News Fired over a review

[Lethal]

One of the reviewers (Jeff Gerstmann) for Gamespot was fired today after giving the game, Kane and Lynch an 'fair' review. Seems Eidos, the makers of the game took offence to his review and as they were paying for advertising on the site and pressured Gamespot into getting rid of him.
I know theres been time in the past where companies have paid for better reviews.
Could be interesting to see what happens with this.

 

[DamianBis]

Re: Fired over a review.

That's bullshit.

Don't be surprised if we've heard that he's been reinstated because of unfair dismissal.

 

[Hollow Knight]

Re: Fired over a review.

This is insanity.

Jeff Gerstmann IS Gamespot. One of the best reviewers going round and industry veteran. I listen to him on Gamespot's HotSpot podcats all the time.

The gaming community will riot.

 

[Hollow Knight]

Re: Fired over a review.

Gamespot is dead to me now.

They've lost their three best contributors this year.

Greg Kasavin left to get into game development.

Rich Gallup quit to pursue better opportunities...

And now Gerstmann.

Insanity.

 

[Lethal]

Re: Fired over a review.

This is insanity.

Jeff Gerstmann IS Gamespot. One of the best reviewers going round and industry veteran. I listen to him on Gamespot's HotSpot podcats all the time.

The gaming community will riot.

Unfortunately it is true, and the gaming community is up in arms about it.
http://au.gamespot.com/pages/forums/show_msgs.php?topic_id=26072117&page=0

Petition:
http://www.petitiononline.com/GAMEJEFF/

Printed review:
http://au.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/kanelynchdeadmen/index.html?tag=result;title;0
(note all the negative user reviews)

Video review: (It's been removed from the site)
[YOUTUBE]5FuJ81sDR2o[/YOUTUBE]
The vid review is the problem apparently due to the tone of it.

 

[blues4flag]

Re: Fired over a review.

Haven't been a regular at Gamespot for a couple years - can't say I'm a fan of Jeff's (pertaining to some of his complaints about Wii games in general) - Alex Navaro is their best reviewer IMO, however if true that is pathetic.

 

[ep2018]

Re: Fired over a review.

He was a good reviewer, and totally honest.

But I will never get over how he gave TP an 8.8, and WarioWare Wii a 9.1(?).

 

[Hollow Knight]

Re: Fired over a review.

He was a good reviewer, and totally honest.

But I will never get over how he gave TP an 8.8, and WarioWare Wii a 9.1(?).

They're just numbers, which people put too much faith in. People are better off reading the actual review.

Its sucks how the numbering system in reviews has evolved.

Anything below an 8 is considered by most people to be not worth buying. That means 80 percent of the scale is reserved for bad games. It's just ridiculous.

What can be done though, if a good game doesn't get a 9 or above the fanboys riot, and (based on the Gerstmann situation) so do publishers.

Game Criticism is in a very bad place right now.

 

[Kerrby]

Re: Fired over a review.

That's pretty stupid.

I can see TheBrownDog is very upset over it .

 

[ep2018]

Re: Fired over a review.

They're just numbers, which people put too much faith in. People are better off reading the actual review.

Its sucks how the numbering system in reviews has evolved.

Anything below an 8 is considered by most people to be not worth buying. That means 80 percent of the scale is reserved for bad games. It's just ridiculous.

What can be done though, if a good game doesn't get a 9 or above the fanboys riot, and (based on the Gerstmann situation) so do publishers.

Game Criticism is in a very bad place right now.

I agree!

Some of my favourite games like Red Steel (Wii) and Mischief Makers (N64) were rated poorly... yet I still love playing them.

 

[Kerrby]

Re: Fired over a review.

This guy went on to create GiantBomb with a few other of the GameSpot employees.

www.giantbomb.com

Also, I think he's been on IGN before.

 

[Hollow Knight]

Re: Fired over a review.

Yeah GiantBomb is a great site. The Bombcast is awesome.

Gerstmann was never with IGN btw.

 

[Chief]

Re: Fired over a review.

They're just numbers, which people put too much faith in. People are better off reading the actual review.

Its sucks how the numbering system in reviews has evolved.

Anything below an 8 is considered by most people to be not worth buying. That means 80 percent of the scale is reserved for bad games. It's just ridiculous.

a) If you have game companies pumping for big numbers, everything will slide up the scale so the artificial numbers don't drown out the games the reviewers think really are great.

b) 80% of games, at a minimum, are probably bad anyway.

 

[Waverley73]

Re: Fired over a review.

a) If you have game companies pumping for big numbers, everything will slide up the scale so the artificial numbers don't drown out the games the reviewers think really are great.

b) 80% of games, at a minimum, are probably bad anyway.

When it comes to the DS I'd say that figure is more like 95%. A high proportion of those bad games are REALLY bad too.

 

[Zarrix]

Re: Fired over a review.

Game scoring has been scaled so highly, that the 80% average is permanently in the psyche. I think another reason for this mindset is the fact you are often spending about $100 on a game compared to $15-20 on Movies and Music. You want a good return on that investment, and an average game isn't a good enough return. If you watch or listen to a Movie or an album that is average, it doesn't matter as much.

 

[HBK619]

Re: Fired over a review.

Gamespot in the news again over claims of a score change (of 8.5 to a 9.0) for MW2.

Source: http://gamerlimit.com/2009/11/rumors-circulate-about-gamespot-changing-mw2-review-score/

RUMOURS CIRCULATE ABOUT GAMESPOT CHANGING MW2 REVIEW SCORE
The forums at Giantbomb are buzzing that Gamespot changed their review score for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Multiple posters state that the 9.0 present isn’t the original score, and that Gamespot had posted an 8.5 first. None of the forum users have produced a screenshot of the alleged original score, but we decided to contact Chris Watters, the author of the review, for clarification

Read on for his response.

Watters said, “That rumor is patently false. I wrote the review, I produced the review, I set the review live, and at no point was the score changed. It was a 9.0 all the way. Somebody fabricated that tidbit and it is absolutely untrue.”

 

[HBK619]

Re: Fired over a review.

Nearly 5 years later, the true story has finally been revealed.

Earlier today it was revealed that Jeff Gerstmann's site GiantBomb that he founded after being fired from GameSpot is now going BACK to GameSpot, still to operate as GiantBomb on their own site. But no longer with Whiskey Media and instead under the GameSpot ownership. All their staff are moving over and it's breaking up the Whiskey Media branding, the other sites like Tested and Screened have their own partnerships now (Tested teaming up with Mythbusters).

From this Jeff has now told the full story about how/why he was fired and everything surrounding that.

I haven't got access to the video as of yet, it will likely go up on GiantBomb at some time within the next 24 hours (will post or edit the link when it's up). But the gist has been written down by The Escapist, for now.

As some will know, I absolutely adore GiantBomb, I'm a paying subscriber to the site, so the news that they'll be going to GameSpot is huge (obviously not just for me, but for everyone too). They have confirmed that nothing will really change for the worse, it's only going to get better, I really hope that's true.

Source: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/116360-Jeff-Gerstmann-Explains-His-Departure-From-Gamespot

The issue, Gerstmann claimed in a streaming interview, was that a new management team inexperienced in dealing with editorial groups, had come to power at Gamespot and overreacted to what Gerstmann describes as "publisher push-back." According to his recollection, Eidos threatened to pull ad revenue from Gamespot as a result of his review, and though this kind of thing is relatively common in games journalism, the nascent management team panicked and decided that Gerstmann was unreliable. "They felt they couldn't trust me in the role," Gerstmann said.

"We did what an editorial team does. We did what we were supposed to be doing. We reviewed games, we instructed people about the quality of games, and we were completely honest," he added. "This management team buckled when faced with having a lot of ad dollars walk out the door."

Following the incident -- which Gerstmann calls "the craziest thing that's ever happened to me" -- he was deluged with attention. To the point that his parents were getting phone calls from Norwegian newspapers at four in the morning.

Eventually things blew over, but you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who was present in the gaming world back then who doesn't immediately associate Gerstmann with the incident.

Thus, today's live interview, which Gerstmann and the Gamespot team hope will set the stage for their continued success. The management team who originally canned Gerstmann are no longer with the company, and according to the man himself the content of Giant Bomb will be in no way censored or lessened by this new business agreement.

 

[HBK619]

Re: Fired over a review.

Here's the video of the Jeff Gerstmann interview on why and how he was fired from GameSpot.

Source: http://www.giantbomb.com/news/and-now-the-rest-of-the-story/4037/
[YOUTUBE]GagFPnSG0j4[/YOUTUBE]