RUMOR: Jeff Gerstmann from GameSpot Fired for Negative Review
Posted by AndyG as Wii Rumors at 1:38 PM EST
There’s a rumor going around that Jeff Gerstmann from Gamespot was fired for his negative review of Kane and Lynch for the 360 and PS3. While this may not be direct Wii related news, he has been controversial in the past for giving the Wii version of Twilight Princess an 8.8 while giving the GameCube version an 8.9. He also gave Majora’s Mask an 8.3 when it first came out. I’m not one to debate his review scores and what they perhaps should be, but the fact he was controversial at times cannot be disputed.
The current hot rumor goes like this: Eidos is paying GameSpot bucket loads of money to advertise Kane and Lynch with full page background ads and more. (I can’t seem to find a single page on their site with the ads now.) Jeff was in charge of reviewing the game and gave it a not so glowing score of 6.0 and then went on to totally rip the game apart in his video review. As the rumor goes, Eidos didn’t quite enjoy this and in turn, Gerstmann was let go. For the record, Jeff Gerstmann has been with GameSpot for over 10 years.
The video review has been taken down by GameSpot on their own site it was apparently deemed so controversial, but you can view it here in all of it’s glory. From what I’ve read from other reviews and forum denizens around the internet, the game is absolutely deserving of the 6.0 Gerstmann gave it and was right on par with what he is saying in the video.
Watch it while it’s up:
He does mention the game is not worth a buy in the end there, perhaps that was what sent Eidos into a tizzy. But the fact reviewers are discouraged from being honest due to marketing dollars coming in is a nightmare come true for gaming journalism. A better idea would be to not take money from companies to advertise crap games and in turn endorse only what you truly believe in if this is such a problem. Not firing your reviewers because your advertisements don’t line up with the honest word of the review.
I personally wasn’t too fond of Gerstmann for various reasons myself, but this is just horrible. Shame on Eidos and most definitely shame on GameSpot.
5 Comments
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dennis Said,
November 30, 2007 @ 6:47 pm
this is just stupid from gamespot
in their standards it says their reviews shouldn’t be affected by ads and money from companies
firing jeff because eidos didn’t like his review is going against their own rules
it would have been one thing if jeff had made an unfair review but the almost every kane & lynch review agrees with jeff in that it isnt a very good gameshame GameSpot
and eidos, they shouldnt be angry when they get bad reviews, instead make a better game and use the review as a help on what you made wrongpersonally im gonna start looking for another site for my gaming information
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Adrian Said,
November 30, 2007 @ 9:47 pm
seriously. i go to gamespot all the time. not anymore.
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Wariowarewolf Said,
November 30, 2007 @ 10:53 pm
Yup, Gamespot just lost all credibility …
It’s certainly a big problem that lots of types of journalism face, game journalism included … how do you remain unbiased when reporting about your sponsors ? Most traditional media (eg newspapers & TV) generally don’t bite the hands that feed them, unless they are community sponsored where they tend to get away with being more objective …
This is a big shame for Gamespot … it will be extremely difficult to convince long time readers that they are not simply producing “promotional marketing reviews” rather than “objective critical reviews” after this debarcle.
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silkylove Said,
December 1, 2007 @ 3:01 pm
I hate Jeff, but he shouldn’t have been fired. Gamespot lost all their cred with this move.
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Liquid Said,
December 9, 2007 @ 6:47 pm
Please if you actually believe he got fired over a game review your crazy. If that were true you would have most of the staff quiting and then within a month creating their own site off of all the popularity of being those guys that stood up for their belief in being honest in their reviews.
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