Fellow Editors, Readers Respond Over GameSpot’s Review Controversy
The firing of (now?) former Gamespot Editorial Director, Jeff Gerstmann has been the talk of the industry, and looking at reader and professional responses from gamers, the situation is not looking too pretty for the folks at CNET.
Most surprising in reactions, is those of former Gamespot employees, themselves. Tim Tracy, a former editor at the site, who recently moved on to Mp3.com, a CNET sister site, appears to have up and left, with a blog post stating “it’s been real” followed by an abundance of outpouring from the community. Adam Buchen, also a former employee, has inspired several members of the Gamespot community to cancel all paid subscriptions, a total which is currently at USD $1717.90 of lost money to the folks at CNET.
If that’s not enough, several users have responded by threatening to downright boycott GS in an ever-expanding thread almost 130 pages long on the official forums.
As if the prior bits of evidence weren’t enough, it appears Joystiq has received an e-mail from Gerstmann, himself confirming that he has been let go, and that he’s “looking forward to getting back out there and figuring out what’s next.”
November 30th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
Threatening to boycott the site by posting in 130 pages of their forum is 100% pure hypocrisy. Still, I won’t be going there PROVIDING that Gerstmann’s discharge was only the result of his review. There could be more to it, but as it stands right now, I have no interest in going to a website that only wants to sprawl ads in my face.
November 30th, 2007 at 1:51 pm
Gerstmann may be trying to hold the site hostage. He hasn’t yet said what he’d been laid off for.
November 30th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
Providing this isn’t just hyped up news, I will try to refrain from going to that site.
It wasn’t my favorite gossip rag anyway. I used to go to it for details though.
I’m kind of hoping the guy just needed to be fired and that no outside pressure caused it. If the story is proven to be sound, then it will leave me with doubt about all Game news sites. At least the big popular ones.