Gamespot’s Editorial Director Fired Over Kane & Lynch Score?
- Scribbled on November 29th, 2007 by Devin Grimes
- Filed in Industry News, Rumor Mill, WTF
Here’s a perfect WTF situation for you guys: Word on the grapevine is that Gamespot’s Current Editorial Director and longtime Editor Jeff Gerstmann is on his way out due to publisher pressure from Eidos over his 6.0 review score of Kane & Lynch Dead Men.
Gamespot, which has recently been heavily inundated with Kane & Lynch advertisements and promotional material, reportedly fired Gerstmann “on the spot,” according to sources close to Kotaku. Gerstmann’s scores have long been a topic of controversy among die-hard readers, but for someone who has been with the site for more than 10 years, it seems pretty shady that he would be fired on such ridiculous terms.
Couple Kotaku’s rumor with the early “printing” of tomorrow’s scheduled Penny Arcade comic strip and this case is looking, unfortunately, pretty convincing.
Further evidence pointing to this is his recent absence on Gamespot’s weekly audio and video podcasts: The Hotspot and On the Spot. This week’s “ishdition” of the Hotspot featured an unusual stable of only three people, and tonight’s scheduled episode of On the Spot has been downright canceled.
Whatever the case, we here at Game Stooge would like to wish Jeff the best in future endeavors, whether at Gamespot or elsewhere.
November 30th, 2007 at 12:08 am
Correlation is not causality, but it looks bad.
November 30th, 2007 at 1:02 am
If this is true… GameSpot is obviously more money-minded than creating quality, TRUE content
November 30th, 2007 at 1:49 am
[...] Homework. [Thanks GameStooge] [...]
November 30th, 2007 at 3:07 am
Devin,
I’m not really much of Idealist, it’s not like I feel particularly pissed about this. It just makes me kind of sad, dirty. At the very least, it will be interesting to see what happens.
November 30th, 2007 at 3:30 am
If this actually turns out to be true, Gamespot pretty much instantly loses any and all credibility. They may as well let companies bid for the right to have their marketing department write the ‘reviews’ of their games. They can count on a lot of lost traffic as people get turned off by the site.
On one hand, I’m hoping that they’d be smart enough to not cut their own throat like that. On the other hand, I’ve seen so many companies do things even stupider…
November 30th, 2007 at 10:22 am
Kane & Lynch loses more. And the shame is that it isn’t a bad game, just an average one with a great story.
November 30th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
Breaks out of jail, goes for revenge.
Yeah.
Sounds GREAT.
November 30th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
The dialogue, characterization and plot twists. Play the game before you comment on it.
Or maybe you need your protagonists to be pure and heroic, not to mention handsome and/or muscular?
And summarizing any plot makes it sound stupid. How about this: “Reporter investigates the life of a dead rich guy.”
How about “Space marine battles alien menace”? Can you count the number of games with THAT plot?
November 30th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
No, I can’t. I am not defending it either. Try not putting words in people’s mouths
December 1st, 2007 at 12:09 am
[...] has stated that Jeff Gerstmann was not fired due to a Kane & Lynch review. “While reiterating that CNET does not discuss personal employee matters with the press, [...]
December 18th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
[...] the controversy surrounding it, you can try the demo of Kane & Lynch at the very least from Xbox Live Marketplace. The demo is [...]
February 7th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
[...] must wonder if this is a Gerstmann situation in reverse, in which review exclusivity – which, in my humble opinion, is an evil practice that [...]
September 16th, 2009 at 12:01 am
[...] to advertisers. Here in the United States, gamers and journalists have complained – and had the occasional scandal – about how beholden gaming magazines are to the publishers whose games they [...]