? It's the reviewer's opinion that puting an outdated form of music in a modern game is a point against it. Just one of the many points he lists.
Also, he doesn't say it sucks, he said it's great. The score says 'Great', as in 'It's a great game' rather than 'This game does suck'. Is this in some way confusing?
Micheal @ Jan 4th 2007 9:49AM
I worked with Greg for years at GameSpot and wish him the best. He's truly one of the best minds in gaming and reviewed with an attention to detail that one doesn't find on most sites. While this is a major loss for GameSpot, his personable nature, his passion for quality games, and a healthy sense of sardonic humor will leave a positive mark on future game development. Best of luck.
Jor MAMA @ Jan 4th 2007 9:47AM
@31 No shit. I love reading these fanboy rantings of 15 year olds who have nothing better to do than bitch about video game review scores. Wow, TOUGH LIFE!
Dan @ Jan 4th 2007 9:50AM
Wow, this thread. Ugh, the internet.
Greg Kasavin will be sorely missed, he was an honest, articulate game reviewer who was one of the best in the business, if not the best. His criticism and insight were usually right on point with my tastes, and I always appreciated his dry sense of humor and wit. Just check out his review of the highly overrated strategy title, Chess:
http://home.uchicago.edu/~djm2/archives/sent.1999.04/chess
Best of luck in his future endeavors, I hope he makes us all some good games to play.
Quigs @ Jan 4th 2007 3:49PM
Kasavin is a mindless douchebag.
Every single review was about titular charactes (especially if they were women. Moron.) and intuitive gameplay. He was a talking head with no fucking life. I hope he dies alone.
Relix @ Jan 4th 2007 10:09AM
Actually, to those arguing about TP MIDI music... yes it is true, but there are indeed orchestrated parts, even choruses some times. Play the game throughly and then you might notice where it is not MIDI and were it is not orchestrated. But yeah, Nintendo did screw up a bit with the music in Zelda, though I find it much better than Wind Waker's and a bit inferior than OoT. About the graphics... well, porting an Xbox game to a 360 would be a huge BITCH, because you know the capabilities the 360 has. But a GCN game to a Wii... people, the Wii is barely a GCN 1.5. In fact, I was very impressed with the character models, while many textures were very low res. Also, fanboys should note that the last 3 dungeons suck ass, the bosses are too easy to figure (though epic) and the enemies are piece of craps. The story even feels tacked on, and is lacking a certain Zelda feel, but I'll admit it gets the job done. And the Wiimote controls feel natural actually... aiming is awesome, and I was personally never bothered with the slashing. I would give TP a 9.2! Hopefully this will end the stupid "war"...
Anyway, I hate GS, horrible bloated site so I don't care about this guy =P. Hopefully he'll make good games...
Feanor @ Jan 4th 2007 11:06AM
I was always enjoyed his reviews, even when I disagreed with them or felt he missed the point e.g Devil May Cry 3. And his Gamespotting peices were always interesting. He always sounded like he'd rather be a developer, at least eventually.
Meliv @ Jan 4th 2007 10:43AM
I'm glad. I used to like him but his reviews have really started slipping
Maybe a games journalist working as a dev will improve the quality of games :)
bsg @ Jan 4th 2007 6:11PM
the biggest pile of bs is the 100 point rating scale. you can't turn something subjective like rating games into something objective by increasing the range of scores.
in the case of zelda, everyone has their panties in a bunch of the supposedly low score of 8.8, but had the game recieved two more points (a 9.0) the complaining would subside mostly.
so the question is, what constitues those two measly points? there is no answer. gamespot, IGN, or anyone else that uses a 100 point scale won't elablorate because they can't. The numbers are simply pulled out of the editors' collective ass.
the only way to fix the problem of grade inflation, and constant complaining of games getting hosed is to SIMPLIFY the scoring process. reduce the range from a 100 point scale to at a ten point or five point scale.
gamers need to realize that rating scores are not supposed to pit game x against game y, they are only intended to summerize the written review of the game. read the meat of a review and base your judgements on it rather than skipping directly to dessert.