reviewer fired over kane and lynch review

[Himuro]

http://kotaku.com/gaming/rumor/gamespot-editor-fired-over-kane--lynch-review-328244.php

According to the source, Gerstmann was fired "on the spot" due to advertiser pressure for his review of Eidos' Kane & Lynch: Dead Men. A visit to Gamespot shows that the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 game has taken over the site very prominently, with backgrounds and multiple banner ads all pitching Kane & Lynch. Allegedly, publisher Eidos "took issue with the review and threatened to pull its ad campaign."

Jeff's review was certainly less than glowing. He assigned the game a 6.0, otherwise known as "Fair" on the Gamespot scale. The game is currently enjoying a Metacritic score in the 65 to 69 range, which the site describes as "mixed or average reviews." According to our tipster, it wasn't necessarily the score that was reason for Gerstmann's rumored axing, but the "tone" of the review.

This is absolutely sickening and even further proof that the gaming community is a crock of shit.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2007/20071129.jpg

[~Schwab]

He was actually a good reviewer. He reviewed GTA III, Vice City, San Andreas, and a lot of other next-gen games (that were really hyped, so to speak).

Sucks.

[Himuro]

http://www.gamespot.com/pages/video_player/popup.p hp?sid=6182850&pid=934403

watch his video review. He basically highlights why it's not a great game and he tore that game APART. DAMMMMMN that is ice cold.

[Lettermaniac]

Sad, isn't it? You might have heard of Payola in the music industry (where DJs etc are paid by record companies to play music that they want to get on the top 40), well, this is like the equivalent in gaming terms. Except this guy went against it and gave the game what it deserved. Good on him, sucks to see him gone.

[Slim Trashman]

Wow, I remembered this guy for reviewing the GTA's, that's crazy.

[Olin]

The game community is shit. This is why I get games and ignore ratings.

[Himuro]

I really wonder how this happened. Did Gamespot/Cnet (the people who own Gamespot) say that he HAD to give it a high score and he decided to just use journalistic integrity and report what he actually felt? Because that's the vibe I get from his video review of the game. He tore that game apart and acted like it was going to be his last review, and went out with a bang.

Either way, Gamespot staff is REFUSING to confirm or deny anything because they themselves will be fired. Holy shit. Corporate slime.

And if anyone thinks this is limited to gamespot, you're dead wrong. Publishers use bully tactics and moneyhats to secure high ratings from reviewers in this industry just as much as a rockstars get laid. Game "journalists" get fancy cigars and hotel rooms and flights off of the publishers' tab, but they do it at the expense of journalistic integrity. Kudos to Gertsmann.

[Lettermaniac]

I know that. Just like I said, it's like Payola in gaming review terms. The publishers that know their games are overly hyped (seems to be 90% of games today) but aren't so good (seems to be 100% of games today) would most likely pay Gamespot and friends to give 'em nice reviews. Doesn't surprise me one bit.

[Himuro]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FuJ81sDR2o

Here's the video review in case the gamespot link is taken down

[X-reS]

Once of the few reviewer I recognized. Too bad, maybe if the is a backlash of some sort they will bring him back.

[Lettermaniac]

Hm, just watched the review. He did own them. I bet the publishers were most unhappy with the "if you get a chance, rent it out, but don't pay full price for it" comment he made, rather than anything else. Makes sense seeing they basically bought the whole website to advertise it so people would pay full price.

[ZCAB]

Note to video game developers: try sticking the money you put into bribing video game reviewers into the actual game. Contrary to popular belief, a game does actually get good reviews if it's a good game.

[Grimmy]

wow, that's pretty fucked up. Also no on the spot this wekk cause of his firing.. damn :(

[The Shy Child.]

My cousin that works at rockstar said to me that gaming can be good to work in one day and like a bitch the next.

[Ash_735]

Just watched the review, honestly, deserved the sack, he just ripped into the game and hated it, I'm playing it right now and I like the storyline and the characters, it's a good story for an adult audience compared to all the fantasy and family crap that's out, he just shit all over the game and didn't even give a good review, it was more like he couldn't be arsed playing it, which is made obvious in the multiplayer part.

edit: OK, so he doesn't deserve the sack for that, but that was just one negative review for no fucking reason.

edit2: I don't like paying attention to reviewers I prefer to think for myself and make up my own mind, Obviously I dis-agree with this guy, I'd say it's at least a 7.5 but it is sad that he got fired just because the company didn't like the review.

[Japisee]

This guy basically lost his job because he didn't like a video game.

[Himuro]

He lost it because Eidos pulled thousands of dollars of ad revenue from the site. He was a sacrificial lamb.

[Shadow Conception]

It's like these forums. You get blasted for having opinions.

[Old Timer]

From what I saw in the video, it looks like the company who put the game out, tried to use some of the real life stuff that was involved with the Los Angeles "North Hollywood Shoot out," other than that, can't really say much.
Did, go back and play an old game the other night, "Master Of Orion - Battle At Antares," it's still fun!

[passage]

I lost respect for all ratings awhile ago.

[Skillet]

Things have apparently changed within the past year or so at Gamespot ever since Kasavin had left the place.

"We're very clear in our review policies that all reviews are vetted by the entire team before they go live - everything that goes up is the product of an entire team's output. Our freelancers are especially guilty of making snide comments, but those are always yanked before the review goes live, because everyone in the office reads these reviews and makes sure they're up to our standards before they get put up.

If there was a problem with his reviews, then it would've been a problem with the entire team. Firing him without telling anyone implies that anyone else on this team can be fired at the drop of a hat as well, because none of us are writing any differently or meaner or less professionally than we were two years ago before the management changed. I'm sure management wants to spin this as the G-Man being unprofessional to take away from the egg on their face that results after a ten-year employee gets locked out of his office and told to leave the premises and then no one communicates anything to us about it until the next day.

What you might not be aware of is that GS is well known for appealing mostly to hardcore gamers. The mucky-mucks have been doing a lot of "brand research" over the last year or so and indicating that they want to reach out to more casual gamers. Our last executive editor, Greg Kasavin, left to go to EA, and he was replaced by a suit, Josh Larson, who had no editorial experience and was only involved on the business side of things. Over the last year there has been an increasing amount of pressure to allow the advertising teams to have more of a say in the editorial process; we've started having to give our sales team heads-ups when a game is getting a low score, for instance, so that they can let the advertisers know that before a review goes up. Other publishers have started giving us notes involving when our reviews can go up; if a game's getting a 9 or above, it can go up early; if not, it'll have to wait until after the game is on the shelves.

I was in the meeting where Josh Larson was trying to explain this firing and the guy had absolutely no response to any of the criticisms we were sending his way. He kept dodging the question, saying that there were "multiple instances of tone" in the reviews that he hadn't been happy about, but that wasn't Jeff's problem since we all vet every review. He also implied that "AAA" titles deserved more attention when they were being reviewed, which sounded to all of us that he was implying that they should get higher scores, especially since those titles are usually more highly advertised on our site."

Fine read on part of the ordeal.

http://valleywag.com/tech/jeff-gerstmann/gamespot-editor-on-fired-writer-328775.php

[Lauwee]

Considering Jeff's my favorite reviewer from Gamespot, this sucks. I really don't think he deserved to be fired. A public reprimand would've been rational.

[Lettermaniac]

GameSpot Press Release. (http://www.gamespot.com/news/6183603.html)