Originally Posted by Flay
:thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
I'll make this promise to you guys right now. I'll fire Jeff Paramchuk if he gives Kane & Lynch a positive review. ;) |
Well, I have subscribed to Gamespot, and while I don't always agree with their reviews, I did find them fair, and well written for the most part. At least from reading them I could tell whether I personally would like the game. I'm going to cancel my membership today because I think that it is absurd. If it turns out he wasn't fired for that reason, I can always rejoin, but it seems like that isn't the case.
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Well, I agreed 100% with his video review...and I suffered through and beat that stupid game :)
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PA finally posted their writeup for the day:
The New Games Journalism It's been a couple weeks discussing reviews and reviewers around here, but somewhere along the way I neglected to mention that their job is essentially impossible. The 7-9 scale they toil under is largely the result of an uneasy peace between the business and editorial wings of the venue. No matter what score they give it, high or low, they're reviled equally by the online chorus. Apparently, even when they do it right they're doing it wrong. Jeff Gerstmann is no stranger to controversy. In general terms, Gamespot can be relied upon to give high-profile games scores which are slightly lower than their counterparts elsewhere. It's almost as though there is an algorithm in place there to correct the heady rush associated with cracking open an anticipated new title. Gerstmann's 8.8 review of Twilight Princess cemented his reputation as a criminal renegade with no law but his own, even though he gave the game an 8.9 - a nine, essentially - out of ten. I will tell you the Gerstmann Story as we heard it. Management claimed to have spoken to Jeff about his "tone" before, and no doubt it was this tone that created tensions between their editorial content, the direction of the site, and the carefully crafted relationships that allowed Gamespot to act as an engine of revenue creation. After Gerstmann's savage flogging of Kane & Lynch, a game whose marketing investment on Gamespot alone reached into the hundreds of thousands, Eidos (we are told) pulled hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of future advertising from the site. Management has another story, of course: management always has another story. But it's the firm belief internally that Jeff was sacrificed. And it had to be Jeff, at least, we believe, precisely because of his stature and longevity. It made for a dramatic public execution that left the editorial staff in disarray. Would that it were only about the 6.0 - at least then you'd know how to score something if you wanted to keep your Goddamned job. No, this was worse: the more nebulous "tone" would be the guide. I assume it was designed to terrify them. For Gabriel, this tale proves out his darkest suspicions. People believe things like this anyway, but they don't know it, and the shift from intuitive to objective knowledge is startling. I think it rarely gets to this point. The apparatus is very tight: there are layers of editorial control that can massage the score, even when the text tells a different tale. A more junior reviewer might have seen their Kane & Lynch review streamlined by this process, divested of its worrisome angles and overall troubling shape. It was Jeff Gerstmann's role high in the site's infrastructure that allowed his raw editorial content to pierce the core of the business. |
I read and watch more reviews that I play games. It isn't even close because I love games but don't have the time to play. I have always enjoyed his reviews. He honestly tells you the good things about a crappy game. In fact, I tend to think he is pretty generous in finding redeeming qualities about crap.
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I don't know. I really like the review. Just a balls out review that just told the truth. Maybe he could have sugar coated it a bit and kept the same score but either way. Firing someone over a review definitely causes a site to lose basically all credibility. It's funny how movie reviewers (for example) are usually granted much more independence. Can you imagine if it came out that Ebert or Roeper were taking bribes?
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And a big ol' Tyler Durden two thumbs-up to the folks at Gamespot. Way to sell your integrity for short term financial gain!
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Nooo, Jeff was the funniest guy on the Hotspot, and I looked forward to it every week. Just ridiculous.
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Sounds to me like there's plenty more then him being fired just because of a bad review.
http://blog.wired.com/games/2007/11/...ot-inside.html The ads went up and the Eidos brouhaha was settled over two weeks ago. Jeff got fired yesterday. Furthermore, I'd heard a few people tell that he'd already been skating on thin ice for "unprofessional reviews and review practices." I don't know much about that, though, so I can't say one way or the other. My gut tells me that he got canned for larger reasons. Maybe the Eidos debacle was part of it -- I don't know. But I sincerely doubt that Eidos made Gamespot fire him. CNET doesn't kowtow to its advertisers, and I've more than once seen the higher-ups turn away big advertising dollars for the sake of the company's integrity.I think the whole thing is likely a combination of factors, the biggest being poor timing. |
Even without advertising payola, most professional review scores are a little inflated. Think about: these guys get to play the games first, for free, plus they get all kinds of swag from the gaming companies.
It's a far cry from Joe Gamer, who has maybe a budget for one game a month and has to go out in the cold on release day to buy his own copy. Explains why, even on bad games, scores never go below 5 or 6 -- and why most of us would never even consider a game with a Metacritic rating below 7 or 8. And it's pretty funny to see PA bitching about this when they're in bed with the gaming industry as much as anybody (illustrating manuals, etc). |
Originally Posted by fumanstan
Sounds to me like there's plenty more then him being fired just because of a bad review.
I rather like the conclusion that a 1up editor came up with: Jeff's been overseeing GameSpot's reviews for over a decade, and publisher complaints (of which there have been many -- I would know, I worked there years ago) never affected policy. October 27th, the guy who launched such fine publications as Stuff and Maxim takes over Gamespot. You figure it out. |
Sad day. I'm not having anything to do with Gamespot (or their podcast :( ) in the future if it turns out that he was fired for giving an honest review instead of sucking up to the corporate sponsors. Shame on them.
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Boy, there's some ethical issues there...
Hope it's not true, for their sake. |
Gerstmann's 8.8 review of Twilight Princess cemented his reputation as a criminal renegade with no law but his own, even though he gave the game an 8.9 - a nine, essentially - out of ten. |
His name is spelled incorrectly in the thread title, btw.
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Originally Posted by Groucho
And it's pretty funny to see PA bitching about this when they're in bed with the gaming industry as much as anybody (illustrating manuals, etc).
We'll see what happens when the PA game is released... especially if it sucks. |
I never really read their reviews anyway, nor did I ever stop by their site... But I certainly won't give them the time of day now, even if they are the first on the block to review a new game.
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Originally Posted by Groucho
And it's pretty funny to see PA bitching about this when they're in bed with the gaming industry as much as anybody (illustrating manuals, etc).
As Yahtzee would say, "That's fiiiiiiine." I wouldn't mind more sites like PA. Metacritic is good but if you can find a site or reviewer that agrees with you, you're much better off IMHO. Keep in mind I spent more time playing Street Trace NYC (which I think is a brilliant mix of Tony Hawk, Twisted Metal, and Jet Set Radio Future) than Zelda: Twilight Princess. That's right. Street Trace NYC is a better game than Zelda: Twilight Princess, especially once you consider the relative cost of each. To be fair, whatever interest I had in Kane & Lynch as a purchase has now disappeared after I saw Gamespot's review video. |
I've had a low opinion of video game journalism ever since this generation of consoles hit the market, but this is an all-time low. I always looked at Game Informer and Gamespot to be the good guys and 1up and IGN to be likely "on the take." I guess I can cross gamespot off my list too.
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Originally Posted by kurupt
I've had a low opinion of video game journalism ever since this generation of consoles hit the market, but this is an all-time low. I always looked at Game Informer and Gamespot to be the good guys and 1up and IGN to be likely "on the take." I guess I can cross gamespot off my list too.
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Originally Posted by kurupt
I've had a low opinion of video game journalism ever since this generation of consoles hit the market, but this is an all-time low. I always looked at Game Informer and Gamespot to be the good guys and 1up and IGN to be likely "on the take." I guess I can cross gamespot off my list too.
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While they're at it, they should fire the guy who did the review for Ratchet and Clank Future.
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Originally Posted by Fandango
While they're at it, they should fire the guy who did the review for Ratchet and Clank Future.
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Aren't payolas illegal? I read something a few years ago about some Music companies and DJs getting busted because they were giving and recieving payolas. If so, aren't video game companies and reviewers under the same laws?
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Originally Posted by dx23
Aren't payolas illegal? I read something a few years ago about some Music companies and DJs getting busted because they were giving and recieving payolas. If so, aren't video game companies and reviewers under the same laws?
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