GTA IV PS3 Freezing solution

[Cayal]

Gamespot fired a guy for giving a poor review to Kane and Lynch.

 

[Lucien21]

Gamespot fired a guy for giving a poor review to Kane and Lynch.

No they didn't.

 

[Overread]

I thought they did?
Regardless the case was (something like) gamespot told this reviewer that he "was to give a good review of the game" as opposed to letting him just review it. So he went a review which did only point out the bad sides of the game - a very bad review.

After that I thought he was fired and then there was a small outcry from the community that a reviewer was being fired for "standing up to false reviews" or something along those lines - after that I stopped following the story.

Personally I find reviewers to be better than EA's advertising! But in the end a demo is the only good review of a product before buying

 

[Commonmind]

That's not what happened, at all.

Gamespot runs 24 hour advertisements and chose, without coincidence, to run their Kane and Lynch ad the same day Jeff Gerstman's review went live. Gerstman, as an 11 year employee of the company and in a position of editorial management, uploaded his review with little to no editing from senior staff -- something that is not uncommon for someone in his position. As a result the system of checks and balances, the one that would've thwarted these nasty rumors from starting, failed: Gerstman's review went up, he was subsequently disciplined for the questionable nature in which it was written (I read the original review, which was definitely tactless and had quite a bit of that ego-centric Gerstman belligerence), something he had been disciplined for previous to this incident, and the company inevitably decided to let him go. The advertisements came down at the same time (on schedule, ironically) as the review was edited for content and language (note the score never changed, a hint that the editing process wasn't meant to rectify the ire of the advertisers but to correct the issue of its questionable content). News then went public that Jeff had been let go and the result was fans of the site, and even company employees, bought into this grand conspiracy and created a news story out of a relatively small issue.

The truth of the matter is Gamespot's senior staff and parent company had been building a case against Gerstman for quite some time. The Kane and Lynch review was the final straw, as it were. And as a paying subscriber to Gamespot since it began offering its premium service, I can say, without a doubt, that the company's choice to let him go was valid and justified. The guy was a jackass, excuse the language, and I'm only disappointed that this whole issue has ended up hurting Gamespot's reputation.

 

[Cayal]

Sounds like good PR spin there, of course they are going to deny it.
But why would other employees leave so soon after?

No I'd sooner believe in the power of the all mighty dollar being the influence than a mighty big coincidence.

 

[Commonmind]

Let me clarify. Gerstman was fired for the content of his review, not because the advertisers pressured the company to action; and that was my point.

When Gerstman was let go he was not allowed, contractually, to discuss the reasons behind his dismissal, so Gamespot staff was also left to speculate. Frank Provo and Alex Navarro were the only ones to leave as a result of the Gerstman-Gate scandal and both of them very adamantly stated that it wasn't so much the why of the matter, but how it was handled, what it inevitably did to the site's reputation and how company officials did little to stem their concerns -- offering up even a small explanation of what had actually happened -- or to quell the outcries of their subscribers. The sad truth being that they (Gamespot/Cnet) were also contractually obligated to keep their mouths shut as well -- here's a classic case of catch-22: they terminated Jeff Gerstman, paid him a severance, signed a contract with him that he would keep tight-lipped about the situation (as is normal in these types of terminations) and they would honor that end of the bargain as well so as not to soil his reputation.

So you see, even if they wanted to simply come out and say, "Hey, listen, we fired Jeff because he was a belligerent ass and his reviews were starting to degrade the editorial quality and integrity of our site," they couldn't.

And of course you'd sooner believe the "mighty dollar" was the main factor here, it's simply the more intriguing camp to join; the grassy knoll, the smoking gun, call it what you will, people are more inclined to buy into the conspiracy rather than look at the evidence objectively and make a logical assessment.

The problem with this whole situation is that we forget the importance of consistency; if this was Gamespot's main goal, why then would they have allowed similar (albeit more tactful) reviews of games which they'd received advertising revenue for go unedited?

Crackdown, Need for Speed, Dark Sector, Skate, Call of Juaraz, Shadowrun; these are just a few examples of other titles/series that had ads which ran on Gamespot's site, all of them received below average scores, some in the low 7's and 6's, and all of them from arguably more influential, higher-paying publishers than Eidos.

Your opinion is your own, and I can respect that, but let me say that I definitely don't want to get into a long, drawn out debate about this subject, considering it's relatively old news and that it will go nowhere since there's still no definable explanation as to what happened.