Gamespot fired Jeff Gerstmann because of his review of Kane % Lynch, in which he gave a fair 6.0.
And as you might have noticed, Kane & Lynch ads were all over the site at the time.
See a connection ?
A visit to Gamespot shows that the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 game has taken over the site very prominently, with backgrounds and multiple banner ads all pitching Kane & Lynch. Allegedly, publisher Eidos "took issue with the review and threatened to pull its ad campaign."
How was this an issue to begin with? Even if CNET didn't like him this shouldn't be the slightest of issues. He reviewed games. It was his job to be objectionable.
I hope this sparks, what am I saying?! It HAS sparked a backlash against Gamespot. Hopefully gets more reviewers out of publishers pockets (SORRY people wanting to work as journalists).
The #1 decider of if a game sells, is not marketing. It is the reviews it gets. An absurdly well made game with no advertising would sell better then daikatana, any day. And as you should all know by now, the video games industry is completely utterly soulless.
As it happens, theres very little doubt that most of the larger reviewers base their scores not just on a games quality, but on other, obviously unethical factors, such as advertising money from the publisher or simply being paid to give a good review. Gamespot gets alot of money from Sony and Microsoft. Hence many PS3 titles are rated higher then the industry average. Meanwhile, IGN is effectively nintendos pushing tool.
Don't make any mistake. The reviewing sites are one of the biggest targets of the corporate corruption, since after all, they are the primary decider of who sells what. If every big company gave top marks to all the PS3 titles, it might have out-performed nintendo these past few years.
Originally Posted by Pixelthief The #1 decider of if a game sells, is not marketing. It is the reviews it gets. An absurdly well made game with no advertising would sell better then daikatana, any day. And as you should all know by now, the video games industry is completely utterly soulless.
As it happens, theres very little doubt that most of the larger reviewers base their scores not just on a games quality, but on other, obviously unethical factors, such as advertising money from the publisher or simply being paid to give a good review. Gamespot gets alot of money from Sony and Microsoft. Hence many PS3 titles are rated higher then the industry average. Meanwhile, IGN is effectively nintendos pushing tool. Take for example the two games, Zelda Twilight Princess, and Assassins' Creed.
They are both very good games. And zelda raked 10/10's across the board, with an average around 9.6 to 9.7. Yet gamespot gave it an 8.8/10, one of the lowest reviews. Meanwhile, assassins creed is a great game, and while somewhat flawed, almost all sites recognized that and gave it in the 9's. Yet IGN gave it an absurdly low 6.0, an extreme outlier on the standard deviation.
Don't make any mistake. The reviewing sites are one of the biggest targets of the corporate corruption, since after all, they are the primary decider of who sells what. If every big company gave top marks to all the PS3 titles, it might have out-performed nintendo these past few years.
but that doesn't have anything to do with freedom of speech which is what Gamespot CNET or whatever doesn't seem to respect.
Originally Posted by Dr. Jamesa Claus Rightly so!
I hope this sparks, what am I saying?! It HAS sparked a backlash against Gamespot. Hopefully gets more reviewers out of publishers pockets (SORRY people wanting to work as journalists).
In the meanwhile, I'll write my first review for gamespot...
Alot of people put the problem as him costing gamespot thousands of dollars, or gamespot bowing to the corporate pressure to fire him after the bad review. Its not exactly either gamespot NOR jeff at fault here. Gamespots certainly playing it piss-poorly by caving into Eidos, but the real villain here is, of course, Eidos itself. Threatening to withdraw advertising money from a site simply because it gave your bad game a bad review, is a very dirty tactic. I never had respect for Jeff Gerstmann's reviews, or respect for Gamespot, but now I don't have any respect for Eidos either.
Originally Posted by Dr. Jamesa Claus How was this an issue to begin with? Even if CNET didn't like him this shouldn't be the slightest of issues. He reviewed games. It was his job to be objectionable.
And it was CNet who paid him, so it IS an issue. Specifically I think it was his tone in his reviews or something.
If you watch the video review, which was not so subtly removed from gamespot (still available on youtube), he knocked on the game very hard. But, then again, it was not a good game by any means.
The biggest moral issue in journalism is being objective. And the biggest pressure is to NOT be objective, and to bow to the payroll.
Games journalists and these big sites have always been on publishers payrolls. A shame they had to kick an honest reviewer (he gave TP an 8.. As I said, it's been brought into the public now so hopefully we'll start seeing some reviews and journalist with integrity.
Advertisement
Post Reply
Edited by the Author.
. As I said, it's been brought into the public now so hopefully we'll start seeing some reviews and journalist with integrity.