Official statement or no, fan reaction to the firing of Jeff Gerstmann continues practically unabated:
- Gamespot readers have tagged the official Gamespot news story rather, er, harshly (see image above).
- Not everyone is on the anti-Gamespot bandwagon, though. Check out IGN's Hillary Goldstein, CrushedBefore.com and the possibly satirical KeepGirthmanFired.com.
- The story continues to drip slowly into the mainstream press. Check out Fishbowl LA, TheStreet.com and the Syracuse University Daily Orange.
- GameBump takes Eidos to task for misleading "review" quotes and a "five-star" rating image in the intro. for the official Kane & Lynch web site. GameSpy and Kotaku are confused as well.
- Pronet Advertising uses Gamespot as a case study in "How To Destroy Your Brand And Alienate People"
- GameSetWatch's Kevin Gifford: "Game publishers ... don't care what Jeff Gerstmann or any reviewer has to say about their games. They care about the score, the Metacritic average, and it's been that way ever since the Internet became the primary vehicle for game media."
- More from Gamespot freelancer Frank Provo: "Even if they don't get pressured to cut me loose because I've made a few posts here, I personally cannot write for a site that, for whatever reasons, wants to bring its review scores and tone more in line with the Metacritics/GameRankings medians, and is willing to pressure its writers to nudge in that direction."
(Page 1) Reader Comments
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I hope the brand dies or something...
I love joystiq!
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what's up with that tag?
Also, the cake is a lie!
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Nice...
People are acting like corruption hasn't been a part of business since its beginnning...
Money talks...not random threats over the internet by a small minority of holier than thou gamers...
Back to the 360 Update...
PS - I didn't even realize gamerankings.com was a CNET site until I was looking for a Mass Effect review this AM and saw it in the corner. I really didn't want to give CNET any traffic. Please forgive me.
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http://www.gamebump.com/go/official_kane_and_lynch_website_lies_about_its_scores
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http://www.staticechoes.blogspot.com
I appreciate any feedback you guys and gals wanna give.
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yeah right
Perhaps you would like to tell us of all the little doggies who will be taken to Puppy Lake because we're so mean?
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"Is this Kane And Lynch really the game Eidos wants to die over."
Cause honestly, that's what is going on. Eidos is trying SO HARD to lie and bullshit this game to stardom they are killing themselves in the process and at some point you have to ask why this game? Why Kane and Lynch?
Even if they didn't have anything to do with the firing of Gerstmann, Eidos is loosing so much credibility as a game company they should just cave and say "Look we thought we had a 5 star game, but this negative press isn't worth it, we're sorry."
As far as Gamespot goes, it's clear the bottom line for Gamespot isn't to review games anymore but make money. If they were willing to fire someone because they felt their bottom dollar was at risk, personally if I got fired from a company like that... and they begged me back, I wouldn't go back. Gerstmann should move on to another company who cares about what he thinks of games and not their wallet.
I mean really, would you go back to a company that treated you like that?
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As far as I understand it, CNET really doesn't have anything to do with this except that they own Gamespot. If you want to show CNET that you don't like how Gamespot runs their business, you boycott Gamespot and send emails to the big boys at CNET claiming that you were once a loyal Gamespot viewer, but now that's changed because of what happened with Gehsa-however-you-spell-his-name.
To boycott all of CNET seems ridiculous, because people aren't pissed at CNET, they're pissed at Gamespot. Doubly retarded is simply doing a boycott without sending emails.
Yes, we live in cynical times and blahblahblah, but the reality is, even if you THINK companies don't care about you or your opinions, you're actually quite wrong. They don't care about individuals opinions sure, but if they receive enough emails calling for boycotts, they WILL listen.
So if you want change, boycott the thing that pisses you off and let the big boys at the top know what you're doing. Otherwise, they won't know whether it is really because of this controversy or not. Hell, the big boys at the top probably haven't even HEARD of this yet. News travels slow to the guys with fat wallets.
Companies normally don't create separate marketing divisions for each subsidiary they own. The various general and administrative functions cover every part of the company. This keeps costs down by avoiding redundant personnel. Boycotting CNet over this would be appropriate as they likely only have one marketing department which was getting all the pressure, which in turn sent that pressure right down the line.
Disclaimer: This is, like the whole Gestermann story, wild speculation.
The thing is though is the fact that I didn't mind seeing him let go but not for the Kane & Lynch review. If he was fired because his reviews are generally bias (although I will admit to not having read any of his reviews for the last 6 months cause I thought they all sucked)and are all taken from a single aspect. But instead he was fired due to advertising pressure which is not cool. Getting fired over his crappy reviews would have been fine but not because the advertisers didn't like his review. I mean Sierra did not pull their scarface ads from the site and get him fired but Eidos being a bigger company definitely has the power to do so.
In the end, Gamespot will have to fess u eventually, Eidos is gonna lose some credibility unless it was not their idea (which I doubt) and I will not miss Gerstmann's crappy reviews. In other words, it doesn't really affect me and most of you lives are not impacted by this much either in the end.
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Once again, I do feel sorry for those truly innocent who will be negatively affected by this whole saga of events because of bad decision making skills/bad timing on the part of upper management. But, the decision has been made. What has been done cannot be undone.
SG
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i think most people who go to mainstream sites know there is going to be some bias but in exchange you get more exposure to footage, details - no matter how hollow the integrity a good reader can make a good decision from the details.
Look at Halo 3 - is it really anything but a watered down FPS experience? Major Chump can't actually DO anything except fight. The beginning told you that when you follow your guys up a hill and whoops, not you fatty, you have to go around... lame
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Let is rest.
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1. It is the biggest news in gaming other than the Blizzard merger, and the full details are still only slowly emerging.
2. People are really interested in said details, and are eating up these stories like hotcakes.
I heartily endorse this article, though it does little to evolved the Gerstmann-gate series.
8.8
7.25/11
At least they're packaging it up into nice sided chunks instead of dozens of little news bits and not posting tons of speculation and editorial.
And we can always repeat the bloggers mantra: If you don't like it, go read something else.
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