GameSpot Shady Dealings

[Quark]

The wondering started with a Penny-Arcade comic that went up early:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/11/29

It spread with a later newspost:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/2007/11/30

And now it's a giant wildfire:
http://valleywag.com/tech/jeff-gerstmann/g...ewer-328775.php

The last post goes the most into rumorville; we're assuming a commenter on a blog-type site is who he says he is. Two reasons I'm leaning towards yes, though:
1) His posts are thorough and knowledgeable - even bringing up the "two weeks since review" part.

2)

Also, despite the fact that this occured two weeks ago, there was no way they were going to fire him then; the last big games didn't come out until just before Thanksgiving, and there was no doubt that management knew that the rest of the reviewers would refuse to write any reviews after his termination, which is indeed what is happening.

There has, in fact, been almost nothing going up on GameSpot since the supposed event. I noticed it because I was wondering what GameSpot would give FFXII: Revenant Wings.

[[wcip]Angel]

I was thinking of making a thread about this myself. It is curious, and I'm eagerly expecting to hear exactly what happened after the dust has settled.

I rely hugely on Gamespot to give me informative, objective and entertaining reviews of upcoming games, and if the rumours are true, I really can't see how I can trust them anymore. Also, what are the reactions among the staff to this thing? There are so many questions that need answering. How can Gamespot avoid losing thousands of readers when a bomb like this goes off. It's not like they're the only website doing game reviews and news. IGN, Gamespy, Gametrailers.com and other sites provide similar experiences. Gamespot need to clarify exactly what has happened and what their policies of journalistic intergrity are.

I was a huge fan of Jeff's video reviews and his writings. I hope all is well and that his fans give him the support he deserves.

[Warlock]

Read good review + Buy bad game = Never visit site again.

[Swiss Mercenary]

Read good review + Buy bad game = Never visit site again.

You can shear a sheep as many times as you want...

But you can only skin it once.

I find that kind of behaviour from corporations extremely amusing.

[Quark]

Also, what are the reactions among the staff to this thing?

Funny you should ask that (taken from a linked picture elsewhere) ...



I've seen a bunch of stuff while looking at this issue (I may not follow GameSpot's reviews very much for game recommendations, but I relied on the site heavily for news/media). This is the one that's most obviously a GameSpot employee and most obviously saying "it's ugly in here". If the rumors are true, pretty much the entire full-time review staff is afraid to write anything, while the freelancers are just scrapping by trying to make some money.

Edit: two more GameSpot staffer blogs.
http://www.gamespot.com/users/AlexN/show_b...=m-100-25234567
http://www.gamespot.com/users/Kevin-V/show...=m-100-25234747

[Quark]

Kotaku claims to have an unnamed Gamespot Employee feeding them some info. The rank and file are apparently all ready to jump ship if managerial changes aren't made.

[[wcip]Angel]

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6183603.html?...estnews;title;1

http://www.gamespot.com/pages/features/hot...e;picks;title;1

Doesn't appear to be true, Quark. (Although it's difficult to trust anything coming from gamespot these days...)

[Munkay]

All I can say is I think its super-duper awesome to fire somebody after 11 years of service by locking them out of their office and then asking them to leave the premises.

If only all company's could be as great as gamespot, sigh.

Cheers,

Munk

Ps. Anyone else find it humorous that Eidos has been making up their own review scores and attributing them to review sites? After all this commotion and shady dealings, Eidos pulls the trump card and just makes up their own scores. At least stores have an equally super-sweet return policy, so any games you're tricked into buying are easily recompensed :whistling:

[Guest]

Banned for spamming.

-Bolty