Game reviewer Jeff Gerstmann, who parted ways with GameSpot five years ago after publisher Eidos took issue with his review of Kane & Lynch, has returned to his old stomping grounds. GameSpot parent company CBS purchased Gerstmann’s website, GiantBomb, today. GiantBomb will still exist as an autonomous publication. [Justin.TV]
Longtime game reviewer Jeff Gerstmann is widely seen to have been fired from gaming site GameSpot in 2007 due to his negative review of Kane & Lynch. That game’s developers consider the episode “sad”.
Former GameSpot reviewer Jeff Gerstmann is no stranger to controversy. His 8.9 scoring of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was met with unhappy campers, while his 6.0 Kane & Lynch review *might* have cost him his job. But does Gerstmann have any regrets? From MTV Multiplayer:
“I’m at a point where I rarely second guess what I think about a game upon finishing it,” Gerstmann told me. He said he’s long gotten over the doubt that could set in “when you are facing the raging fury of the Internet.” He used to get death threats about some of his scores. “Now that stuff just rolls off. It’s the ranting of insane people, which you could say about a lot of internet stuff.”
I’ve always thought that some people take personal offense to reviews. They are just opinions. Everyone’s got one.
The Art of Not Second Guessing [Multiplayer]
When long-time GameSpot reviewer and editorial director Jeff Gerstmann was let go from the site last November—with sources pointing to his review of Kane & Lynch: Dead Men as the catalyst for his termination—fingers were also pointed at executive Josh Larson, VP of games at parent company CNET. Larson, who replaced former Editor in Chief Greg Kasavin, was implicated by anonymous GameSpot employees to have had the “church-and-state” separation between the sales teams and the editorial team” “cracked” under his tenure. Whether the VP, Jeff’s supervisor at the time, was the key decision maker in letting Gerstmann go we can’t confirm, but we can confirm that Larson will be leaving the company next week.
As the dust on Gerstmann-gate has finally more than settled, another GameSpot staffer is exiting the building. As announced on GameSpot’s podcast “HotSpot”, Senior Editor Brad Shoemaker will be leaving the site this Friday. He’s been working at GameSpot since 1999. Shame they never gave him a larger GIF image. We wish him luck in his future endeavours. The HotSpot [GameSpot, thanks to all who sent this in!]
The last thing the gaming world needs is more amateur gaming podcasts. Lucky for the newly-launched Arrow Pointing Down, then, that it’s not cobbled together by a couple of awkward teenagers using a $US 3 PC mic in their dad’s office. It is instead put together by former GameSpot staffers Jeff Gerstmann and Ryan Davis, who in their former lives manned GameSpot’s podcast. The sound quality is God-awful thanks to a dodgy Skype connection, but still worth a listen if you’ve got some 90-odd minutes of doing nothing scheduled for later today. Arrow Pointing Down Podcast Beta [Arrow Pointing Down]
Jeff Gerstmann of Gerstmann-gate fame will be making his first television appearance since his dismissal from GameSpot tonight at 8PM Eastern time on G4′s newly revamped X-Play. Gerstman will be on hand to discuss the lack of innovation in Japanese gaming, a topic that was recently brought to light via a Gamasutra interview with Konami sound director Akira Yamaoka. As expected, Gerstmann will also discuss his abrupt departure from GameSpot, because that’s really the gist of why he’s appearing on the show in the first place. Otherwise the little press blurb we got from G4 wouldn’t have been sent with the title “JEFF GERSTMANN’S FIRST TV APPEARANCE”. I hope I get half as popular as Jeff does when Crecente finally fires me.
Ryan Davis, an associate editor, experienced reviewer and nearly 8-year GameSpot veteran, has become the latest to quit in the wake of former editorial director Jeff Gerstmann’s termination. GameDaily.biz reports today that it has confirmed with new GameSpot editor in chief Ricardo Torres that Davis will follow Frank Provo and Alex Navarro as the latest casualty to the site’s editorial staff. News of the most recent resignation comes two months to the day that we warned of a mass walkout at the CNet Networks owned site.
You couldn’t pay me enough to take Ricardo Torres’ job. The newly promoted Editor-in-Chief of GameSpot took up the reins of the site in the wake of Gerstmann-gate, with community trust at an all time low and the eyes of the internet watching their every move. GameDaily’s Kyle Orland discusses the trials and tribulations of stepping into this new position with Torres in his weekly Media Coverage segment, touching on the future of GameSpot, competing with upstart gaming blogs (*whistles innocently*), sketchy advertising policies and of course, Jeff Gerstmann. “GameSpot’s gone through quite a few bumps in the road over the years. I know Jeff’s fans are upset and I know people are upset over the perception and how it all played out. Really, the best thing that we can do is to just show them that we’re good at what we do. Ultimately content is going to prove to people that we’re untainted, uncorrupt and committed to serving our readers.”
