I’m sure anyone who would read this site has been following this story somewhat. These are the facts as I know them. On Thursday afternoon, word started to spread that Gamespot had fired their Editorial Director, Jeff Gerstmann. Gerstmann has become infamous in some circles as the editor that had the “audacity” to give Twilight Princess an 8.8 last fall, and he is often the target of overzealous fanboys who are infuriated by his lowering of a Metacritic average. However, in my opinion, Gerstmann was the bedrock for Gamespot’s credibility. The willingness of an editor to be honest amidst the possibility of enormous backlash speaks to my smart-assed, cynical self, and Nintendo franchises are often the great sacred cows of gaming. Also, I didn’t like the small bit of Twilight Princess I played, so maybe I can sympathize.

While there are several less popular theories, 1UP has confirmed through their own sources that Gerstmann was fired because of his negative review of Kane and Lynch, which coincided with an enormous ad push on the part of Eidos for the title. Other sites have more detailed rundowns, but the gist of the situation from a few different sources seems to be this: Stephen Colvin, the former president and CEO of Dennis Publishing of Maxim and Stuff, took over as C|Net’s executive vice president in late October. Combined with Sony’s anger over a lower than expected review for Ratchet and Clank, the negative editorial reaction to a cash cow that may have been somewhere in the six figure range from Eidos appears to have been the breaking point.

The exact details of what went down are unconfirmed, and will remain that way. Fired employees, especially long term employees of dot coms, tend to get severance packages that are contingent on them keeping their mouths shut, and there are often legally binding non-disclosure elements in these situations. However, an anonymous source who claims to be a Gamespot editor spilled the beans on Valleywag:

This management team has shown what they’re willing to do. Jeff had ten years in and was fucking locked out of his office and told to leave the building.

What you might not be aware of is that GS is well known for appealing mostly to hardcore gamers. The mucky-mucks have been doing a lot of “brand research” over the last year or so and indicating that they want to reach out to more casual gamers. Our last executive editor, Greg Kasavin, left to go to EA, and he was replaced by a suit, Josh Larson, who had no editorial experience and was only involved on the business side of things. Over the last year there has been an increasing amount of pressure to allow the advertising teams to have more of a say in the editorial process; we’ve started having to give our sales team heads-ups when a game is getting a low score, for instance, so that they can let the advertisers know that before a review goes up. Other publishers have started giving us notes involving when our reviews can go up; if a game’s getting a 9 or above, it can go up early; if not, it’ll have to wait until after the game is on the shelves.

I was in the meeting where Josh Larson was trying to explain this firing and the guy had absolutely no response to any of the criticisms we were sending his way. He kept dodging the question, saying that there were “multiple instances of tone” in the reviews that he hadn’t been happy about, but that wasn’t Jeff’s problem since we all vet every review. He also implied that “AAA” titles deserved more attention when they were being reviewed, which sounded to all of us that he was implying that they should get higher scores, especially since those titles are usually more highly advertised on our site.

I’ve held off on posting about this, and honestly, posting in general, because of how disheartening this whole situation is as someone who wants to break into this industry, and as someone who argues for the legitimacy of gaming journalism and its responsibilities toward the medium. This kind of thing doesn’t just hurt Gamespot, it hurts everyone even tangentially related. I know additional information related to aggressive publisher PR and Advertising trying to influence or even punish media sources for reviews that I can’t really discuss beyond the rumors you can find elsewhere (or even see, such as the continuously changing and watered down IGN review of Assassin’s Creed), but in this case, the wall I’ve come to trust generally exists in these situations has been destroyed entirely. I know not every site is going to be in this position, but to know that Gamespot, the market leader, is in this position really hits home. It makes me question what I’ve moved to the Bay Area to do. I can’t sell out that way, and I didn’t think I’d have to. Now I wonder.

The good news is, this does appear to be a very shocking and aberrant situation, as many sites show support for Gerstmann and the now embattled Gamespot staff. Employees of Ziff-Davis/1UP made a jaunt out to the Gamespot offices to show their support.

You might recognize that douche in the center in the bright yellow shirt as our own Chuf. Or you might not, but I assure you it’s him. His feelings represent my own in this case I think. Gamespot has died in my eyes, and while I expect that some will be swayed by the character assassination of Gerstmann that I assure you is to come (and in some areas has already begun, with rumors of unprofessional review practices starting to be seeded here and there), Gamespot will have to move mountains to earn my trust again. In the meantime, I’m left with more cynicism about the industry. However, I also have even more desire to approach it with integrity and with the respect that I feel it deserves.

Penis.

-Aegies