GameDaily reports Joshua Larson, former VP of Games at CNET Networks and the man often blamed for GameSpot's Gerstmann-gate scandal, has been named VP of Business Development at in-game ad agency Double Fusion. Please let the deliciousness of that flow over you for a brief moment.

Double Fusion's President and CEO announced Larson's hiring along with several others, saying that the new folks share a love of games and a "history of strong results and success in their prior roles." Larson's previous role was to manage business strategy and product direction at GameSpot.com. He's been dubbed the point man in the firing of Jeff Gerstmann and the exodus which followed, leaving GameSpot an editorially tarnished brand. If "success" is determined through money and not reputation, then it's probably being used to describe Larson's small roll in CNET's purchase by CBS for $1.8 billion earlier this year.

When Gamespot Editorial Director Jeff Gerstmann was abruptly fired under controversial circumstances late last year, it set off a sort of domino effect. In the wake of the scandal, Gamespot staffers Ryan Davis, Brad Shoemaker and Vinny Caravella all decided to leave the venerable site to start a new project with Gerstmann: a project called Giant Bomb. A skeleton of the site has been up since March, but the project really got going Monday with an overhaul that mixes user-created, wiki-style pages with editorial reviews, videos and podcasts from the four-man ex-Gamespot crew.

We talked to Giant Bomb co-founder Ryan Davis about his thoughts on the new site and his departure from Gamespot, and game journalism in general. Some excerpts from our conversation (be sure to click the "Continue" link for the full interview):

On Gerstmann-gate and the state of game journalism
"Obviously we still have lots of friends and a ton of history there [at CNET], but we're so focused on the good stuff we're doing now. ... [Gerstmann-gate] certainly helped get our names in people's mouths in certain circles. ... Before [Gerstmann-gate] even happened, I felt like people needed to be more skeptical about what they read, with the massive influx of news-blogs giving little distinction between rumor and fact.

"We're not in the business of reporting news, but as far as the review process goes, we're being very open about a review being that person's perspective. We don't use fancy math to come to our reviews, we just go with what the reviewer feels the game merits. I think when a review has to represent an entire organization's perspective on a game, that's where you can run into trouble. Also, for what it's worth, I've never considered myself a 'game journalist.' I think they exist, but I'm a reviewer and a commentator more than anything."

Despite our obvious misgivings over naming a new internet venture "Giant Bomb," the fuse on Jeff Gerstmann's post-GameSpot outing keeps on burning, getting us closer to its eventual proper unveiling this summer. In addition to Gerstmann and GameSpot BFF Ryan Davis, you can add former 'Spotters Vinny Caravella and Brad Shoemaker to the still shortlist of Giant Bombs, as confirmed on the latest podcast for the still infant site. With GameSpot still smarting over Gerstmann-gate, will Giant Bomb succeed in attracting enough readers to warrant the growing headcount? We'll find out soon – Giant Bomb is "blowing up this summer."

[Thanks, giantenemycrab]

In an interview with former GameSpot reviewer, Alex Navarro, MTV Multiplayer Blog was able to extract a telling tale from the newly appointed community team member at Harmonix regarding the oil-to-water relationship public relations practitioners have with the press.

When tasked to review an unnamed Wii launch title, Navarro was sent a note along with his copy of the game--which he provided as evidence to Steven Totilo.

The note read: If the review is 9.0 or higher you can post immediately. Lower than 9.0, could you please hold until launch day, November 19th? Thanks.

"And that's not the first time I got something like that," Navarro told MTV. Navarro, who left GameSpot after the public and controversial firing of then-reviews editor Jeff Gerstmann, said GameSpot ran their review for this game based on a copy bought in a store and they panned it for what it was.

When GameSpot reviews editor Jeff Gerstmann was suddenly fired from his position, parent-company CNET lost nearly half-a-dozen staff members surrounding the controversy. One of those staff members, expert drummer Alex Navarro, announced he has landed at Harmonix, joining their community team, during the May 20th episode of the Giant Bomb Podcast.

"The concept of leaping headfirst into something like this, for a company I admire and respect as much as Harmonix, is straight up boner-inducing," Navarro eloquently wrote on his personal blog.

So what does this mean for Rock Band fans? Navarro will help administer the Rock Band forums as well as help writing other content where needed. Navarro also hints at a more dedicated Rock Band developer blog which we hope is akin to the work done by Luke Smith at Bungie.

The most important thing? Maybe we can finally get some Hard-Fi love in Rock Band.

We've joked before that, with all of the resignations post Gerstmann-gate, Gamespot's content must be generated by a lonely janitor in the offices, taking a break from picking gum out of the carpet. We're sad to report that his life is about to be even harder: Editor Brad Shoemaker (who has written for the site for eight years) will leave the company this Friday. He hasn't reveled where he's headed, but he's maintaining a personal blog to keep fans up-to-date.

The list of departures from the site is getting long enough that we'll soon have to set it to the tune of the "William Tell Overture" to remember it all. But for right now it's at Jason Ocampo, Ryan Davis, Alex Navarro, Frank Provo and, of course, Jeff Gerstmann himself. Just so we know, is this officially "fiasco" level yet? Are we at Code Fiasco?

[Thanks, Robert]

He's been teasing it for a while now, but Jeff Gerstmann has revealed where he's rebuilding his house after the Gamespot Quake of '07: GiantBomb.com, a collabo between Jeff G. and fellow former Gamespotters Alex Navarro and Ryan Davis. As you probably could have guessed, it's a site all about knitting, knitting supplies, knitting culture and (of course) knitting humor in the monthly feature "What A Stitch!" (also, video games).

This week, Gerstmann takes you behind the scenes on an exclusive, backstage tour of the new Giant Bomb offices. Who knew a start-up could be this glamorous?

The post Gerstmann-gate metagame of "who's leaving Gamespot" continues with the announcement that former editor Jason Ocampo has landed a job as Editor-in-Chief of the PC team at IGN.

Although Ocampo's leaving supposedly had nothing to do with Gerstmann-gate, the loss of almost every "known" person at Gamespot in such a short time is ... awkward. On the plus side, now there's hardly anyone remaining at Gamespot who'd be worth noting if they left. Yay, the epic is almost over and we can march forward (Ocam-ocam-ocam-po).

At this point, when we think of the halls of Gamespot, we can't help but envision one lonely janitor who, taking a break from his full day of sweeping, occasionally tries to put a video game into a console and, on the rare times when he's successful, writes 800 words about it. We know that's not the case, but our grim image of the place has only been further cemented by the news during this week's Hotspot (the site's official podcast) that PC gaming specialist Jason Ocampo was leaving the site for another opportunity.

Ocampo said that he hadn't been considering a move three weeks ago, which would seem to rule any Gerstmann-gate connections out. That said, we'd be willing to bet that having so many of his co-workers jump ship didn't make the decision any harder.

In his first television appearance since his controversial firing, Jeff Gerstmann will appear at 8 p.m. tonight on G4's recently redesigned news show X-Play. According to a G4 press notice, Gerstmann will be discussing innovation (or the lack thereof) in Japanese gaming and will also "field questions regarding his previous position with Gamespot, as well as his current and future endeavors."

For those who've missed Gerstmann's calming presence on On The Spot, this will provide a great opportunity to see the big guy back in action. For everyone else, er ... there's another story right below this one!

It's fair to say that the controversial firing of Jeff Gerstmann was a contributing factor to Ryan Davis' recent decision to leave Gamespot. But it was far from the only factor.

"Jeff's firing just destroyed me, and I think it shed a light on the other stuff that I had been kind of rolling along with," Davis told Joystiq in an exclusive interview.

For Davis, who had worked for the popular site since 2000, the daily grind of working at such a large site was beginning to take its toll. "It's just that I had been at the job for a long time, and a lot of the stuff that made the job fun for me has dissipated," he said. "Sometimes you don't love the job, but you make your way through it by focusing on the good stuff. Gamespot is also a huge site, and an organization of that magnitude comes with a fair amount of bureaucracy, and everyone ultimately ends up spending a fair amount of time doing stuff other than producing the content."

Update: Davis discusses his departure with Joystiq.

Joystiq has confirmed with new Gamespot editor-in-chief Ricardo Torres that longtime staffer Ryan Davis has given notice that he intends to leave the site. While we haven't been able to get in touch with Davis directly, a source close to Davis inside Gamespot told us, on condition of anonymity, that the controversial firing of editorial director Jeff Gerstmann was the catalyst behind the decision. The planned departure follows similar decisions by freelancer Frank Provo and staffer Alex Navarro in the wake of the scandal.

In a Dec. 1 blog post, Davis spoke of his close relationship with Gerstmann since before he started writing for Gamespot in 2000. "Jeff Gerstmann has been a significant figure in both my personal and professional life for a long, long time," he wrote. "By my recollection, we were fairly fast friends, though I was also kind of pushy about it." The pair played together as part of alternative rap group Suburban All-Stars.

We know that a lot of you harbor resentment towards GameSpot in the wake of the whole Gerstmann-gate affair, and we can't blame you. We've all got hefty, Gerstmann-shaped holes in our hearts, and our faith in the once great review database is now shaken. However, Ricardo Torres, GameSpot's recently appointed Editor in Chief, is determined to regain your trust in the site, regardless of how many stern 7.5s he'll have to hand out in order to do so.

In a recent interview with GameDaily,Torres claims that GameSpot staffers are coming back to work (those who haven't resigned), and that "people are getting back into the swing of things." He also hopes that their strengthened dedication to putting out untainted content will win back their original readers. What do you think, gang? Is it possible to forgive and forget? Or has that ship sailed, been boarded by pirates, then viciously torpedoed by U-Boats?

If you haven't perused it yet, 1UP's Sam Kennedy's piece on Gerstmann-gate is really fascinating. Not only do you get a not-quite-insider's view on the whole situation, but there are also some really eye-opening nuggets on the methods GameSpot uses both to track users and to cater to its marketers. If you like the inside baseball side of games journalism, it's a must-read.

There's also an interesting rumor buried within: Kennedy reports that "word on the street" is that ousted Jeff Gerstmann and GameSpot founder Vince Broady would be teaming up to create a new site to "take on GameSpot." We don't know if it's true, but we'd keep an eye on Gerstmann's blog for more info.

Joystiq has confirmed with longtime Gamespot staffer Alex Navarro that he will be resigning his position at the CNET gaming site in response to the controversial firing of editorial director Jeff Gerstmann.

"I felt like it was just time for me to go," Navarro told Joystiq in an exclusive interview. " Certainly [the decision to leave] had a lot to do with the whole Jeff [Gerstmann] situation. ... I wouldn't have left if this situation hadn't gone down the way it did. ... Sometimes you just realize a place isn't for you anymore, you know?"

Navarro has been a mainstay on the site since early 2003, writing hundreds of reviews and appearing regularly on video podcast The Hotspot. His last day at the site will be Jan. 24.