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Penny Arcade 11/30/2007 Jeff Gerstmann fired from Gamespot, allegedly for K&L review

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D

duckroll

Member
Kittonwy said:
I'm saying that once you have a business relationship with the publisher SPECIFICALLY RELATED TO THE GAME IN QUESTION, while you can play the game and enjoy it and express this sentiment, you're off the fucking high horse and really shouldn't be telling other people how not to judge games because your judgement is possibly tainted.
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O

Odrion

Banned
The Sphinx said:
So you're saying they shouldn't comment on any game if they get money from the parent company? OK.
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They promoted Surfs-fucking-Up. I think we know that they have other jobs to fulfill.
 
T

Tristam

Member
Wow, this is fucking bullshit. I'm glad I always defended Gerstmann's Twilight Princess review, something I continue to do today. Some people on the forum scoff at the notion of publisher demands fueling inflated review scores, but they can eat their words; to hear chespace actually say what he did is disheartening.
 
K

Kittonwy

Banned
duckroll said:
So..... they're not allowed to even express that they enjoy the game? You're crazy, it's not even like they reviewed the game. :p
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They're obviously allowed to express that they enjoyed the game, on the other hand they've got no business telling other sites that they're not playing the game correctly or judging how other sites should review the game.
 
V

VibratingDonkey

Member
Canceled my Gamespot subscription. Should've done it a long time ago really considering it's quite useless. Was only $2/month or something so I never bothered. But due to this travesty I did. Without my $2 Gamespot will probably wither and die.
 
H

hauton

Member
The fact is, PA simply aren't in the same position as professional reviewers - reviewers have no say on the advertising and marketing on the sites they write for. Gabe and Tycho control not only the comics and commentary itself, but the advertising and events such as PAX. In that position, you can't pretend to be impartial about Ubisoft and AC when you two cooperated heavily in ad content for the site, as well as the major event at PAX as well. To call out game reviewers on AC when you're in that position is unethical, striding a dangerous line and flat out puts you in a bad light.

If Gerstmann or any game reviewer got his paycheques directly from Eidos, you'd question the impartiality of his views, no?
 
Z

Zzoram

Member
FartOfWar said:
The pressure is always there ( http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1542/pr_and_the_game_media_how_pr_.php ). Only the maintenance of a firewall between advertising/sales and editorial departments protects readers. Even when these protect editors, publishers are always able to discourage negative press by shutting off the access tap (see the Trip Hawkins element of the story linked above). His or her own ethics notwithstanding, you guys/our audiences are the critic's only counter to this strong force that only gets stronger as making and marketing games becomes ever more costly and the chances of turning a profit diminish in proportion. And this is why I pull my hair out over "why so low?" syndrome.
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You are awesome man, just awesome. I hope you stay in this business for a very long time.
 
K

Kyoufu

Member
How about they fire the reviewers who gave PDZ higher score than Resistance, and Monster Games 5.0?

Oh and banning Gamespot would be amazing.
 
P

Prospero

Member
Jeff Gerstmann is one of the few video game reviewers online whose prose is actually at a professional level. I hope another site (or even an offline publication) picks him up soon.
 
A

Amir0x

Banned
White Man said:
Yeah, if this ends up looking true, I think so. I'd like to see a bit more confirmation, though. Not that I don't trust Gabe or anything.
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oh, definitely. 100% confirmation is needed.

But we ban sites around here for a lot of shady things, and this is by far on a magnitude larger than anything. IF Gamespot would do something like this, for the reasons stated, then they don't deserve to have any forum on neoGAF.
 
Z

Zzoram

Member
AGFlamey said:
"Eidos" is going to replace "Atari" in our podcast theme song.

This is beyond pathetic. A pox on all of Gamespot and Eidos' houses. A POX.

For once I'm glad I work for a site that makes no money and publishers avoid acknowledging like the plague.
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sorry to be a noob, but who are you?
 
S

Spire

Subconscious Brolonging
If he really was fired over that review or because there were a string of publishers unhappy with his reviews, then that's just insane. I can't fathom that's true, that is just too fucked up to be true.
 
M

MirageDwarf

Member
You would think that company would defend employee of more than 10 years for not giving publisher's expected score for the game which really gets the score it deserves.

I wonder how much money is involved here since they would let go such a longtime employee.

This is really bad.
 
N

No_Style

Member
Even though J. Gertsmann's review scores did not jive with my own, it certainly sucks to see somebody get canned over a review of a mediocre game. :(
 
A

Amir0x

Banned
I can't wait to hear details.

WHAT the fuck happened? Did Gamespot specifically tell him NOT to give the game a score lower than such and such, and if he did he would be fired? And then he posted the review anyway? What is the chain of events here...
 
G

GalacticAE

Member
Hopefully someone will give Jeff an opportunity to shed some light on this because I know Gamespot will want to keep this situation under wraps if it turns out to be true. Eidos shouldn't be off the hook either.

I think it's sort of funny that PA brings this situation toour attention right after they get accused of that whole AC deal.
 
A

ant1532

Banned
Amir0x said:
oh, definitely. 100% confirmation is needed.

But we ban sites around here for a lot of shady things, and this is by far on a magnitude larger than anything. IF Gamespot would do something like this, for the reasons stated, then they don't deserve to have any forum on neoGAF.
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Wouldn't it be more likely for CNET to accept the advertisement deal than Gamespot? And that would make more sense on a Gamespot employee with a very high position breaking the deal?
 
U

USC-fan

Banned
Games to avoid.


Xbox 360
Age of Conan - Hyborian Adventures
Battlestations 2 [unofficial title]
Battlestations: Midway
Bionicle Heroes
Conflict: Denied Ops
Deus Ex 3
Fear Effect 3 [rumored]
Geon: Emotions
Hitman: Blood Money
Just Cause
Kane & Lynch: Dead Men
Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Anniversary
Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Anniversary Episodes 1 & 2
Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Anniversary Episodes 3 & 4
Tomb Raider: Legend

Wii
Bionicle Heroes
Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Anniversary
Monster Lab

PlayStation Portable
Championship Manager
Championship Manager 2006
Chili Con Carnage
Diner Dash: Sizzle & Serve
Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Anniversary
Ora
Pocket Pool
Smart Bomb
Tomb Raider: Legend
Traxxpad: Portable Studio
Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Party Edition
Zendoku

PlayStation 3
Conflict: Denied Ops
Deus Ex 3
Fear Effect 3 [rumored]
Highlander: The Game
Kane & Lynch: Dead Men

Nintendo DS
Bionicle Heroes
Diner Dash: Sizzle & Serve
Pony Friends
Prism: Light the Way
Tomb Raider: Legend
Touch The Dead

http://games.ign.com/objects/025/025024.html
 
E

Evlar

Banned
Amir0x said:
oh, definitely. 100% confirmation is needed.

But we ban sites around here for a lot of shady things, and this is by far on a magnitude larger than anything. IF Gamespot would do something like this, for the reasons stated, then they don't deserve to have any forum on neoGAF.
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Difficulty is CNET is the parent company, and probably was involved in pulling the trigger on this. Should we ban CNET? That means also banning GameRankings, Metacritic, and our dopey, lovable GameFAQs...

I'm in favor of it but... that's quite the fall-out. And it illustrates how powerful that one company has become in the world of online game journalism.
 
D

Dot50Cal

Banned
VibratingDonkey said:
Canceled my Gamespot subscription. Should've done it a long time ago really considering it's quite useless. Was only $2/month or something so I never bothered. But due to this travesty I did. Without my $2 Gamespot will probably wither and die.
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Same here, they used to make it so it was pretty cheap for long-time members, but its 49.99 now for a year.

Just canceled mine, awaiting a refund for the few months I had left now.
 
A

Attack You

Member
Interesting times ahead. Deathly curious about if the gaming community can get their shit together to be of any consequence to whomever's to blame. Dammit, and I was just on my way out the door for another few months, too...
 
B

BigDubs

Member
WOW....I can't believe how much Gamespot's gone down the drain since I first started visiting the site. Greg K leaving was a huge loss and Rich was the gamer I most identified with...now Gerstmann. This sucks hot sweaty balls.
 
Woo-Fu

Woo-Fu

Banned
I can't see them firing somebody over one review. I can see them saying, "give it this score or better or you're fired" and him not doing it and then getting fired, though.

Is gamespot that strapped for money that they have to bend over for of all things a a game like Kane & Lynch?

Ah well, I stopped paying attention to gamespot after Kasavin left anyways.
 
F

Firestorm

Member
Kittonwy said:
I don't have to prove anything. It's the appearance of impropriety.

Did Ubisoft pay you to draw a comic for AC?

Have Ubisoft ever paid you any money?

Do you have a business relationship with Ubisoft?

No? Then you're not in the same situation as PA.

Whether AC is in fact a good game or not, you bought the game with your own money and your opinion of the game is based on your playthrough of the game and there isn't a remote possibility that you're supporting the game because Ubisoft has given you money or some other benefit. In PA's case though things are different. They DO have a business relationship with Ubisoft regarding AC, once that is true, there's an appearance issue in terms of conflict of interests and PA should just stay the hell out of the whole review thing, because you can never be sure whether the folks at PA are in fact voicing a genuine opinion or an opinion that is somehow affected by their business relationship with Ubisoft, however minute, even if PA simply had a positive interaction with Ubisoft it could possibly affect their objectivity.
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The way PA does their advertising is different though. They first ask to play the game before they put banners up. It's been like that every since Ubisoft made PoP: Warrior Within. Based on Sands of Time, PA said okay to advertising WW. The game came out, it completely blew, PA bitched about the game, Ubisoft bitched at PA, PA didn't care if they were bitched at.

Gabe said:
Now I'm going to tell you how advertising on PA works. Every other game site out there takes ads for whatever game they can get. It doesn't matter if it's a pile of crap, if the publisher pays for the spot IGN or Gamespot or whoever will run the ad. That's fine but that's not how we do it and the news posts you just read are part of the reason why.

We were huge fans of the first Prince of Persia game so when Ubi came to us and wanted to run ads for the second we said yes. We had no idea they were going to completely fuck it over. So from then on we started demanding playable copies of games before we'd agree to advertising. No matter how early the build we tell the publishers that unless we can see it played in front of us or play it ourselves we won't run ads for it. Obviously a lot can still go wrong during development but we make the best decisions we can. We do not think of the ads you see on our page as ads. They are recommendations and we try extremely hard to insure that anything we put over there is worth your time. When Prince of Persia 2 came out and we saw that it was crap we said as much on the site. Ads for the game appeared right next to those news posts slamming it. Needless to say Ubi wasn't very happy and Robert got some angry phone calls but our loyalty is to our readers not the people paying the bills. We explained to Ubi that the reason our ads perform better than any other site out there is because our readers trust us and that means we have to admit when something we advertise doesn't turn out as good as we hoped. Obviously they understood because we're still advertising their games but like I said this isn't the way other sites operate. I actually give Ubi a lot of credit for not just telling us to fuck off and buying more ads on IGN and Gamespy with the extra money.
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http://www.penny-arcade.com/2007/11/14
 
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