Why did they change the article from saying it was written by Tor to saying was written by the staff? Isn't that just going to cause more suspicion?
From the site you fuckers linked to. Read and refresh, god damn you all:
Cheers _ TOR
[UPDATE] I had to switch to the "Staff" byline because my inbox just exploded from a hate mail assault. I know you guys were upset, but neither I nor any of the rank-and-file editors fired Jeff. Had I known he was going to be fired I would've voiced my objections in the strongest possible way.
That said, the task his hand can be summed up in one word--salvage. I didn't read this site religously since 1998 and then put 4.5 years of 65 hour work weeks since 2003 just to see this place die in two weeks. I am not leaving until the last rites are read and the dr. turns off the EKG machine.
I can't find a single game he has reviewed. He has two blog posts, all of them after the incident.
thorsen-ink has contributed nothing, absolutely nothing to GameSpot. Well, that's not entirely true, since thorsen-ink has done us the service of registering this account and generating this blank page. Three cheers for thorsen-ink!
[UPDATE] I had to switch to the "Staff" byline because my inbox just exploded from a hate mail assault. I know you guys were upset, but neither I nor any of the rank-and-file editors fired Jeff. Had I known he was going to be fired I would've voiced my objections in the strongest possible way.
So now he will have hate mail from people claiming he is a pussy by hiding from people.
"Bungie decided to make their most recent Halo 2 update in our forum. They are all really nice guys and had they told me of their intentions I would have begged them to reconsider. They post these updates in forums all the time but I don’t think they really understood just how bad ours is. The only reason it still exists is because at some point someone in there will blow up a nursing home full of senior citizens and the FBI will want a history of their online activities. It’s really just a big pile of evidence that we’ll hand over to the authorities the second they stop posting pictures of their asses and start killing people.
-Gabe out"
Gabe has never been to any other forum on the internets, I think.
Yeah, the PA forums are much more civilized than most other sites: 1UP, GameFAQs, NeoGAF, etc. That said, it can still get pretty brutal here. You have to have some pretty thick skin, especially if you want to dish out potentially controversial opinions.
Heh.
I had a great idea for a controversial topic. Ran it by the mods and got the go ahead and everything. Then I had to open my mouth and get jailed. It would have been glorious, though. The hatred felt towards me afterwards would have been told to some's grand children.
I can't find a single game he has reviewed. He has two blog posts, all of them after the incident.
thorsen-ink has contributed nothing, absolutely nothing to GameSpot. Well, that's not entirely true, since thorsen-ink has done us the service of registering this account and generating this blank page. Three cheers for thorsen-ink!
[UPDATE] I had to switch to the "Staff" byline because my inbox just exploded from a hate mail assault. I know you guys were upset, but neither I nor any of the rank-and-file editors fired Jeff. Had I known he was going to be fired I would've voiced my objections in the strongest possible way.
So now he will have hate mail from people claiming he is a pussy by hiding from people.
Fortunately for him he will probably have all legitimate mail forwarded to a new address and just slash and burn his inbox each morning, never even seeing the hate mail, if there is any.
The_Scarab on
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited December 2007
Guys, please, the Bungie stuff... can we leave it alone? Please?
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KageraImitating the worst people. Since 2004Registered Userregular
I can't find a single game he has reviewed. He has two blog posts, all of them after the incident.
thorsen-ink has contributed nothing, absolutely nothing to GameSpot. Well, that's not entirely true, since thorsen-ink has done us the service of registering this account and generating this blank page. Three cheers for thorsen-ink!
[UPDATE] I had to switch to the "Staff" byline because my inbox just exploded from a hate mail assault. I know you guys were upset, but neither I nor any of the rank-and-file editors fired Jeff. Had I known he was going to be fired I would've voiced my objections in the strongest possible way.
So now he will have hate mail from people claiming he is a pussy by hiding from people.
He's their news guy.
brynstar on
Xbox Live: Xander51
PSN ID : Xander51 Steam ID : Xander51
You know, quite a few years back this forum was pretty bad. I mean, just nasty as all hell. I read it from time to time but had zero inclination to sign up. (I finally did a few years back, but that took a while.) The place drove newbies away like buffalo off the cliff. It was ugly.
I can relate to that. I occasionally checked out the forums for years (usually looking SE++, mistakenly thinking it would be representative of the whole forum), and was physically sick at what I saw there. The place was insane until a couple of years ago, and I couldn't bring myself to join the madness, no matter how much I enjoyed the comic.
I finally joined up after checking out G&T a few times, and deciding that the people here probably aren't murderous psychopaths... well, most people anyway.
SE++ still disturbs me a bit when I venture in there to look at the comic threads... but it's no longer a den of total anarchy and depravity. Just partial anarchy and depravity. At least it's a lot saner than it used to be.
I can't find a single game he has reviewed. He has two blog posts, all of them after the incident.
thorsen-ink has contributed nothing, absolutely nothing to GameSpot. Well, that's not entirely true, since thorsen-ink has done us the service of registering this account and generating this blank page. Three cheers for thorsen-ink!
[UPDATE] I had to switch to the "Staff" byline because my inbox just exploded from a hate mail assault. I know you guys were upset, but neither I nor any of the rank-and-file editors fired Jeff. Had I known he was going to be fired I would've voiced my objections in the strongest possible way.
So now he will have hate mail from people claiming he is a pussy by hiding from people.
He doesn't write reviews - he's one of the main news editors, and if you ever listen to him on the HotSpot he's kind of one of the more skeptical guys on there.
I'd trust him as much as I would Ryan Davis or Alex Navarro as a longtime GameSpot staffer.
You know, quite a few years back this forum was pretty bad. I mean, just nasty as all hell. I read it from time to time but had zero inclination to sign up. (I finally did a few years back, but that took a while.) The place drove newbies away like buffalo off the cliff. It was ugly.
I can relate to that. I occasionally checked out the forums for years (usually looking SE++, mistakenly thinking it would be representative of the whole forum), and was physically sick at what I saw there. The place was insane until a couple of years ago, and I couldn't bring myself to join the madness, no matter how much I enjoyed the comic.
I finally joined up after checking out G&T a few times, and deciding that the people here probably aren't murderous psychopaths... well, most people anyway.
SE++ still disturbs me a bit when I venture in there to look at the comic threads... but it's no longer a den of total anarchy and depravity. Just partial anarchy and depravity. At least it's a lot saner than it used to be.
Yeah - I lurked a long time before I finally joined too because it was a very intimidating community to enter at the time. I still basically post only in G&T. SE++ seems very clique-y and tends to resort to people talking about how gay each other are. I'm sure it's fun for those involved, but just really isn't my thing.
I would think Gabe at least thinks slightly higher of the forums now, considering he does do the Secret Santas and does post on rare occassions. I've been told he reads the new comic thread too.
I think by referring to the PA forums as bad, Gabe meant pretentious. Let's face it; a lot of us are pretentious douchebags.
You know, quite a few years back this forum was pretty bad. I mean, just nasty as all hell. I read it from time to time but had zero inclination to sign up. (I finally did a few years back, but that took a while.) The place drove newbies away like buffalo off the cliff. It was ugly.
The forum you see today bears little resemblance to what the forum used to be, in my opinion. Far different place now; great discussion, a better overall tone, strong community. Excellent forum. I can only assume Gabe was turned off early on and never returned.
Maybe so, but the forums are kind of dead these days. I think a forum needs some conflict to stay interesting, and groupthink makes for really boring discussions.
For example, almost no one in this thread is defending CNet's decision to fire Gerstmann. Maybe that's because people here have been trained to fit in and go with the status quo.
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
I think by referring to the PA forums as bad, Gabe meant pretentious. Let's face it; a lot of us are pretentious douchebags.
You know, quite a few years back this forum was pretty bad. I mean, just nasty as all hell. I read it from time to time but had zero inclination to sign up. (I finally did a few years back, but that took a while.) The place drove newbies away like buffalo off the cliff. It was ugly.
The forum you see today bears little resemblance to what the forum used to be, in my opinion. Far different place now; great discussion, a better overall tone, strong community. Excellent forum. I can only assume Gabe was turned off early on and never returned.
Maybe so, but the forums are kind of dead these days. I think a forum needs some conflict to stay interesting, and groupthink makes for really boring discussions.
For example, almost no one in this thread is defending CNet's decision to fire Gerstmann. Maybe that's because people here have been trained to fit in and go with the status quo.
Gee, that's a pretty "subtle" slap at the forum community. Or maybe we're all fairly reasonable and agree that it was a bad decision? Heck, plenty of non-forum people (press, journalists, analysts, etc.) seem to agree. I'm pretty certain if GameStop/CNet could do it all over again, they'd certainly handle it differently.
Even if CNet didn't like Gerstmann's performance, outright firing him seems like a poor decision. The timing could have been made so much better.
I think by referring to the PA forums as bad, Gabe meant pretentious. Let's face it; a lot of us are pretentious douchebags.
You know, quite a few years back this forum was pretty bad. I mean, just nasty as all hell. I read it from time to time but had zero inclination to sign up. (I finally did a few years back, but that took a while.) The place drove newbies away like buffalo off the cliff. It was ugly.
The forum you see today bears little resemblance to what the forum used to be, in my opinion. Far different place now; great discussion, a better overall tone, strong community. Excellent forum. I can only assume Gabe was turned off early on and never returned.
Maybe so, but the forums are kind of dead these days. I think a forum needs some conflict to stay interesting, and groupthink makes for really boring discussions.
For example, almost no one in this thread is defending CNet's decision to fire Gerstmann. Maybe that's because people here have been trained to fit in and go with the status quo.
Or maybe it was because it was a stupid decision. Just sayin'.
I think by referring to the PA forums as bad, Gabe meant pretentious. Let's face it; a lot of us are pretentious douchebags.
You know, quite a few years back this forum was pretty bad. I mean, just nasty as all hell. I read it from time to time but had zero inclination to sign up. (I finally did a few years back, but that took a while.) The place drove newbies away like buffalo off the cliff. It was ugly.
The forum you see today bears little resemblance to what the forum used to be, in my opinion. Far different place now; great discussion, a better overall tone, strong community. Excellent forum. I can only assume Gabe was turned off early on and never returned.
Maybe so, but the forums are kind of dead these days. I think a forum needs some conflict to stay interesting, and groupthink makes for really boring discussions.
For example, almost no one in this thread is defending CNet's decision to fire Gerstmann. Maybe that's because people here have been trained to fit in and go with the status quo.
I would state that some positions are hard to defend. We had one person defend CNet, but he was a plant.
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
I think by referring to the PA forums as bad, Gabe meant pretentious. Let's face it; a lot of us are pretentious douchebags.
You know, quite a few years back this forum was pretty bad. I mean, just nasty as all hell. I read it from time to time but had zero inclination to sign up. (I finally did a few years back, but that took a while.) The place drove newbies away like buffalo off the cliff. It was ugly.
The forum you see today bears little resemblance to what the forum used to be, in my opinion. Far different place now; great discussion, a better overall tone, strong community. Excellent forum. I can only assume Gabe was turned off early on and never returned.
Maybe so, but the forums are kind of dead these days. I think a forum needs some conflict to stay interesting, and groupthink makes for really boring discussions.
For example, almost no one in this thread is defending CNet's decision to fire Gerstmann. Maybe that's because people here have been trained to fit in and go with the status quo.
I would state that some positions are hard to defend. We had one person defend CNet, but he was a plant.
Thing is, there's two types of defense; the first is to be objective about the situation, trying to see it from the other perspective. The other is a more 'belief' or trust driven defense (best example I can think of is patriotism). We don't see the latter in this situation.
Maybe so, but the forums are kind of dead these days. I think a forum needs some conflict to stay interesting, and groupthink makes for really boring discussions.
For example, almost no one in this thread is defending CNet's decision to fire Gerstmann. Maybe that's because people here have been trained to fit in and go with the status quo.
Possible. Also possible that no one thinks CNet's position as generally understood is defensible. It seems to me that Gerstmann and new management had some falling out regarding the site. Gerstmann took a stand and got axed. Was he right? Who knows. Gamespot (and IGN and PA for that matter) don't advertise a lot of non-game products. Still, if Gamespot has a conflict of interest that casts doubt on the integrity of their reviews, why not point it out. How many game sponsored websites use non-numerical grades? This isn't really about Gerstmann's job, It is about a giant rift between the expectations of consumers ("I trust Gamespot") and reality ("Gamespot does what they are paid to do by Publishers"). The reason the vast majority of people here (consumers) are pissed is that by (if they are) cow towing to Publishers, Gamespot has violated a trust. I suspect people who knew all along they were shills aren't quite so miffed.
themightypuck on
“Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.”
― Marcus Aurelius
So the recent GFW Podcast (The Brodeo) is up, where they talk about Gertsmanngate, the influence on game reviewers from publishers, and how you can make any preview a positive one.
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KageraImitating the worst people. Since 2004Registered Userregular
edited December 2007
I can't think of many previews that were very negative on a game, in fact previews always seem to hype the game up even if it's Barbie's Horse Adventures.
I can't think of many previews that were very negative on a game, in fact previews always seem to hype the game up even if it's Barbie's Horse Adventures.
Well previews exist to detail features of upcoming games . If you review a game that's 6 months from completion that's hardly fair to the customer/reader or the developer.
King Riptor on
I have a podcast now. It's about video games and anime!Find it here.
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KageraImitating the worst people. Since 2004Registered Userregular
I can't think of many previews that were very negative on a game, in fact previews always seem to hype the game up even if it's Barbie's Horse Adventures.
Well previews exist to detail features of upcoiming games . If you review a game that's 6 months from completion that's hardly fair to the customer/reader or the developer.
yeah but if there are flaws in the game that are really glaring especially in hands-on previews they should be noted. I'm not talking stuff that's common to betas and pre-final builds either.
I can't think of many previews that were very negative on a game, in fact previews always seem to hype the game up even if it's Barbie's Horse Adventures.
Well previews exist to detail features of upcoiming games . If you review a game that's 6 months from completion that's hardly fair to the customer/reader or the developer.
yeah but if there are flaws in the game that are really glaring especially in hands-on previews they should be noted. I'm not talking stuff that's common to betas and pre-final builds either.
1up and to an extent EGM do a pretty good job at pointing problems in preview builds.
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited December 2007
Are previews even really subject to being positive and negative? They're a different beast than reviews.
I think by referring to the PA forums as bad, Gabe meant pretentious. Let's face it; a lot of us are pretentious douchebags.
You know, quite a few years back this forum was pretty bad. I mean, just nasty as all hell. I read it from time to time but had zero inclination to sign up. (I finally did a few years back, but that took a while.) The place drove newbies away like buffalo off the cliff. It was ugly.
The forum you see today bears little resemblance to what the forum used to be, in my opinion. Far different place now; great discussion, a better overall tone, strong community. Excellent forum. I can only assume Gabe was turned off early on and never returned.
Maybe so, but the forums are kind of dead these days. I think a forum needs some conflict to stay interesting, and groupthink makes for really boring discussions.
For example, almost no one in this thread is defending CNet's decision to fire Gerstmann. Maybe that's because people here have been trained to fit in and go with the status quo.
Check earlier in this thread. I'm pretty sure that there have been several people who are probably still not convinced that something went down.
I can't think of many previews that were very negative on a game, in fact previews always seem to hype the game up even if it's Barbie's Horse Adventures.
Well previews exist to detail features of upcoming games . If you review a game that's 6 months from completion that's hardly fair to the customer/reader or the developer.
I appreciate it when a reviewer is willing to trusts their instincts about an upcoming product that they have a bad feeling about. Often times you can read between the lines in a preview to get a glimpse of that editorial. I don't think it is the job of professional enthusiast publications to be a branch of a developer's PR department by running down the press release bullet points; but it is also not fair to developers to go so far as assign a "score" to a game before the title is finished.
GFW Radio on 1up.com had an interesting insider response to this Gerstmann incident which included some discussion on what purpose a preview should serve. I think its worth checking out.
Are previews even really subject to being positive and negative? They're a different beast than reviews.
Perhaps it would be better to say "skeptical" and "optimistic". As in "I'm skeptical/optimistic that, based on what I've seen, this is gonna be a cool game". I think that's perfectly within the realm of previews.
And the vast majority of previews I see are generally optimistic.
I just came back to stop in and say that I tried to tell you guys about how much of an overreaction this was, as did my friend who wrote the article at http://www.crushedbefore.com/, but no one wanted to listen at that time. Please learn from this ordeal guys, and try to not cause as much damage next time before gathering solid evidence. While you can argue that there is still not evidence, at least GameSpot made the exception to at least respond to concerns, despite a termination being a very private matter. GameSpot's credibility was never ruined and shouldn't have been portrayed that way. EIDOS didn't deserve the hate and the boycotts, and IO Interactive didn't deserve to have their game shit on. What you saw with Kotaku and even PA is sensational and reactionary media reporting, just like those nasty celebrity tabloids like to use - keep that in mind. Just use your noggins, you're an intelligent bunch and can think for yourselves.
With that said, my friend who wrote the post at crushedbefore said that he received a very credible email stating why Jeff was terminated, but agreed that it was a private matter. Just keep in mind that people can and do get themselves fired.
Anyways, once again I depart from these forums. I'll still occasionally lurk as I used to, and who knows, maybe pop up again one day.
I just came back to stop in and say that I tried to tell you guys about how much of an overreaction this was, as did my friend who wrote the article at http://www.crushedbefore.com/, but no one wanted to listen at that time. Please learn from this ordeal guys, and try to not cause as much damage next time before getting solid evidence. While you can argue that there is still not evidence, at least GameSpot made the exception to at least respond to concerns, despite a termination being a very private matter.
With that said, my friend who wrote the post at crushedbefore said that he received a very credible email stating why Jeff was terminated, but agreed that it was a private matter. Just keep in mind that people can and do get themselves fired, and in Jeff's case, it was his fault.
Once again I will depart from these forums and occasionally lurk as I used to.
"Be excellent to eachother"
We caused the damage? If you really lurked you would realize that Gabe & Tycho don't peruse the forums, and even if they did, their comic didn't cause the damage, Gamespot's actions did. You seem to be basing your evidence that Jeff was at fault on the bare minimum actions that Gamespot took in dealing with the controversy. In fact, the departure of other people seems to only collaborate the idea that Gamespot and CNET are completely at fault here.
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KageraImitating the worst people. Since 2004Registered Userregular
edited December 2007
I received an email myself from a source so credible that I can only call him by his code name 'susej' and he said Jeff was terminated because he found out that C|Net was really run by a giant clitoris named Dick Cheney.
I just came back to stop in and say that I tried to tell you guys about how much of an overreaction this was, as did my friend who wrote the article at http://www.crushedbefore.com/, but no one wanted to listen at that time. Please learn from this ordeal guys, and try to not cause as much damage next time before gathering solid evidence. While you can argue that there is still not evidence, at least GameSpot made the exception to at least respond to concerns, despite a termination being a very private matter. GameSpot's credibility was never ruined and shouldn't have been portrayed that way. EIDOS didn't deserve the hate and the boycotts, and IO Interactive didn't deserve to have their game shit on. What you saw with Kotaku and even PA is sensational and reactionary media reporting, just like those nasty celebrity tabloids like to use - keep that in mind. Just use your noggins, you're an intelligent bunch and can think for yourselves.
With that said, my friend who wrote the post at crushedbefore said that he received a very credible email stating why Jeff was terminated, but agreed that it was a private matter. Just keep in mind that people can and do get themselves fired.
Anyways, once again I depart from these forums. I'll still occasionally lurk as I used to, and who knows, maybe pop up again one day.
"Be excellent to eachother"
Please continue posting as I find your completely factual and informative accounts of the goings-on in Gamespot offices every bit as fascinating as your insight into the processes of corporate law.
HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited December 2007
Usually I hate doing this, but it looks like Electro only has 12 posts, all of them in this thread. Yeah, we don't need you around dude. You seem to be upset that it (the firing) was supposed to be a private issue. Boohoo, people kiss and tell.
I hereby propose that a mod change Electro's name to ShillyMcShillington.
The sheer amount of circumstantial evidence is overwhelming that he was fired for his review.
Let's get a collection of facts:
* It has been confirmed from Gerstmann and Gamespot that he was fired.
* The advertising for K&L suddenly disappears from Gamespot after the review
* Afterwards his video review of K&L was removed from gamespot
* The review itself is modified to give a more favourable tone
* Gamespot eventually release a statement that's vague at best about what exactly transpired
* It's known that rather than have an experienced editorial person in charge of Gamespot we have a former salesman responsible for the content of the site
* Lots of well known persons (Gabe for example) who lets face facts are quite well known in the industry have confirmed he was fired for his review via contacts, the number of persons who seem to be corroborating this definitely indicate it's true for example the "gamespot" poster
* 1up and other games review sites picket outside the Gamespot offices to offer their support to the reviewers. If the firing wasn't for the reason of the review then why are people who know each other (and tell each other what's going on) picketing their support for their fellow reviewers?
GrimReaper on
PSN | Steam
---
I've got a spare copy of Portal, if anyone wants it message me.
I reckon this kind of stuff must happen quite frequently. If the guy was not such a big name, it wouldn't be a news story, but that doesn't mean it does not happen
People are saying they trust the reviews found on sites like 1up. But how can you trust people that leave out perfectly good numbers and their matching quality from their rating system.
Games with average scores in the 9-10 range should generally be considered excellent, 7-8.5 good, 5-6.5 average, 3-4.5 bad, and 0-2.5 terrible.
Kane and Lynch got a 4.6 on 1up. What does that mean? It's not bad, it's not good... perhaps wicked awesome is 4.6-4.9 and they left it off by accident. What should i think, someone tell me!
I didn't read this full thread, so I don't know if my theory has been posted or not.
Anyways I work in management for a smaller company (not a gaming company, but still doesn't matter), and I was talking with my father (who owns his own successful business).
Anyways basically what *I* think happened is this.
Gerstmann writes a negative review about Kane & Lynch. Eidoes (constantly) calls up management and complains about the negative review. Now you obviously don't want to piss off your clients, but you also want to stand by your (and as part of the extension, your employees) decision.
Perhaps in the last few months (or year) a few publishers have voiced their concern about his reviews?
Anyways, you will, of course, launch an internal investigation to determine if his review was justified or not.
They take a quick look, and while the review was a tad harsh, was nothing to severe. Now deny it or not, for being a professional editor, Gerstmann's review seemed to be horribly written, using a poor choice of words. He actually seemed to be quite "lazy" writing his review. If you look at most of the edits I believe they are indeed justified (some are not though).
After dealing with this issue perhaps internal investigations investigated a bit further into Gerstmanns work habbits. Maybe they found out he comes to work late every day by 15 minutes, and leaves 15 minutes early? Maybe he reads Sashdot too long during his lunch break, therefor taking an extra 30 min lunch?
Maybe he was a pain in the ass to work with and all of his co-workers thought he was annoying or abusive?
It could be the more they dug the moreissues they found about his work habits, and since they kept turning things up they dug even deeper (reviewing previous negative reviews, etc)
Maybe with all that they uncovered, it was fully warranted to terminate his employment.
Obviously without the internal details it is all speculation, but that is what I think. So yes, Kane & Lynch review might have been what got the ball rolling, but as it rolled down the hill, it gathered a bunch of other issues that were totally unrelated to the review that got him terminated.
Or maybe Gamespot/CNET already knew all this, and the negative review is what broke the camels back.
Posts
Manipulated the higher ups and positioned himself as Jeffs replacement?
So in fact he is a maniacal evil genius.
From the site you fuckers linked to. Read and refresh, god damn you all:
Heh.
I had a great idea for a controversial topic. Ran it by the mods and got the go ahead and everything. Then I had to open my mouth and get jailed. It would have been glorious, though. The hatred felt towards me afterwards would have been told to some's grand children.
On day. Maybe.
:-P
Fortunately for him he will probably have all legitimate mail forwarded to a new address and just slash and burn his inbox each morning, never even seeing the hate mail, if there is any.
BUNGIE GOT JEFF FIRED?:twisted:
He's their news guy.
PSN ID : Xander51 Steam ID : Xander51
maybe that was the PA forums of old, but I remember hearing about that as an example of the "dark ages"
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Yes.
I can relate to that. I occasionally checked out the forums for years (usually looking SE++, mistakenly thinking it would be representative of the whole forum), and was physically sick at what I saw there. The place was insane until a couple of years ago, and I couldn't bring myself to join the madness, no matter how much I enjoyed the comic.
I finally joined up after checking out G&T a few times, and deciding that the people here probably aren't murderous psychopaths... well, most people anyway.
SE++ still disturbs me a bit when I venture in there to look at the comic threads... but it's no longer a den of total anarchy and depravity. Just partial anarchy and depravity. At least it's a lot saner than it used to be.
He doesn't write reviews - he's one of the main news editors, and if you ever listen to him on the HotSpot he's kind of one of the more skeptical guys on there.
I'd trust him as much as I would Ryan Davis or Alex Navarro as a longtime GameSpot staffer.
Yeah - I lurked a long time before I finally joined too because it was a very intimidating community to enter at the time. I still basically post only in G&T. SE++ seems very clique-y and tends to resort to people talking about how gay each other are. I'm sure it's fun for those involved, but just really isn't my thing.
I would think Gabe at least thinks slightly higher of the forums now, considering he does do the Secret Santas and does post on rare occassions. I've been told he reads the new comic thread too.
For example, almost no one in this thread is defending CNet's decision to fire Gerstmann. Maybe that's because people here have been trained to fit in and go with the status quo.
Gee, that's a pretty "subtle" slap at the forum community. Or maybe we're all fairly reasonable and agree that it was a bad decision? Heck, plenty of non-forum people (press, journalists, analysts, etc.) seem to agree. I'm pretty certain if GameStop/CNet could do it all over again, they'd certainly handle it differently.
Even if CNet didn't like Gerstmann's performance, outright firing him seems like a poor decision. The timing could have been made so much better.
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Or maybe it was because it was a stupid decision. Just sayin'.
Also, I agree with Henroid.
I would state that some positions are hard to defend. We had one person defend CNet, but he was a plant.
Thing is, there's two types of defense; the first is to be objective about the situation, trying to see it from the other perspective. The other is a more 'belief' or trust driven defense (best example I can think of is patriotism). We don't see the latter in this situation.
Possible. Also possible that no one thinks CNet's position as generally understood is defensible. It seems to me that Gerstmann and new management had some falling out regarding the site. Gerstmann took a stand and got axed. Was he right? Who knows. Gamespot (and IGN and PA for that matter) don't advertise a lot of non-game products. Still, if Gamespot has a conflict of interest that casts doubt on the integrity of their reviews, why not point it out. How many game sponsored websites use non-numerical grades? This isn't really about Gerstmann's job, It is about a giant rift between the expectations of consumers ("I trust Gamespot") and reality ("Gamespot does what they are paid to do by Publishers"). The reason the vast majority of people here (consumers) are pissed is that by (if they are) cow towing to Publishers, Gamespot has violated a trust. I suspect people who knew all along they were shills aren't quite so miffed.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
http://steamcommunity.com/id/BlindProphet
Well previews exist to detail features of upcoming games . If you review a game that's 6 months from completion that's hardly fair to the customer/reader or the developer.
yeah but if there are flaws in the game that are really glaring especially in hands-on previews they should be noted. I'm not talking stuff that's common to betas and pre-final builds either.
1up and to an extent EGM do a pretty good job at pointing problems in preview builds.
haha
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
Check earlier in this thread. I'm pretty sure that there have been several people who are probably still not convinced that something went down.
I appreciate it when a reviewer is willing to trusts their instincts about an upcoming product that they have a bad feeling about. Often times you can read between the lines in a preview to get a glimpse of that editorial. I don't think it is the job of professional enthusiast publications to be a branch of a developer's PR department by running down the press release bullet points; but it is also not fair to developers to go so far as assign a "score" to a game before the title is finished.
GFW Radio on 1up.com had an interesting insider response to this Gerstmann incident which included some discussion on what purpose a preview should serve. I think its worth checking out.
And the vast majority of previews I see are generally optimistic.
With that said, my friend who wrote the post at crushedbefore said that he received a very credible email stating why Jeff was terminated, but agreed that it was a private matter. Just keep in mind that people can and do get themselves fired.
Anyways, once again I depart from these forums. I'll still occasionally lurk as I used to, and who knows, maybe pop up again one day.
"Be excellent to eachother"
We caused the damage? If you really lurked you would realize that Gabe & Tycho don't peruse the forums, and even if they did, their comic didn't cause the damage, Gamespot's actions did. You seem to be basing your evidence that Jeff was at fault on the bare minimum actions that Gamespot took in dealing with the controversy. In fact, the departure of other people seems to only collaborate the idea that Gamespot and CNET are completely at fault here.
Please continue posting as I find your completely factual and informative accounts of the goings-on in Gamespot offices every bit as fascinating as your insight into the processes of corporate law.
Shilly.
The sheer amount of circumstantial evidence is overwhelming that he was fired for his review.
Let's get a collection of facts:
* It has been confirmed from Gerstmann and Gamespot that he was fired.
* The advertising for K&L suddenly disappears from Gamespot after the review
* Afterwards his video review of K&L was removed from gamespot
* The review itself is modified to give a more favourable tone
* Gamespot eventually release a statement that's vague at best about what exactly transpired
* It's known that rather than have an experienced editorial person in charge of Gamespot we have a former salesman responsible for the content of the site
* Lots of well known persons (Gabe for example) who lets face facts are quite well known in the industry have confirmed he was fired for his review via contacts, the number of persons who seem to be corroborating this definitely indicate it's true for example the "gamespot" poster
* 1up and other games review sites picket outside the Gamespot offices to offer their support to the reviewers. If the firing wasn't for the reason of the review then why are people who know each other (and tell each other what's going on) picketing their support for their fellow reviewers?
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I've got a spare copy of Portal, if anyone wants it message me.
Kane and Lynch got a 4.6 on 1up. What does that mean? It's not bad, it's not good... perhaps wicked awesome is 4.6-4.9 and they left it off by accident. What should i think, someone tell me!
Anyways I work in management for a smaller company (not a gaming company, but still doesn't matter), and I was talking with my father (who owns his own successful business).
Anyways basically what *I* think happened is this.
Gerstmann writes a negative review about Kane & Lynch. Eidoes (constantly) calls up management and complains about the negative review. Now you obviously don't want to piss off your clients, but you also want to stand by your (and as part of the extension, your employees) decision.
Perhaps in the last few months (or year) a few publishers have voiced their concern about his reviews?
Anyways, you will, of course, launch an internal investigation to determine if his review was justified or not.
They take a quick look, and while the review was a tad harsh, was nothing to severe. Now deny it or not, for being a professional editor, Gerstmann's review seemed to be horribly written, using a poor choice of words. He actually seemed to be quite "lazy" writing his review. If you look at most of the edits I believe they are indeed justified (some are not though).
After dealing with this issue perhaps internal investigations investigated a bit further into Gerstmanns work habbits. Maybe they found out he comes to work late every day by 15 minutes, and leaves 15 minutes early? Maybe he reads Sashdot too long during his lunch break, therefor taking an extra 30 min lunch?
Maybe he was a pain in the ass to work with and all of his co-workers thought he was annoying or abusive?
It could be the more they dug the moreissues they found about his work habits, and since they kept turning things up they dug even deeper (reviewing previous negative reviews, etc)
Maybe with all that they uncovered, it was fully warranted to terminate his employment.
Obviously without the internal details it is all speculation, but that is what I think. So yes, Kane & Lynch review might have been what got the ball rolling, but as it rolled down the hill, it gathered a bunch of other issues that were totally unrelated to the review that got him terminated.
Or maybe Gamespot/CNET already knew all this, and the negative review is what broke the camels back.