Gamespot reviewer firing saga

[sachmo71]

Not sure how many of you were already aware of this...but a coworker told me about this story. The synopsis is that the Editorial Director of Gamespot was fired allegedly for writing a negative review about a game put out by a major advertiser on Gamespot.

Here is an article recapping the incident:
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcont...1.36e0b05.html

And this is an interesting take from 1up Editor Sam Kennedy:
http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=...UserId=4561231

I'd always wondered how the big sites were able to walk the line between panning a game that one of their advertisers published and being honest.
Personally, I like to find multiple points of view on a game, but with the major sites, and bad review is more damaging.

The question that comes to my mind is do the game companies really want to go this route? Do they want the public to be aware that review sites will not be able to be honest when it comes to games from big publishers for fear of losing money?
My guess is yes, seeing how much money gaming companies still make on pre-release sales, they would be willing to risk the credibility hit to have a positive impression of their game.
Will Gamespot pay for this? I don't think they will, but I find the whole situation pretty sad.

[SackAttack]

Originally Posted by sachmo71

Not sure how many of you were already aware of this...but a coworker told me about this story. The synopsis is that the Editorial Director of Edios was fired allegedly for writing a negative review about a game put out by a major advertiser on Gamespot.

Eidos is the publisher in question. Gerstmann didn't work for them.

Here is an article recapping the incident:
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcont...1.36e0b05.html

And this is an interesting take from 1up Editor Sam Kennedy:
http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=...UserId=4561231

I'd always wondered how the big sites were able to walk the line between panning a game that one of their advertisers published and being honest.
Personally, I like to find multiple points of view on a game, but with the major sites, and bad review is more damaging.

The question that comes to my mind is do the game companies really want to go this route? Do they want the public to be aware that review sites will not be able to be honest when it comes to games from big publishers for fear of losing money?
My guess is yes, seeing how much money gaming companies still make on pre-release sales, they would be willing to risk the credibility hit to have a positive impression of their game.
Will Gamespot pay for this? I don't think they will, but I find the whole situation pretty sad.

There's enough average folk out there who don't "plug in," so to speak, that while they might see a minor drop-off in numbers, it'll probably be temporary. What's interesting to me is that the CNet (GameSpot's parent company) board of directors is apparently the target of a takeover attempt from another company. Probably end up being a case of "meet the new boss..." but it will be interesting to see what becomes of that.

[SackAttack]

Dola,

Rather, from shareholders, not so much 'another company.'

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by sachmo71

The question that comes to my mind is do the game companies really want to go this route? Do they want the public to be aware that review sites will not be able to be honest when it comes to games from big publishers for fear of losing money?

My guess is yes, seeing how much money gaming companies still make on pre-release sales, they would be willing to risk the credibility hit to have a positive impression of their game.

Will Gamespot pay for this? I don't think they will, but I find the whole situation pretty sad.

These kinds of situations happen even more often since the change in retail policy that no longer allows games to be returned because they're just plain bad. Review sites that are critical of games have problems securing review copies on the day of release. Often, the game will get to sites like Gamespot a few days before release while other sites won't get a review copy for a couple weeks, if at all. The reason? If they can't get positive press early on to get people to buy the game at release, they'd rather not get any publicity at all until well after the initial purchasing rush is over.

[SackAttack]

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

These kinds of situations happen even more often since the change in retail policy that no longer allows games to be returned because they're just plain bad. Review sites that are critical of games have problems securing review copies on the day of release. Often, the game will get to sites like Gamespot a few days before release while other sites won't get a review copy for a couple weeks, if at all. The reason? If they can't get positive press early on to get people to buy the game at release, they'd rather not get any publicity at all until well after the initial purchasing rush is over.

If you want to rent a game, go to Blockbuster. Or Gamefly.

A liberal return policy like the one you cite there inevitably ends up getting abused, and the sales outlet generally has to decide "lose money in a customer-friendly way, or piss of the renter-buyers and pirates, but protect the bottom line?"

And when a store is part of a company that answers to stockholders, the bottom line will always win.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by SackAttack

If you want to rent a game, go to Blockbuster. Or Gamefly.

A liberal return policy like the one you cite there inevitably ends up getting abused, and the sales outlet generally has to decide "lose money in a customer-friendly way, or piss of the renter-buyers and pirates, but protect the bottom line?"

And when a store is part of a company that answers to stockholders, the bottom line will always win.

I don't disagree with anything you've said about the old policy. I'm just stating that the practice of manipulating review scores to their favor became extremely prevalent after the change in retail policy. Companies immediately jumped to do whatever it takes to secure favorable early review scores.

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by sachmo71

Not sure how many of you were already aware of this...but a coworker told me about this story. The synopsis is that the Editorial Director of Edios was fired allegedly for writing a negative review about a game put out by a major advertiser on Gamespot.

Here is an article recapping the incident:
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcont...1.36e0b05.html

And this is an interesting take from 1up Editor Sam Kennedy:
http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=...UserId=4561231

I'd always wondered how the big sites were able to walk the line between panning a game that one of their advertisers published and being honest.
Personally, I like to find multiple points of view on a game, but with the major sites, and bad review is more damaging.

The question that comes to my mind is do the game companies really want to go this route? Do they want the public to be aware that review sites will not be able to be honest when it comes to games from big publishers for fear of losing money?
My guess is yes, seeing how much money gaming companies still make on pre-release sales, they would be willing to risk the credibility hit to have a positive impression of their game.
Will Gamespot pay for this? I don't think they will, but I find the whole situation pretty sad.

This was covered a bit in one of the monthly console sales threads. Gamespot received massive backlash for this from the community there as it was a sign that they've sold out to advertising dollars now as well. I remember Kane and Lynch getting 40+ pages of 1.0 user reviews and I think they ended up locking the user reviews on it and deleting all of the 1.0 scores.

[sachmo71]

Originally Posted by SackAttack

Eidos is the publisher in question. Gerstmann didn't work for them.



There's enough average folk out there who don't "plug in," so to speak, that while they might see a minor drop-off in numbers, it'll probably be temporary. What's interesting to me is that the CNet (GameSpot's parent company) board of directors is apparently the target of a takeover attempt from another company. Probably end up being a case of "meet the new boss..." but it will be interesting to see what becomes of that.

Thanks for clearing that up, Sack! I mistyped while trying to track down links, etc.

Its situations like this were I look at how much money the gaming industry makes and just look at the gaming public as a bunch of sheep. Our buying habits make this behavior by the game publishers a logical conclusion. They need the good publicity, and holding the balls of the review sites is a great way to do it. The fact that the gaming public stands for it is the problem for me.

[JonInMiddleGA]

For all the handwringing done in the first link, the advertiser's reaction is pretty much standard practice in any industry I've ever been involved with. No way in hell any client I've ever had would leave a six-figure buy with a publication that ripped them a new one. Think about it a little, it would be idiotic to pay someone for the privilege of having them say bad things about you.

Having been a party to those sort of conversations, it's unlikely IMO (though not saying impossible) that the advertiser made a direct demand about the status of the reviewer. If anything, based on my own experiences at least, that's an overreaction on the part of the website. Typically, you just cancel the ads & when they ask why then you answer the question. At that point though, the damage is already done so it's not as if the review can be magically undone. But watching a nice chunk of change walk out the door does tend to cause a certain amount of stress & anxiety so I can't say that I'm shocked that it could result in a firing.

[SackAttack]

To follow up, Jon, I would imagine this was exacerbated by Eidos' financial woes.

That's a fairly hefty buy to commit to and then have the product you were counting on to bolster your bottom line get savaged.

A company like EA or Activision might be more likely to chalk it up to the risks of doing business with an entity whose *job* is to judge your offerings.

A shakier outfit like Eidos can't afford that kind of damage.

[sachmo71]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

For all the handwringing done in the first link, the advertiser's reaction is pretty much standard practice in any industry I've ever been involved with. No way in hell any client I've ever had would leave a six-figure buy with a publication that ripped them a new one. Think about it a little, it would be idiotic to pay someone for the privilege of having them say bad things about you.

Having been a party to those sort of conversations, it's unlikely IMO (though not saying impossible) that the advertiser made a direct demand about the status of the reviewer. If anything, based on my own experiences at least, that's an overreaction on the part of the website. Typically, you just cancel the ads & when they ask why then you answer the question. At that point though, the damage is already done so it's not as if the review can be magically undone. But watching a nice chunk of change walk out the door does tend to cause a certain amount of stress & anxiety so I can't say that I'm shocked that it could result in a firing.

I don't think the same standards should hold for a site that is in business to review your product. If your game sucks, you should expect the review site to tell the truth, not soften the blow because you are running ads on their site.

If companies are expecting good reviews for cash, what is the point of the review site? Just another ad outlet? It just doesn't make sense.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by sachmo71

I don't think the same standards should hold for a site that is in business to review your product.

You may not ... but the people spending the money do.

If companies are expecting good reviews for cash, what is the point of the review site? Just another ad outlet? It just doesn't make sense.

I dunno, seems to me that you've made reasonable sense of it already. Although I'm not so sure that there's an across the board expectation of "buy ads = get glowing review", but you aren't going to want to spend money supporting a site/publication/whatever that ass rapes your game either.

[Draft Dodger]

to be fair, Gamespot has said that he was fired for stuff unrelated to the review.
not that anyone believes them...

[gstelmack]

And this is why publications like Consumer Reports don't take advertising dollars. I am amused that this particular story gets a lot of press, when reviews that are flat-out wrong (where it's obvious the reviewer did not play the game, or only played one platform and assumed that applied to all platforms the game shipped on) usually don't generate this kind of buzz. But it's not like this is any different than the regular media (including the once-sacrosanct evening news) who are far more interested in what sells than in what is correct.

I mostly feel bad for the guys who take their review job seriously. It just goes to show you have to be picky about the sites you read, and pay attention when their view of games differ from yours. And actually READ the review, not just glance at a score. I think the worst thing that's happened with reviews is the focus on a score.