Gerstmann-gate: Sunday morning update

IT'S OVER NINE THOUSAND!

APPROACHING SOUND BARRIER!

OSHI--

We broke the Internet again, guys.

The only thing they can possibly do in an "official word" at this point is to announce a public, transparent reorganization of their Games and Entertainment division that sets up meaningful firewalls between their advertising and editorial divisions, and issue a public apology to Gerstmann.

We know that Eidos did a large ad buy with Gamespot, and then became furious when they saw the text and video reviews for Kane and Lynch. Nobody has disputed that.

We know that Eidos threatened to withold hundreds of thousands of dollars in future advertising from Gamespot. Nobody has disputed that.

We know that Gamespot subsequently edited the text review, and pulled the video review off of the site. CNet does dispute that the text review was edited to come across more favorably to the game, but that is a verifiable lie when you compare the old text to the new text.

We know that after the Thanksgiving week releases, when all of the major editorial and review work has been done for the year, Jeff Gerstmann was unexpectedly locked out of his offices and removed from the premises. This was a senior editor with ten years of service to the organization. Nobody has disputed that

We know that Gerstmann was fired for his reviews. Gamespot does not dispute that. They merely state that there were multiple instances of "tone" (rather than content) that caused him to be fired. It's not that he said negative things about the game, it's that he used negative words in order to say negative things about the game. Got it?

Please watch Gerstmann's video review on YouTube. Regardless of whether you agree with every point in it, the review is absolutely tame and reserved compared to your typical negative movie review. Go look up some of Roger Ebert's stinker reviews for comparison. If we really set our threshold in this industry to say that the "tone" of Gerstamann's Kane and Lynch review is unacceptable, then we will be screwing ourselves out of independent, interesting, editorial content.

Yeah I agree Sid Space. You can't fire a reviewer for giving a review that you don't like because your getting money from the company. That is called a biased review.

The thing is... gamespot runs ads for games all the time, whilst simultaneously giving them average or low scores... its only fair that gs should be allowed to give a game the score they feel it deserves.

The thing is... gamespot runs ads for games all the time, whilst simultaneously giving them average or low scores... its only fair that gs should be allowed to give a game the score they feel it deserves.

The thing is... gamespot runs ads for games all the time, whilst simultaneously giving them average or low scores... its only fair that gs should be allowed to give a game the score they feel it deserves.

The thing is... gamespot runs ads for games all the time, whilst simultaneously giving them average or low scores... its only fair that gs should be allowed to give a game the score they feel it deserves.

Four identical posts in a row. It's a record!

Any decent competitor wwould hir him on the spot just to show up Gamespot and gather support from the community.

Well I had a septuple-post before. Too lazy to sift through my comment pages for it.

Probably the same thing when Twilight Princess got the fair 8.8; I'd say it is a more reasonable score, fans would make a stink for about a week then forget about it.

@joe.

So the guy should be fired for having an opinion? Yep that makes total sense.

That's exactly the same I was thinking.

...your name's Jeff...

OH SNAP

HE KNOWS ALL.

Yeah that is true, I was thinking that also, really what if the gun had been drawn to soon because of gamers disdain for gaming journalism in a whole and is now taking it out on Gamespot. My problem is an example had to be made somewhere, I just don't want it to galvanize a person who took advantage of a community.

On the other hand, do you see the message it sends, gamers can still be a threat. On the other hand it sends the message that maybe the casual market is the way to go since they don't pay as close attention. Now with C/net, I only listened to one person on that whole freaking site. It was a man who told people not to buy Ipods, and Zunes because of idiotic DRM. Anybody else 9/10 I just ignored because they sounded horribly bought, like a guy who said the Best PMP out there was still the IPOD. That was laughable, but nobody knew any better, so who would you complain to, it is their job to tell you honestly what is the best value.

And that is what I am afraid of, that because some many games have gotten ripped off listening to reviews we are now thirsty for blood, whether it was true or not. Either way an incident like this was bound to happen sooner or later.

Whether or not the gamers out there are wrong, GameSpot/CNet could have nipped this in the bud long before now by issuing a more comprehensive, clear statement.

If it's not true, they have ruined their own reputation and that of Eidos by saying nothing.

Replace "have" with "has".

Gotta love Sunday mornings!

*English Lessons.


Quick question: English is not my primary language... can someone explain me when to use have, has, had...? I always get confused.

Sounds like the average worker now.

"Had" is the past tense. "I had a GameSpot account, but I cancelled it."
"Have" is the present tense 1st or 2nd person. "I have heard enough of this crap."
"Has" is the present tense 3rd person. "Eidos probably has more hatemail now than for the release of any of the crappy Tomb Raider games."

Thanks BPM!

Fernando: basically have= tengo, had= tuve has= tiene

Hikaru

Thanks a lot... that realy help me a lot.

Buuu...

... rns.

It's boo-urns! Get it right! I'll kill you! I'll kill all of you!!! Especially those of you posting!

uhem.....carry on.

Probably because if we just sit around ignoring when shit like this happens, it will continue to happen. Bringing awareness to this could strongly discourage companies for raping their employees for giving an honest opinion of something.

Dunno, I guess it's that thing called "fighting injustice". Wanting to kill the awareness of it, you're supporting CNET's choice to fire a man for doing what he thought his job was.

"I've reached the point of who gives a shit.. . Some fat guy got fired. Shit happens. Back to video games news. Not news about ex-workers who have nothing at all anymore to do with videogames."

So the ways and means with which you gather information about video games, and possibly the influence you use to purchase those games, has nothing at all to do with video games?

I mean, if that's the case, I'll just start going to Eidos.com for all of my objective viewpoints on Kane and Lynch.

You're perfectly right. People get fired over stupid stuff every day. Game reviewers get bribed for potentially better reviews all the time.

That doesn't mean when it comes to light in a way that this has, that we should all just sit back and pretend nothing bad is going on. An apathetic society is a society on the brink of ruin.

"It obviously does not have anything to do with Kane & Lynch, since the rating is both just and the pressure denied by CNET."

To be clear, CNet never denied that Eidos exerted pressure (even though at least one website had a misleading headline to the contrary). If you read the text of the statement, they just denied that any pressure caused them to fire Jeff or change their content. This may seem like a small distinction to you and me, but it is a mountain in PR-Speak.

CNet's position is basically that all of the pressure Eidos exerted is meaningless. They just happened to come up with their own independent conclusion at the same time that Jeff's "tone" was "unprofessional", and that he needed to be fired without warning once his work was complete for the year.

I'm a Zelda fan but thought 8.8 was just his opinion. Just as mine is the game is worth a 9.

Nice try at a blanket comment.

It deserved it.

This isn't about Kane & Lynch being a bad game and everyone thinking that the review was fair. It has to do with the fact that a person’s opinion, an opinion he used to get paid for, is the reason for his firing.
Yes this stuff happens all the time, same with racism, rape, and murder. That doesn’t make it right, and we don’t want to let the people doing it get away with it.

Ebert gives movies I love stink reviews, but I would fight for his right to say that he thought the movie stinks.

And I played Kane and Lynch at PAX, and although it was just one level, it wasn’t a 'Bad' game; just one that was clearly pushed out the doors too soon. And while I don’t know enough about the characters or the story to say definitively, I doubt I would call either of them ‘ugly’.

Its not about his reviews, it’s about his rights to say what he thinks.

The man saw my 10 as an 8.8...so? His opinion, not mine.

Now, I can't wait to see what is said on Tuesday...

Twilight Princess was good, but I think an 8.8 was a justified score.

As a huge Zelda fan, 8.8 for Twilight Princess was a tad too high.

8.8 is still an incredibly positive score. Chalk another one up for the stupid school grades mentality in the review community.