Overlooked: GameSpot Controversy — Dec 5th 2007

By Dakota Smith

Story: Net Explodes Over Journalist Firing
Submitted by: TheVisionary

One story that generated very little buzz on Propeller concerned Jeff Gerstmann, who was fired last week by the CNET-owned website GameSpot. Rumors swirled that the 11-year veteran was canned after writing a negative review of Kane & Lynch: Dead Men, a heavily hyped video game released by the British company Eidos.

In his review of the game, Gerstmann awarded Kane & Lynch a "6" (out of a possible 10). Mike Krahulik, who, along with Jerry Holkins, edits Penny Arcade, a Seattle-based blog that takes a satirical look at the gaming industry, says that's basically like handing out an "F." "This was a huge game," Krahulik tells Propeller. "People expected it to generate a 9 or 10 based on the hype surrounding it."

Following his firing, the text of Gerstmann's review on the site was edited. The video edition of his review was initially pulled, although later replaced on the site. In the days following his departure, GameSpot staffers alluded to total discord at the office. When Gerstmann was canned, wrote GameSpot editor Alex Navarro on his personal blog, it was "like someone hit the disaster button for me."

On Monday, GameSpot management directly addressed the controversy, denying a rumor that Edios had threatened to pull advertising dollars off the site following the poor review. On Wednesday, the site followed up with a Q & A called "Spot On: GameSpot on 'Gerstmanngate,'" written by staffer Tor Thorsen. While the management stated that they were unable to talk about the firing for legal reasons, they did provide some information. An excerpt:


The Q&A also disclosed that Eidos representatives "expressed their displeasure to their appropriate contacts at GameSpot, but not to editorial directly." And management reiterated that advertisers never dictate any editorial policy at the company.

Throughout the controversy, Gerstmann has publicly stated that he is unable to comment on his departure due to legal constraints. Additionally, editor Navarro referred our request for an interview to CNET PR, who emailed us the above Q & A article.

But an anonymous source at GameSpot spoke to Krahulik and Holkins last week. The conversation followed a company-wide meeting held last Thursday, November 29 (the day after Gerstmann's firing). According Krahulik and Holkins, the source told them that Gerstmann was fired because management didn't like the tone of his reviews, a sore point that had been an ongoing issue with Gerstmann's employers.

Holkins points out that Gerstmann had a tendency to score his games slightly lower than competing reviewers. In the case of Kane & Lynch, the game scored a 6.7 on Metacritic, which aggregates scores. But Krahulik and Holkins believe that GameSpot's reviews are closer to an accurate representation than those on competing sites like IGN or OneUp. "They have the fairest scores out there," says Holkins.

Still, the Penny Arcade team discounts reviews and scores as not particularly important for die-hard fans. Edward Woo, a research analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities, a Los Angeles-based investment bank that tracks the gaming industry, disagrees. "It's like giving a good review to a movie. It increases the odds of having the game do well."

"But there are some movies that do well, regardless of reviews," he adds. The release of Kane & Lynch was particularly important for Eidos, says Woo, noting that the game had been heavily promoted in company press releases.

In an apparent show of solidarity, on Friday, employees of the Ziff-Davis-owned 1up.com demonstrated outside of GameSpot's San Francisco offices. Across the Web, the fallout continues, with commenters still launching attacks--fair or unfair--on GameSpot.

Given the legal muzzling, Krahulik doesn't believe the truth of what happened will come out anytime soon, although with his new notoriety, Gerstmann should be able to snag another job elsewhere. As far as long term damage to the game review industry? "This is the Web," says Krahulik. "Nothing is long term."

Tags: GameSpot, Jeff Gerstmann, video games

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