CNET: Gerstmann not fired over advertiser pressure

by Richard Mitchell { Nov 30th 2007 at 6:30PM }

Our compatriots at Joystiq have uncovered some more information regarding the firing of Jeff Gerstmann, GameSpot's (now former) Editorial Director. The news that he was fired broke this morning, with certain sources citing that he was fired do to pressure from Eidos in the wake of Gerstmann's harsh text and video review of Kane & Lynch. Eidos publishes the game in question, and had purchased pervasive ads on GameSpot including a page skin that was removed soon after Gerstmann's firing.

Joystiq has now secured new comments from CNET, which owns GameSpot. The comments come in the wake of a fairly ambiguous statement made by CNET earlier today. According to Joystiq, a CNET spokesperson by the name of Sarah Cain noted, "we do not terminate employees based on external pressure from advertisers." When asked whether or not such pressure had been exerted, Cain provided no comment. Joystiq also inquired about the video review, which has since been removed from GameSpot. Cain said that a note of "clarification" had been added to the text review -- which also applied to the video review -- and that it was CNET's decision to pull the video review.

Make sense to you? Yeah, well we don't get it either. Check out Joystiq for more details.

Tags: cnet, eidos, gamespot, jeff-gerstmann, kane-and-lynch

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Angryfinne @ Nov 30th 2007 6:40PM

I'm gonna throw this out there and speculate that it was the use of the f-word in the review. A few weeks ago the guys got real carried away on the Hotspot with that word and my addition to the rumor mongering i that he was on thin ice and it finally broke.

JimyD @ Nov 30th 2007 7:18PM

I doubt his use of the F-word is the reason. First of all, it is bleeped out in the video review and he uses it to tell you how one of the game characters responds when you direct them with a tactical "go to" command in the game. Gerstmann also mentions the F-word is used in every other sentence in the game and that is comes across as not being cool. His video review is pretty close to the written review but his visual expressions reinforce his dislike for the game. The funny thing is the video backs up what he is saying.

Weak move by CNET. There reviews are now officially useless since everyone knows they cave to publisher pressure.

RudyHuxtable @ Nov 30th 2007 6:42PM

I just went to the GameSpot forums, and wouldn't you know it they were "Down for maintenance." There's a few things I could say about that, but I won't. This is a neat way to end the week (nice bit of holiday excitement), but not so great for Jeff.

mike @ Nov 30th 2007 6:58PM

CNET will not admit they take moneyhats thats for sure, management pressure for advertisibng revenue was the reason

john @ Nov 30th 2007 7:15PM

I hope they really discuss this on their next podcast. If it is true, this sets a major precedence of game reviews being influenced by corporate advertising dollars. All I have to say.....GameSpot........u suck

SadisticHam @ Nov 30th 2007 7:15PM

Gee i wonder why they didn't admit to firing someone over advertisers pressure, could it be something to do with the huge amount of credibility gamespot would lose?

Honestly, they yanked the video Eidos has admitted to being pissed, bla di bla. If you want the video it's nothing major.

They can cover it up however they like, I'll be ignoring there reviews from now on.

kHz Glitch @ Nov 30th 2007 7:22PM

This isn't looking good for the future of reviews, if a publisher can have this kind of power...

fraeone @ Nov 30th 2007 7:30PM

This stinks of lies. Gamespot is covering their butts because they know if they admit that they fired him due to advertiser pressure they will be out of business tomorrow.

I for one will never go back.

Jon @ Nov 30th 2007 7:45PM

crap, crap, and more crap. I think they're trying to distract us from the fact that fall update doesn't include 16:10 or 4-way chat support.... wtf?

Jim Halpert DM @ Nov 30th 2007 8:20PM

Four way chat would be nice, but it's nothing to complain about, I can't do it on the computer with messenger, so oh well... If you really need to four way chat, I suggest Uno, that game was made for it.

Jon @ Nov 30th 2007 8:45PM

Actually, I want the ability to voice/text chat with my friends from the dashboard. We need chatrooms! Maybe its just me, the people i live with, and all the friends on our lists, but we find it quite annoying having to switch from friend to friend...

Anticrawl @ Dec 1st 2007 5:48AM

I agree Jon, I mean the original Xbox had chatrooms you could use from the "dashboard."

Even so there is no reason a console that is considerably more powerful can't handle a little in-game 4-way chat. If you can talk to 16 people while playing a game with the ingame team-talk there is no reason you can't have 4-way chat with friends if there are a bunch of jackasses in each game you join.

BananaBoat @ Nov 30th 2007 7:47PM

I think it's time for a delisting of gamespot from metacritic, less their dirty reviews taint the overall score. Then again, Gamepro and Game Informer have been selling out for years, and they still get counted, and people still read their reviews. I have no doubt that people will continue to read gamespot reviews.

Aeron @ Dec 3rd 2007 12:23AM

Go over to the kain and lynch review now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!INTERESTING!!!

Jim Halpert DM @ Nov 30th 2007 8:25PM

I see what you mean, I find the who editor's note at the bottom interesting. Here's a link http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/kanelynchdeadmen/review.html?sid=6182836

duh @ Nov 30th 2007 9:57PM

I'm not speculating on the reason they fired him, but of course this is what they are going to say regardless of the actual reason.

bigd7387 @ Nov 30th 2007 9:45PM

As far as it's concerned Gamespot and the other sites can all goto Hell. I really don't have alot of money and when I need help deciding on a game I usually read posts by the gamers who own it and played it. Real people not making money off of whether they like a game or not is what I like to use in helping me make a decision.

Ithilis @ Nov 30th 2007 10:15PM

Like CNET is going to admit it? Here's an article, featuring a forum post from an anonymous Gamespot staff member, that tells a different tale:

http://kotaku.com/gaming/rumor/alleged-gamespot-employee-spills-guts-on-valleywag-328797.php

SHNuKMS @ Nov 30th 2007 10:25PM

PLEASE BOYCOTT GAMESPOT ... this is what the employees would want in terms of sending a message, we know that they're too scared that they maybe next.

BOYCOTT GAMESPOT

Conbus @ Dec 1st 2007 1:00AM

The only way that this whole thing will end pleasantly for Gamestop/Cnet/Eidos is if Gerstmann himself says that they fired him for his review. I don't think he'll do that since most game sites would avoid him liek the plague if he did such a thing. We probably can't truly know, we can only believe that they fired him for his review. In this day and age, It's probably enough.

DiminishCap @ Nov 30th 2007 11:18PM

BananaBoat - Cnet owns metacritic, along with gamespot, so that probably won't happen.

Also I doubt they will say anything about it on their podcast, Jeff wasn't there on this weeks podcast and they didn't even mention it.

AG @ Dec 1st 2007 12:00AM

No, we aren't compromising our journalistic integrity to pander to our sponsors. We didn't do what we did....please visit our sponsors.....brought to you by our editors choice review of Kane and Lynch.

Brian @ Dec 1st 2007 12:15AM

After reading the responses from GS/CNET employees (hosted on kotaku.com), it is clear to me that senior management is putting advertisers before their audience.

Thank goodness for metacritc. Gamespot is SOL in my book, now. I hope all the reviewers can find work elsewhere. Reviewers subject to slant reviews under fear of losing their job will hopefully jump ship as soon as recieveing an offer from competiting blogs, magazines, etc, in order to protect their reputation.

What troubles me is my reliance upon fair and honest reviews from the mothership. I hope advertiser pressure doesn't plague the heart of cnet; consumer electronics.

IMO, CNET lost "it" after the loss of James Kim.

Anticrawl @ Dec 1st 2007 5:53AM

Jeff can easily make a new website and hire on a small staff. All his fans would migrate and it would easily be bigger than gamespot within a year. No reason to feel sorry for him or worry about him, what we should be worried about is the impact on the industry this could have. The backlash and anger from consumers could really hurt the market. Hopefully this will blow over but at the same time influence some sort of reform in professional game criticism.

Only problem is Jeff Gerstmann is most certainly bipolar and lets his wild moodswings and fanboy radicalism show in a few of his reviews. One of the many reasons I lost faith in Gamespot last Fall, if not a good while before that. Nice guy, good personality, but clearly a nut.

Grant @ Dec 1st 2007 2:28PM

This just in:
"Big Company Lies About Shady Business Practices"

M. Dizzy @ Dec 1st 2007 5:43PM

Plain and simple...I stopped following GS a few years ago...somewhere around when they showed how dumb they felt their readers are with the Halo 2 review.

Greg K to this day swears that he didn't spoil the fact that Halo 2 campaign allows you to play as the covenant. And the only way someone could have figured it out from his review was if they had played a leaked copy. I know that I did not play any leaked copy and after reading his review, I knew that part of the Halo 2 campaign involved playing as the covenant.

The insult there was double. GS said two things by not editing the review after the fact: 1. Everyone who read the review was too dumb to figure it out on their own. 2. The people (including me) who objected to the review were liars.

And with that I stopped giving Gamespot my daily ad impressions.

Anyway, I use several factors to judge which games I buy (if not in this exact order, close to it):

1. Publisher/developer past performance - Ubisoft and Bungie get a buy from me without hesitation...Activision and EA, I wait on. Peter Molyneux needs a written affadavit from Jesus himself before I even rent his games.

2. Friends' recommendation...no not the guy who's obsessed with solitaire telling me that I "have to" go buy Soltrio Solitaire. I'm talking about your friend who pretty much shares your tastes in games and recommends a game that wasn't on your radar up to that point.

3. A knockout demo. Let's face it. If a demo can get me to cough up 60 bux, 9 out of 10 times the full game will be worth it.

4. Gabe and Tycho at Penny Arcade. Let's face it, when you don't have the burden maintaining a staff large enough to give timely reviews of every friggin game that releases, you can be more selective about your advertisers. This fact alone makes your ad space more attractive to your advertisers. When Gabe and Tycho say a game is worth looking at even in spite of the general consensus (See the recent debacle regarding assassin's creed) it's probably worth checking out (especially when said game is made by Ubisoft).

5. Metacritic combined with a gamefly rental -- When I can't decide yay or nay on a game using the above methods, I use metacritic. If the composite is good enough, I'll rent from gamefly. If I like the rental a lot I'll go out to buy the full version. Otherwise, it gets sent back.

I haven't read a review on a game review site in a year...not gamespy, nor gamespot, or any of the other outlets. Honestly, if Jeff did his own site where he only reviewed games that interested him, I'd read that. Because he is just one man, you already know that he's going to pick the games that matter (no reviews of Barbie's Horse Adventures here). But because of the review by committee scenario at the standard game sites, I'm not guaranteed that the critic who reviews the game I want to want to know about is someone with whom I agree.

Add in the distinct stench of publishers buying good reviews and I don't think I'd ever rely on a game site for helping me make a choice again.

refinedsugar @ Dec 1st 2007 6:43PM

Wow ... just wow. You know I was listening to the Hotspot the other day and in the back of my head the thought was rolling around, 'hey where's Jeff this week?'. There was a definite void with him not being there (like usual) and no one said anything about Jeff's absence ... and it tapes on a Tuesday. Is that when he got shitcanned?

Huge, sad news. Gamespot for me has always been the place to go. I like their style, writing, review scales, and you got the feeling thru written word, video, and audio that you knew the reviewers somewhat. There was some level of personality behind the site and you just don't get that elsewhere. Now after a trail of people have gone, Jeff gets the boot in less than a subtle manner.

I don't know where things go from here. I didn't always agree with him, but Jeff was a real character and I dug his style, reviews. I'm sure Gamespot will rebound from this, but my thoughts on the site are definitely up in the air. There was a mutual trust and it's been broken if all this talk of a prominent reviewer getting sacked because he gave a bad review to a game that brought the site a sizable chunk of ad revenue turns out to be true. Not all of us are naive, and as such, we know theres a business side to this industry, but rarely does it blow up this ugly and in-your-face. It'll be interesting to see how damage control fares on what is probably going to be the biggest video game related news story until after Christmas.