Support NeoGAF

[Opus Angelorum]

What interests me about this is that these "supervisors" decided the way to correct this would be to make numerous changes to the text of the review to better match the score, rather than simply bringing down the score to better match the review.

And who were his supervisors at Gamespot, he was the Editorial Director!

 

[The Jer]

Holy crap @ the spread and the additional people logging on to THAT site, ostensiably to find out about the controversity.

or holiday season. it should be normal for sites like that to recieve increased traffic during this time of year.

 

[FlyinJ]

What interests me about this is that these "supervisors" decided the way to correct the discrepancy would be to make numerous changes to the text of the review to better match the score, rather than simply bringing down the score to better match the review.

Seems like that would be a lot less work as well.

 

[Roc Gaude]

well yeah, but i'd like to see the numbers in a month. i've been to gamespot more times in the last week than i have been in the last year. but once this is no longer news i see it dropping off.

I'm with you on that one. As heart felt as the remaining editors were on the last episode of "the Hotspot" and hearing how determined they were at setting things right, I don't think any "real" changes will be made on the executive side of the fence.

I'm really interested to see where Jeff ends up and how many of his former co-workers follow him there.

 

[eshwaaz]

Having played the game, I can't help but feel like Jeff didn't even play it. The video review was sparse, unprofessional and repetitive, even in it's short run time. K&L is not, I don't think, a 6.0 game. It's certainly not a bright spot in a season of heavy contenders, but it's got some really great moments. I just never felt like he made a case. Frankly, if the guy was on the fence already, I would've fired him for this, too. Lazy,lazy work.

It just goes to show how much personal taste can play into these things. For me, Jeff's review was the one I most agreed with. Saying that the gameplay is better than Mass Effect is arguable - neither game excels with their shooting and cover mechanics, but one is an RPG, and the other is a cover-based 3rd person shooter. One is failing much harder than the other, as Mass Effect has a ton to offer beyond the combat, where **** and ***** does not.

A 6 seems perfectly fair to me.

 

[Gary Whitta]

Seems like that would be a lot less work as well.

Yeah. But it's not even about what's less work.

A review is not its score. The body of text is the heart of the review, the first, best and most detailed expression of the reviewer's opinion. The numeric score is just there as a quick reference snapshot of that review.

I've edited many reviews where the text and the score did not correlate, and in every case it was the score that needed to be adjusted (either up or down) to properly reflect what was said in the review.

I feel pretty confident in speculating that had the K&L score been too *low* for the tone of the review, JG's "superiors" would have adjusted the score up to fit, not the review text down.

 

[Opus Angelorum]

I feel pretty confident in speculating that had the K&L score been too *low* for the tone of the review, JG's "superiors" would have adjusted the score up to fit, not the review text down.

Without question.

 

[Mar]

That was a great article by N'Gai.

 

[mosaic]

I feel pretty confident in speculating that had the K&L score been too *low* for the tone of the review, JG's "superiors" would have adjusted the score up to fit, not the review text down.

Jeff's superiors aren't in editorial. More to the point, GameSpot editorial already has a Q&A process in place, where multiple editors look over reviews before they're posted. If any of them felt the tone or score were mismatched, they would have told him so and stated their case. Of course, any such changes as a result of that process are made with the writer's final say and happen BEFORE the review goes live.

I'm not in the Q&A loop, so I can't say exactly how the process went for K&L, but I've been on the receiving end of comments such as "The score seems high/low for what you wrote" or "Dude, you need to flesh out (such and such aspect) more."

 

[Feep]

So we're going to retain a ban on J0yst1q which involved one asshole who was immediately fired from their staff, but GS with all this bullshit is fine and dandy?

Cool, mods.

Edit: Okay, apparently we're going to ban GS too. But seriously, we should unban the 'stiq.

 

[neojubei]

N'Gai is great as always. The PR dept for **** and ***** must be hating their jobs right about now. However the biggest loser is gamespot and their creditably.

 

[WarPig]

But through all of that, I never really thought that the system was essentially DYSFUNCTIONAL -- or that any pretense of editorial purity would eventually be unsustainable given that we're covering the very companies who are putting food on the proverbial table. Why? It's really a credit of the editorial director and other higher-up editors at Ziff (again, J.D. at the time) that they truly shielded us from the bullshit -- to the point where we were happily oblivious to the ever-growing tension.

One of the weird ironies of the situation is that if Gerstmann hadn't been as high up in the company as he was, I suspect he might have had a better shot at avoiding such an extreme response.

Back when I worked for IGN -- this was either 2000 or 2001, I forget which -- I made an off-hand comment about Legends of Wrestling on the site that, one thing leading to another, had Acclaim demanding I be shown the door. And the bosses of the company were perfectly happy to go along, since these were the bad old days of the dot-com crash and one smart-ass editor wasn't worth shit. Since I was just an editor, though, with a couple of layers of editorial above me, Peer Schneider and my other immediate superiors smoothed it over. It took a couple years more mouthing off to finally get fired.

Jeff, on the other hand, at the top of the editorial department more or less, has nobody higher up the totem pole but sharks. Who's gonna go to bat for him?

 

[GitarooMan]

Halfway through this week's HotSpot, two thoughts

1. They keep saying not to blame them and that's fine, but I don't think anyone is blaming them. The concern is their editorial integrity, and at least in the first half-hour no one is really addressing that in any meaningfuly way.

2. Sorry, I don't believe for a second that the k&l video review would have been brought down anyway as they seem to imply, way too much of a coincidence. Also, their talk that the review wasn't the reason doesn't really say anything because maybe it wasn't specifically the review, but instead for example how he argued with superiors about it.

I'm going to listen to the rest but right now I'm a little unimpressed, and in fact they come off as a bit whiny in parts (i.e. don't blame us we didn't do it, feel bad for us too).

Side note: I'm sure this has been mentioned, but Garnett ripped the shit out of K&L on 1up yours last week, so Gerstmann's not the only one who sees huge flaws in it.

 

[Kintaro]

Back when I worked for IGN -- this was either 2000 or 2001, I forget which -- I made an off-hand comment about Legends of Wrestling on the site that, one thing leading to another, had Acclaim demanding I be shown the door. And the bosses of the company were perfectly happy to go along, since these were the bad old days of the dot-com crash and one smart-ass editor wasn't worth shit. Since I was just an editor, though, with a couple of layers of editorial above me, Peer Schneider and my other immediate superiors smoothed it over. It took a couple years more mouthing off to finally get fired.

Which smart ass comment eventually got you fired?

 

[WarPig]

Which smart ass comment eventually got you fired?

There was no one straw that broke the camel's back. Several bales simply accumulated over time.

It's worth noting that I support their decision in retrospect. By that point it was clearly time for me to go.

 

[Spire]

Halfway through this week's HotSpot, two thoughts

1. They keep saying not to blame them and that's fine, but I don't think anyone is blaming them. The concern is their editorial integrity, and at least in the first half-hour no one is really addressing that in any meaningfuly way.

2. Sorry, I don't believe for a second that the k&l video review would have been brought down anyway as they seem to imply, way too much of a coincidence. Also, their talk that the review wasn't the reason doesn't really say anything because maybe it wasn't specifically the review, but instead for example how he argued with superiors about it.

I'm going to listen to the rest but right now I'm a little unimpressed, and in fact they come off as a bit whiny in parts (i.e. don't blame us we didn't do it, feel bad for us too).

Side note: I'm sure this has been mentioned, but Garnett ripped the shit out of K&L on 1up yours last week, so Gerstmann's not the only one who sees huge flaws in it.

You'll note that they never say that the K&L review wasn't part of the reason he was fired, just that it wasn't the only reason he was fired.

I think the GS crew are good, honest guys and that episode of the Hotspot only solidified my opinion that Larson fired Gerstmann because of their harsher reviews annoying advertisers. I think the GS crew has integrity, if they didn't this entire event wouldn't have happened, I just think the new CNET management doesn't. The GS guys are in an impossible position, the project they've worked on for so long has just been completely shot to hell due to forces beyond their control.

I respect those guys but I honestly will never look at Gamespot the same way again. Unless there is a upper management regime change and they clear the air on the whole situation, Gamespot is off of my radar for good. It's absolutely tragic.

 

[neojubei]

I think the editors and writers of gamespot should move on, their creditability is tarnished as long as they create reviews on gamespot. For me, this isn't so much about Jeff being fired but the reason behind it.

I know gamespot and eidos and all of their supporters are going to say the K&L review isn't the cause but that is BS. Everything happening at the same time is not coincidental. I believe as most of us do that eidos and their PR vampires probably put pressure on cnet and their marketing dept to have Jeff removed, probably in hopes of discrediting his review. Oh how that have backfired on them and gamespot.

How many horror stories have we listen to from EGM live, about game developers, PR people cursing or crewing out the editors. Remember when Luke said once that GTAIV might not have the same console selling power behind it becasue it is multi-platform now and how John said he'd received a few calls from PR to have Luke fired? Seems like this is very common place in the industry.

Eidos knows what they did, gamespot knows what they did, but neither wants to own up to it, because of the bad press all of this is causing them. Either way, both are already neck deep in horse manure.

I hope whole ordeal wakes the industry up and hopefully makes changes to help protect game reviews, editors and writers. Something tells me I should not hold my breathe.

 

[FlyinJ]

I think a big problem with them all leaving at once is, where are they all going to work?

It's not like there are many similar salary and experience-wise game editor/reviewer positions open in the US right now... let alone eight to twelve.

 

[Druz]

What interests me about this is that these "supervisors" decided the way to correct the discrepancy would be to make numerous changes to the text of the review to better match the score, rather than simply bringing down the score to better match the review.

Yeah. But it's not even about what's less work.

A review is not its score. The body of text is the heart of the review, the first, best and most detailed expression of the reviewer's opinion. The numeric score is just there as a quick reference snapshot of that review.

I've edited many reviews where the text and the score did not correlate, and in every case it was the score that needed to be adjusted (either up or down) to properly reflect what was said in the review.

I feel pretty confident in speculating that had the K&L score been too *low* for the tone of the review, JG's "superiors" would have adjusted the score up to fit, not the review text down.

What do you make of these?

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=175050


http://www.gamesradar.com/us/xbox36...015&sectionId=1006&pageId=2007110511536433006

If the whole game had been like that, or even just as inventive throughout, you’d find a frankly silly score at the end of this review. Instead it’s a more restrained one, because CoD4 spends too much of its seven-hour campaign mimicking the series’ former drama and glory in a context that doesn’t suit it. The setup for CoD4 amounts to: “There’s some kind of conflict in a Middle-Eastern country. LET’S GO!”

 

[neojubei]

I think a big problem with them all leaving at once is, where are they all going to work?

It's not like there are many similar salary and experience-wise game editor/reviewer positions open in the US right now... let alone eight to twelve.

Yea that is true, some might end up on IGN, 1up, gamasutra? It would be nice if one of them or even Jeff started his own gaming website, though it probably won't be big as gamespot.

The reason I think they should leave isn't just that they lost creditability but now they have to think long and hard about reviewing a game and the sick thing would be to have to show the review to some guy in the marketing dept just so it won't offend some damn publisher. It is going to be hard for them to review supposedly AAA titles and give an honest opinion of them.

Gamespot is pretty much dead to me in terms of reviews. I do wish the best for the writing staff and Jeff.

Maybe gamespot should just stop reviewing games altogether and just have previews and videos about games, then everyone would be happy.

 

[mosaic]

I think a big problem with them all leaving at once is, where are they all going to work?

It's not like there are many similar salary and experience-wise game editor/reviewer positions open in the US right now... let alone eight to twelve.

Who knows how many of them, if any, will leave...

But, hypothetically, if everyone skedaddled, I doubt it'd be too tough for all of them to find work. Some would end up in editorial. Some would end up in PR. Some would end up in development. Some would leave the industry altogether. Dozens of folks lost their jobs when Gamers.com and GameCenter were shut down, and they all generally ended up better off. Dan Hsu, Che Chou, and Christ Nutt are all good examples (and they all post here at NeoGAF!). Ironically, Alex Navarro worked at GameCenter when CNet bought the site and shut it down.

I have no doubt that anyone that chooses to leave will find gainful employment elsewhere doing something that isn't completely hellish. Heck, the ones with the longest tenure have TONS of industry contacts. I'm sure they'll help the lower totem-rung people hook up someplace. If I've learned one thing about the game industry, it isn't WHAT you know, it's WHO you know. That tired adage is a commandment in this industry.

Frankly, I imagine the worst part is simply the change factor... or, more precisely, realizing it's time for you to leave something you helped build and felt pride in. The bomb dropped. The houses and bodies exploded. Now, you're wandering there a week later in shock wondering "what... next?"

 

[twinturbo2]

Can someone update this Wikipedia page to include Gerstmanngate?

Why isn't this happening yet? Gerstmanngate needs to be added!

 

[antoniogaud]

I don't think so. Check it out:

Its official. We're powerless

 

[Hellsing321]

Why isn't this happening yet? Gerstmanngate needs to be added!

You can't do it yourself?

 

[tanod]

If it's any consolation, there should be an opening for PR at Eidos. That 5-star preview quote debacle is beyond ridiculous.

Somebody at Eidos HAD to get fired over that after what happened with Gamespot, or at least given some kind of serious warning. Though I do not wish that anybody would get fired, I would be inclined to do so if they were my employee.

 

[Shawn128]

I don't think so. Check it out:

I had no idea there was such a discrepancy in 1up traffic.

 

[Spire]

I had no idea there was such a discrepancy in 1up traffic.

A combination of 1UP being late to the game (it went up in 2003) and being a technical disaster. A super intensive flash-based front page with links to pages that have fatal errors a quarter of the time. I love the place, but whoever built that site boned them pretty hard.

 

[GhaleonEB]

A combination of 1UP being late to the game (it went up in 2003) and being a technical disaster. A super intensive flash-based front page with links to pages that have fatal errors a quarter of the time. I love the place, but whoever built that site boned them pretty hard.

I avoid the site because it loads about half the time on my home PC (and takes forever to do so), and about 1/4 of the time at work (and takes even longer). Get it functional, and I'm sure it would go up a bit in the rankings.

 

[Druz]

1up.com ain't bad when you consider the other sites' traffic include their whole network.

 

[Salazar]

Game (K&L) got a smooth run in this month's Hyper (Australian games magazine). Ads, inclusion in the Xmas buyer's guide, positive review (don't remember the score, but it's high).


Then again, this month's Hyper does spell 'finally' 'fanally' on its front cover. Seriously - GAF has considerably better grammar and spelling than this goddamn magazine.

 

[painful fart]

Gamespot comments on Gerstmanngate



Faulty microphone sounds like a bunch of BS.

Damn, that damage control was poorly executed, it´s blatantly obvious to anyone who can read that what is described in that Q&A is NOT what really happened.

 

[Mamesj]

A combination of 1UP being late to the game (it went up in 2003) and being a technical disaster. A super intensive flash-based front page with links to pages that have fatal errors a quarter of the time. I love the place, but whoever built that site boned them pretty hard.

Seems like a lot of game sites suffer from that...they all try to cram too much shit on the front page, especially IGN.

 

[Gazunta]

Dozens of folks lost their jobs when Gamers.com and GameCenter were shut down, and they all generally ended up better off.

Yeah I'd have to say Gamers.com going under was what finally made me decided to go into development. In a way it was a real blessing (the year or so of floundering around afterwards sucked ass, though)

 

[WarPig]

A combination of 1UP being late to the game (it went up in 2003) and being a technical disaster. A super intensive flash-based front page with links to pages that have fatal errors a quarter of the time. I love the place, but whoever built that site boned them pretty hard.

You don't even wanna know, my man.

 

[Spire]

Seems like a lot of game sites suffer from that...they all try to cram too much shit on the front page, especially IGN.

I predict flash-heavy main pages will go the way of frames (if anyone remembers that late 90's trend) eventually. Flash is great for promotional sites, virtually every movie has some flash-only site, but for longterm sites with a ton of repeat traffic? No way. Nobody likes slow web pages, especially when that page is the portal to the rest of the sites content.

 

[mosaic]

One thing I will miss when/if my comp GameSpot Total Access subscription goes is the complete lack of ads and skins.

Every week or so when the cookie expires, I have to load up the ad-filled site and retype my login again. For that brief minute, I marvel at how my system chugs and chugs just from loading up all that excess crunk. Then, I pop in the user and pass and the non ad-heavy site loads almost immediately. And it scrolls with no chugga chug.

IGN is mostly manageable.

1UP, on the other hand. My new PC is about to the point where I can surf 1UP comfortably. My last one would bog down if anything else was running. Kind of sad that a 1.6Ghz processor and a gig of RAM isn't enough to make the 1UP experience seem fluid.

 

[twinturbo2]

You can't do it yourself?

I would, but I don't quite know how to word it, and whether or not it should be put into the well-known or little-known category...

 

[Blader]

Q: When will the PC version of **** & ***** be reviewed?

A: We haven't decided when that will happen.

If the original **** & ***** review wasn't a conflict of interest, then reviewing the PC version shouldn't be a problem.

Maybe Gerstmann wasn't fired for his review, because of E*dos, or whatever. But his review did contribute to his termination, which, in my eyes, has irreparably damaged the site's credibility--and I think the fact that so many editors were willing to resign over it proves that.

 

[USC-fan]

Damn, that damage control was poorly executed, it´s blatantly obvious to anyone who can read that what is described in that Q&A is NOT what really happened.

i felt the same way about bullshit they were talking about on the hot spot podcast.

I understand they are trying to save the site but they are going it all wrong....

 

[MC Safety]

You don't even wanna know, my man.

I remember working in the Ziff offices and not being able to access 1up.com from our work computers when the site launched.

(Sorry for the digression.)

 

[firehawk12]

What's weird about 1up is that they seem to know that the site is slow but they haven't tried switching hosts or whatever.

 

[capnsmak]

Good things come to those who wait... er, screw it. Yeah, 1UP's pretty much outgrown its database/servers.

We've got a major upgrade coming any day/week now, and that'll address most, if not all, of the speed issues. 1UP won't look any different (yeah, that's a whole different project entirely), but the thing will at least load much faster. Basically, expect some good stuff soon.

 

[firehawk12]

Good things come to those who wait... er, screw it. Yeah, 1UP's pretty much outgrown its database/servers.

We've got a major upgrade coming any day/week now, and that'll address most, if not all, of the speed issues. 1UP won't look any different (yeah, that's a whole different project entirely), but the thing will at least load much faster. Basically, expect some good stuff soon.

Awesome.

 

[Firestorm]

Q: Why was the **** & ***** review text altered?

A: Jeff's supervisors and select members of the edit team felt the review's negativity did not match its "fair" 6.0 rating. The copy was adjusted several days after its publication so that it better meshed with its score, which remained unchanged. The achievements and demerits it received were also left unaltered. Additionally, clarifications were made concerning the game's multiplayer mode and to include differences between the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of the game.

wtf, so they changed the text instead of the score? They made it more positive to reflect the higher score? That's completely backwards. Ugh.

 

[T_Tokyo2010]

That comic was freaking awesome.

 

[PkunkFury]

wtf, so they changed the text instead of the score? They made it more positive to reflect the higher score? That's completely backwards. Ugh.

yeah, this makes no sense what so ever. The score is supposed to be a numerical summary of what the reviewer thinks about the game. The review text is supposed to be the reviewer's actual impressions. The score shuold be changed to match the impressions. The way they did things, they altered the reviewer's impressions to match an arbitrary number :\ The idea that they opperate this way drops their credability even more

This is pretty indicative that the game was "expected" to score within a certain range. I'll bet they didn't want it to sink below 6.0

 

[Fun Factor]

I wish

The game is over way too soon, it's far too loosely knit and it's characters are- as Jeff points out- incredibly unlikable. That said, the gameplay was better than Mass Effect, at least, and there were some genuinely great, amazing action moments. On a real world scale of 1-10, the game is a 6. In the inflated world of game scores, it's a solid 8 on what's there, a 7.5 just because there's not enough of it and certainly not enough "surrounding" it to make it a must play.

While it might seem like a basic heist game, **** & ***** does a good job of moving the action around, and you'll see a variety of different environments and situations, ranging from banks, to prison breaks, to full-scale conflicts in the middle of illicit poppy fields.

Holy shit, who rewrote that review to include this? That something straight out of a PR offices.

Exciting & new varied environments such as banks, prisons & jungles!!!!!!
:lol :lol :lol

 

[Aaron]

yeah, this makes no sense what so ever. The score is supposed to be a numerical summary of what the reviewer thinks about the game. The review text is supposed to be the reviewer's actual impressions. The score shuold be changed to match the impressions. The way they did things, they altered the reviewer's impressions to match an arbitrary number :\ The idea that they opperate this way drops their credability even more

This is pretty indicative that the game was "expected" to score within a certain range. I'll bet they didn't want it to sink below 6.0

I have been asked to change the text of the review to be more in line with the number from PR people before, so it's something that does happen, but it shows they do actually care about the text and not just the score.

 

[Gary Whitta]

Holy shit, who rewrote that review to include this? That something straight out of a PR offices.

Exciting & new varied environments such as banks, prisons & jungles!!!!!!
:lol :lol :lol

Yeah that's really very transparent.

 

[mosaic]

Are there such things as non-illicit poppy fields?

More to the point, I've always wanted a drug habit, and opium sounds hella cool.