Um... what, exactly, does Gerstmann "deserve"? YOU DON'T KNOW WHY HE WAS FIRED.

All you have is rumor and hearsay.

I have to say Jonah, your comment was REALLY unnesesary.

It may be just a rumor, but connect the dots, man!

If a company is not envolved in something, they just say "no" but if they are involved, they say "no comment"

9/11 was an inside job!!!!

until there is proof, this is all just a rumor. you guys are getting way too worked up over something that is between this guy and his former employer.

Eidos is just a casualty, innocent or not. Frankly it doesnt matter. They need to take a huge hit on this as it will demonstrate to other publishers the huge risks of advertising with GameSpot. This is the most effective tool possible to hurting the financial bottom line of CNet. It only take 3-4 big advertisers to pull out in order for the site to literally have to shut down. Combine that with the massive pullback of Total Access Subscribers (I guarantee you 15-20% have cancelled so far) and Gamespot is in for some gigantic financial troubles because of management's idiocy.

I suggest you read a dev / press response to the situation :

http://www.crushedbefore.com

Why would any advertiser remove their ads from Gamespot now? They just proved that they'll fire their own employees for them. If anything, I'd think GameFly would be thrilled, because now they can force Gamespot into a G4-like situation, where every review has to push their product in some way. Here's what you're gonna start seeing on Gamespot:

"This game is definitely not worth buying. That said, it might be worth a GameFly rental."
or
"While the gameplay isn't as fun as it aspires to be, the game is still worth going down to your local Blockbuster and trying out for a few days."

Yeah, Gerstmann is really suffering (rolling eyes).

Do you do everything someone tells you without knowing exactly what is going on?

Why no matter what happens there is always an idiot that will have to argue to matter. I could walk up and shoot someone in front of a crowd of people, and someone on a message board will say that the person deserved it or some crap like that.

Who's the one being bullied, though? Seems to me Gerstmann is the one bullying GameSpot, and Eidos developers are getting raped.

Based on all of your comments in this article alone, I'm guessing you work in the Gamespot advertising department. Boy do you have egg on your face.

Healthy skepticism is just that, healthy.

However with all of the various information available on this issue, including the blogs of the actual editors still working at Gamepot, there is more than enough information here to show that there is fire behind the smoke.

I appreciate your desire for crystal clear proof and in a perfect world, there would be full transparency. Of course that isn't the world that the rest of us live in, so please don't be exactly what you seem to want to rail against, and assume everything is "BULLSHIT" either. Trying to make this into "Gerstmann bullying Gamespot" is hilarious, but if you're serious, its actually very sad.

J.F. you sound like you are one of "them". We are an angry internet mob. We don't need no stinking facts. I better watch, if this comes off as sarcastic, I could end up sounding like one of "them" too. I will always be on of "us" and never one of "them"... so get you pitchforks and torches my fellow "us", we will take "them" down....heh

That's his personal 360 account. It doesnt tell you anything. They use office systems to review games.

Jeff Himself, a points fanatic, has complained numerous times over the fact he had to replay games he has reviewed in order to get the points for his main account.

@shortfuse
A crappy game is a crappy game!!!! The controls, gameplay, etc. are not going change as you progress through a game. It may get a little better.....yes. However, not to the point in which a sucky game (5 or 6) will turn to a great game (9 or 10).

I've heard that most reviewers get copies of the game that plays on their PartnerNet (the dev side of Xbox Live) accounts and so they often don't have gamerscores that reflect all of the playing of a title that they did.

I'm not saying he did or didn't finish the game, have no idea. Just suggesting that if his gamerscore doesn't reflect that he finished it, it doesn't mean he didn't, just that he didn't with the account that you are looking at.

I just find it weird that the whole review is based on the first level. He doesn't even discuss the romance subplot or the club part which Ludwig, on the podcast, said is the best part of the game.

Yeah you guys are right. review is nov 14th. these points are the 27th

Jeff does indeed play on partner net and with dev kits. This keeps people from stalking him cause he has new games but also allows multiplayer to work since nobody is using the real service. He does often go back and play though games again to get achievements though. I feel bad right now. If I had the money I would start my own site and hire him right on the spot. You don't need full advertising spots for every game coming out, in fact that ruins the site. Small ads make a good amount of money and you draw people in with legit reviews, not bogus.

Well, you can;t always complete a game in a day. There is now way in hell a person can finish a game in a few days like Xenosaga, etc in a few days plus play other games to review as well. Sometimes the proof is in the pudding. If a games sucks at first it will probably suck all the way through. No need to play games like that through!!!!

Shortfuse is another fake poster. Please ban. We already know they cant take these games home, they cant use thier personal accounts to play them either. He continues to push his agenda. Not to mention he appears after Jonah Falcon was exposed.

i was just stating my theory to see if it was possible that it wasn't foul play. i saw the gamerpoints to be weird. i posted my theory, it got disconfirmed.
and banning? how about you?
out of your 22 "comments" in total on joystiq.com (not including this article) 18 have been for the sweepstakes+giveaway contest. that's 81%
which leaves 4 being actual comments. should you be allowed to win any of those giveaways?

Yeah, so can you stop talking now? I'm finding it hard reading your whited out comments.

You know where I write: "It does not help that, judging by postings and written reactions, that most of the gamers are immature, either in age or in personality, which is, of course, emblematic of the entire industry."

I'm talking about you. Specifically.

The problem, Jonah, is that you're making (what feel like) reactionary assumptions against Gerstmann in this whole affair and are letting that cloud your impartiality.

In particular,
"The fallout is somewhat disturbing. Gerstmann’s friends and collegues have taken this opportunity to drive a mob-like lynching of GameSpot, convincing many gamers to cancel subscriptions to the site, claiming it is a corporate shill; this despite the fact that nothing is known about the firing save Gerstmann and CNet."

You're making the presumption here that it's ONL Gerstmann and CNet/Gamespot that know the full skinny on what's going on here. It makes me wonder if you've ever worked in a large office, though. If Gerstmanns friends and colleagues are saying something stinks here, there's no reason to discard what they say just because they weren't one of the two participants in the firing.
People network with people, even if they work at different companies. I (reasonably) know what's going on as far as inter-office politics go at other companies that I have friends at or relationships with. This is not uncommon.

"don’t profess to know anything about it, simply because I don’t take anonymous sources seriously, nor do I give weight to associates of Gerstmann, who have probably personal or professional interests in him."

This is absurd of you to say. You're blatantly disregarding sources just because they're "on his side". That's no way to conduct an investigation of anything.
Yes, verify, verify, verify, but don't disregard. Many of Gerstmann's colleagues are apparently saying that something stinky went down and the only ones who aren't saying that specifically are the PR types and such.

"I don’t find CNet’s simple “It wasn’t the review” response as informative, and Gerstmann’s silence seems to be more intent on holding GameSpot hostage rather than legality."

Again, this is preposterous and shows a bias on your part.
Gerstmann is holding them hostage? By not talking about his very public firing in less than 48 hours after it happened? Again, have you EVER worked for a large, public company?
This isn't the first time a famous person has been fired. They *NEVER* talk about their firings publicly. It JUST doesn't happen except on the rarest of occasions. There is WAY to much possibility to open yourself up to a lawsuit.
Similarly, Gerstmann's silence COULD be due to his planning a lawsuit against Gamespot/Cnet.

"Additionally, if his silence is legally enforced, then it must be something more serious than a reaction to a review, especially since it wasn’t the first time a writer on GameSpot wrote a negative review about a game that was advertised on the site – and a 6.0 review isn’t a 2.0 review."

Again, NOW who is jumping to conclusions? There are any number of reasons his silence is supposedly being legally enforced.


I work in the publishing industry. I literally see this crap happen 3 or 4 times a week...making deals with advertisers, writing full featured articles JUST so someone will advertise with a certain publication. I've personally been the scapegoat when an advertiser is pissed, too. "Oh, it was an issue in graphics" when that's just bullshit.

No one except Gerstmann and the CNet head honchos know for certain what happened because, presumably, they were the only guys in the room at the time. But that hardly means other staffers and colleagues don't know what happened, either. And we the public will likely never know the full story either because I guarantee you that Gerstmann is never going to spill the beans and I doubt I have to explain why Gamespot won't, either.

But just because you don't have 100% of the story is no reason to write this off as nothing. If we get to the point where we appear to have 80-90% of the story, that should be more than enough to draw conclusions based on what happened.

The only thing we're really waiting on at this point is for an anonymous Gamespot employee to give an interview to a more high profile blog or something.

Extremely well said. The GameSpot management team are the ones who need to be worried about their livelihood. Jeff will do just fine, but after the management team gets fired publically from such high profile positions, its not going to be easy to find similar jobs.

But it needs to happen ASAP or GameSpot will go down in flames (or is it already too late?)