Jeff Gertsmann fired over a Kane&Lynch review

[Garrett]

http://www.joystiq.com/2007/11/30/eidos-and-gamespot-forums-exploding-over-gerstmann-incident/

I find it hard to believe that someone would get fired over a review.


Here's the gaming public backlash...

http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/kanelynchdeadmen/players.html?tag=readerreviews;alluser

Even Penny Arcade's comic getting in on it:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic


Still, there IS something funny about it all, how come so much time went by? What about the other places that only gave K&L a so-so review? Are they going to start firing over this?

[V-22 Osprey]

I wonder what would happen if it turns out this guy was parading around the offices shouting "OMG OMG such and such game suxors one one one!" or was fired for stealing too many donuts or some such...

[Twin-Skies]

Not that I'm dismissing this news or anything, but I'd like to say it doesn't look that bad. At least he didn't get fired...literally.

From where I come from, reporting about crappy local officials often gets the erring journalist shot and killed on a disturbingly frequent basis. Over 250+ killings here since the 80s...and only five have ever been resolved.

Getting back on topic, it does sound pretty drastic that they're firing a dude over this.

[Garrett]

And of course, the news is now on the GP main site. I should have reported this yesterday when I found out....;)

Something very interesting I noticed today. Greg Kasavin was GameSpot's editor in chief and went to work for Electronic Arts.
Jeff Gertsmann took over when he left. So Greg played well with a major Gamespot cash flow, Electronic Arts, and wound up with a job with them. Jeff probably didn't... hmm.

Bah. I'm just contributing to the rumor. Really, I do hope it's something else...

Edit: oops, Jeff didn't take over Greg's spot. My bad. He was the editorial director. But still...

[Thefremen]

So anyways, I always liked their reviews because they'd be numerically lower than other sites. Now that I look closely I can see a pattern: the more ads a game/game publisher buys, the higher the score. Look at the harvest moon puzzle game for example.

[Garrett]

Look at the harvest moon puzzle game for example.

Hmm? Show me which one?