Jeff's Termination Discussion Thread - Please Keep ALL Related Discussion Here

Morning! did Cnet or Eidos say anything about what happend?gamingqueen

It seems like on most recent news states that Jeff was fired due to the "tone" of his video review on Kane and Lynch.

Nope, no news from cNet or Eidos, though I'm getting a little ticked off..

I'd never thought I'd see the day where I'm actually having trouble keeping my temper under wraps here.

[QUOTE="gamingqueen"]Morning! did Cnet or Eidos say anything about what happend?TriangleHard

It seems like on most recent news states that Jeff was fired due to the "tone" of his video review on Kane and Lynch.

For a single review? how unfair... reminds me of a saying we have here "one mistake from anexpert equals a thousand" dunno if you have it there but you get the meaning...

who's Jeff? That fat white guy right?

davehammer69

Nope, the thin black guy.

Unless CNET comes out on Monday and gives the biggest public apology ever with concrete steps on how this will be prevented in the future, I think the other editors almost have to leave. I'm generally optimistic, and I don't believe that their previous reviews were biased. However, all of their future reviews are completely worthless and rightfully so. It sucks to be unemployed, but those that stay are undeniably selling out their journalistic integrity, and it will be impossible to take them at full value. Gamespot was always my favorite site for reviews, but now it simply needs to die. Hopefully this will force other videogame sites to take a good hard look at themselves.

Unless CNET comes out on Monday and gives the biggest public apology ever with concrete steps on how this will be prevented in the future, I think the other editors almost have to leave. I'm generally optimistic, and I don't believe that their previous reviews were biased. However, all of their future reviews are completely worthless and rightfully so. It sucks to be unemployed, but those that stay are undeniably selling out their journalistic integrity, and it will be impossible to take them at full value. Gamespot was always my favorite site for reviews, but now it simply needs to die. Hopefully this will force other videogame sites to take a good hard look at themselves.

jsleepy_basic

And instead of copying every other individual, why not pose this idea:

Fix the current problem by seperating marketing and journalism?

[QUOTE="mikeymyer"]So the rest of the GS staff should be on strike or something?FreyarHunter

Judging from the rumors they're afraid to write.. I can understand that.

in my opinion, it may not matter but this is what i think.

for me, jeff has always been gamespot, i always came here for reviews... done by jeff, for pretty much every game.

as much as jeff was gamespot, gamespot it nothing without him, this site doesnt exist anymore. huh? where am i?

Zargooon

Fine, get out out of here. It's not like you aren't repeating every single other person that's even poked their head. It seems to be such a waste of time to just say "I'm leaving." Save electricity and just go if that's your wish.

Thanks for making my previous point about glib & nonconstructive posts. You need to get some sleep.

And instead of copying every other individual, why not pose this idea:

Fix the current problem by seperating marketing and journalism?

FreyarHunter

That's obviously the "concrete steps" refered to in the first sentence of my previous post. But the editors have no direct control over that, so unless CNETdoes something drastic they have no choice.

Thanks for making my previous point about glib & nonconstructive posts. You need to get some sleep.

chicklitt_basic

I'm so confused.. I suppose I'll come back to this in seven hours or so. G'night.

Addt'l: When I was talking about the editors, I forgot to add a comma.

Judging from the rumors, they're afraid to write... I can understand that...

FH-

Stop trying to fight the pissed off users. They have a right to be pissed off. We all use this site as a major avenue of both evaluating where our entertainment dollars go & to connect with folks with similar techy/gaming interests from across the globe. It really feels like betrayal. To be a mod must suck right now - you guys are the only voice being heard except for Greg Kasavin's - & he's not siding with the suits. I hope you don't take the anger towards GS personally - because you shouldn't.

Have good sleep.

I'm so confused.. I suppose I'll come back to this in seven hours or so. G'night.

FreyarHunter

You mods keep reiterating that you work solely for the community and not for CNET. That's nice and all, but I think a significant portion of the community wants you to stop closing threads. Perhaps they will be forced to close the foums like Eidos. I'm sure that would have a drastic effect on page views, ad revenue, etc. I admit that my major concern is with gaming journalism as a whole and not Gamespot itself so we might have separate agendas.

Anyways, I hope you feel better in the morning.

http://kotaku.com/gaming/jeff-gerstmann/cnet-comments-on-gamespot-controversy-328623.php

My apologies if this has been posted before.

(AKA: don't kill me Freyar.) :P

I guess we now know why Mass Effect scored lower than Assassin's Creed. If you want your score, you better pay the fee and give up the perks, ala Assassin's Creed & Halo 3. This is not a good decision at all, ethically or financially. No matter what happens, Gamespot's credibility will be forever shot, and no credibility = less subscribers & readers, and less subscribers & readers = less advertising and money.

I personally wasn't a big fan of Jeff, but the timing and circumstances of it all stink. If they were having problems with his "tone", why would they promote to Lead Reviewer in the first place? And more importantly, why hasn't Gamespot released an official statement on this website to at least inform us of what's going on? I guess this just further shows that Gamespot doesn't care about its readers anymore.

Enjoy your advertising money while it lasts, Gamespot. I don't see you getting much more support after this debacle.

Meh.. I'm snoozing...

As far as the statements about locked threads... I've stopped doing that for awhile now.

Regardless of why Jeff was fired, here's the deal: The manner in which he was fired is such that cnet has just lost thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars of future revenue from all the people cancelling accounts in the past two days. So, either way they were going to lose money, might as well have gone about it in an ethical, professional way. This is just shameful, and everyone knows it.

i don't know why he got fired butpersonally wont miss him.

i think he was too arrogant and full of himself

Many readers have asked about why we run ads on the site that often have very little to do with gaming. I am going to answer that now publicly, as it seems fitting when you consider the event that has taken place between Jeff Gerstmann and his former long time employer Gamespot.

In case readers didn't notice Gamespot ran a bunch of Kane & Lynch advertisements, and with that, though they can deny it, comes a certain level of unwritten respect that is expected. Think about it, why does Consumer Reports not run ads? Why is it you never hear networks bad mouth their sponsors? Why do we here at Ripten run ads that rarely have anything to do with gaming?

The answer to the last question is two fold. First, it is because our site is fairly new, and we have yet to establish a relationship with that type of vendor, but secondly, and most importantly, the longer we have been doing this, the more it started to dawn on us that maybe we don't want to run game related advertising on our site.

Chad Lakkis on November 30, 2007

http://www.ripten.com/2007/11/30/can-you-trust-a-video-game-site-that-runs-video-game-ads/

GAMESPOT must have lots of people editing comments, so how a about, this, for just one day, just one day everyone with the same avatar, jeff´s pic, like in V for vendetta, that will go to CNN

I didn´t liked to much his reviews, but that´s not the point, pass the mission.

Digg LinkThe jerk who fired Jeff is someone by the name of Josh Larson. He's a former Maxim guy who replaced Greg Kasavin & has NO editorial expertise. The link to that website has a form in which you can write to him. I've already done that - & it wasn't very nice.

I wont be on to read the reviews hardly ever now. Good bye Jeff and good bye gamespot

I never really thought this would happen... At times I didn't agree with Jeff's opinion on a lot of different reviews, but I always admired that he wasn't afraid to speak his mind when there was something he didn't like about a game. If you ask me, that is a quality most reviewer's should have.

He really didn't deserve to be fired for this and gamespot sure won't be the same without him, just like it's not the same without Greg K...

But I guees I'll still be sticking around for a long time. I have to admit that I have an invested interest in this site.

While i certainly understand the grief here over the loss of Jeff. I really doubt that this will impact the sales of Kane & Lynch. Maybe a few ppl from this sites board community will not buy it. but in the greater whole it wont matter any bit. If it had been some reviewer from IGN. you wouldn feel so strongly. Also it is just speculation maybe there is something deeper behind his termination. I cant see why he should have been fired because of a review.

Even though i think his review of Kane & Lynch was crap (6.0 comon) it would completely take GS integrity away if he was fired due to that review. That would be bad buisness for Cnet.

Also its incredible silly and childish to blame a game (its only software you know) for the firing of an editor on a random internet gaming site.

Okay, now I know I'm going to receive the usual "Conspiracy theory" accusations, and maybe someone has already commented on this (I'm not reading through 34 pages of this stuff to check) but I was just at the eidos forum, and read the, now closed, topic Jeff Gerstmann fired from Gamespot after K&L review?. After noticing that there only four responses to this thread, I became a little suspicious of the second reply.

*Start Quote*

sleeper707; New Player Join Date: Nov 2007 Posts: 17

*End Quote*

Here is the thread if anyone wants it:http://forums.eidosgames.com/showthread.php?t=73819

Now maybe I'm way off base, I don't have a account there (nor do I want one) to check this guy's posts, but the first thing I thought of was "Comment from Eidos"? I mean the typos are a little obvious, and don't seem "accidental" I've read the review; it's not by a child, it's accurate from all I've seen of the game. I've seen the video review; people complain that Jeff said "Ugly" a lot. But he used it in both the positive and the negative connotations (isn't K&L SUPPOSED to be ugly? I mean Kane isn't going to be winning beauty pageants anytime soon). He did an objective review, spoke his mind, and got fired. Anyway, that's my 10 cents.

I'm really sorry that this happened; it's a sad day for journalism.

Best wishes to you all.

I'm waiting for a Cnet/Gamespot official Announcement to see what there exscuse isTheBlueGuardian

This is sad. I cant trust any review anymore sinceit seems to be all about the money.

Im starting to think that Resistance: Fall of Man is a victem for this sinc e its a good game, dont get me wrong but thats all it is, good. There were a lot of RFOM ads and PS3 ads around the site at that time so its possible that it was bumped up 1.0. But then again many the game just wasent for me.

I just want to say good luck to Josh Larsonsince he fired the best and most respected game critic in the industri, and the only one who kept On the Spot and The HotSpot rolling after Rich Gallup left. And it seems that GaneSpot will go down hill from now on and no one will trust their reviews ever again.

And if Edios had anything to do whit this, like threatening to pull the ad campain thats just below stupid. There hasent been a good Edios game in years so them thinking this would be a smash it is just them kidding them selves

I just wanted to voice my support for Jeff. For anyone seriously pissed of at GS..vote with your clicks...cancel your paid subscriptions and let cnet know how you feel.

Sometimes these compaines really have to understand how powerfully together a gaming community is. Gamespot will no doubt suffer revenue loss and hit counts due to cnets decision.

There should be a petition if Jeff doesn't come back we stop visiting GS... simple as that!

This is sad. I really like Jeff. He makes me laugh and I think he has a really awesome personality. It pisses me off that even a reviewsite like this starts acting all corporate. This bs belongs to car companies, oil industries and cigarette companies. Pathetic.

And to think I've payed to get the extra stuff on this. I probably won't pay that next bill..

I feel sorry for him. It can't be fun to have to leave something that's been in your life for so long. Friends, memories etc. I hope it doesn't affect him too much. You never know.

I hope what ever review job he finds can make him happy and see a future in it and that that company doesn't have $ in it's eyes. Which I thought GS didn't have. I'll probably move along to what ever company he goes to, just to see him in the videos.

GS videos won't be the same without Jeff...ever. Sad. Shame on you GS!

Former Subscriber

I used to be a subscriber to this website, (admins look it up) but will NEVER

re-subscribe if this is how Gamespot treats it employees for HONEST reviews.

As a result of this shameful act on Gamespot's part, I would encourage

others to cancel their subscriptions as well, unless they undo the

damage they have done to Jeff and his family. Around Christmas time as well.

Merry Christmas Gamespot.

I want honest reviews, not corrupt opinions that are influenced with bribes.

Dear Eidos,

I was going to get one copy of this game for myself, and one for my

son, so we could play together (I was real interested in the co-op, and

multiplayer online aspect of this game) but now I will just wait for

Army of Two.

guys can we try and put pressure on GS for an offical statement on why they have fired jeff for evey new content that goes up on the site and allows you to add comments

add one about GS not commenting on the situation regarding jeff's regination

e.g for every news article i posted this

thats good gs but are you going to ignore the fact that someone was fired and your credibility is in serious doubt and not give us an offical statement on why jeff was fired ?
we have the right to know
you cant sweep this under the carpet

less put pressure on the site out of the forums and on all the new content we can comment on

but please be careful not to spam we dont want anyone to get banned

guys can we try and put pressure on GS for an offical statement on why they have fired jeff for evey new content that goes up on the site and allows you to add comments solidgamer

The other employees can't because of legal matters, and the highers ups won't because it's their policy to not disclose those sorts of details.

[QUOTE="solidgamer"]

guys can we try and put pressure on GS for an offical statement on why they have fired jeff for evey new content that goes up on the site and allows you to add comments Skylock00

The other employees can't because of legal matters, and the highers ups won't because it's their policy to not disclose those sorts of details.

Surely they can tell us something. Is their policy of non-disclosure based on US law or a contract they signed with Jeff or is it something they could change if they wanted to?