Gamespot claims to be a writer, but misspelled "advertiser" as "advertisor."

One would think a writer in an ad-driven industry would get that right.

@sample032: an honest mistake... i wonder how valid this poster story is

sample032:
Dude even the editors are just humans.
I wonder how GS will react now...

For the record, "advertisor" is an incredibly easy word to muck up. Considering this is a blog comment, which are usually created in haste, slamming him for "advertisor" versus "advertiser" is petty. Come on, now. If this guy is legit, you think he needed to care about proofreading a blog post, especially with all of this going on?

Anyway, while I do freelance for Gamespot I don't know if this guy is real. But if you look at how Gamespot does its reviews, what he said about how the reviews work is completely true: "GameSpot's reviews all go through a rigorous screening process by our reviews team, so you can rest assured that we collectively stand behind and support the statements made in each new review we publish." ([www.gamespot.com]) And take my word for it: in my experience, boy do they ever. I get so nit-picked that I practically learn new things every review I send in (which is awesome for my development).

Furthermore, aside from Josh Larson, Chris Kohler over at Wired's Game|Life reminded everyone that former Maxim publisher president was hired at CNET a month ago. Considering how Maxim was a mainstream publication, and considering that IGN staffers have repeatedly admitted to getting review "exclusives" when they know they will score the game a high number (listen to their podcasts), that this practice would migrate to Gamespot because of the new management isn't out of the question. I just thank god that I get assigned Virtual Console games instead of high profile ones so that I don't have to get kicked in the nuts for giving Volleyball a 2.0.

wow, sample032.. cynical yet meaningless. the perfect gawker commenter!

personally having a long history in the industry (reviewing since 1999, having got my start as, drumroll... a gamespot freelancer) i find that a pretty terrible methodology for reviews, but gamespot is aiming (however futilely) to be authoritative, so it doesn't surprise me.

i think there should be editorial oversight, of course. someone in a position of authority should inspect and critique reviews from internal and external sources. reviewing by committee, however, you end up with a sea of grey.

Ferricide, they don't really do that (anymore, if they did it when you were there). My scores don't change. My message doesn't change. All they do is make sure that I'm doing a good job of reviewing and not just spouting off nonsense off the top of my head - and so far, all that means is that if I write a sentence awkwardly, they ask me to make it clearer. I guess it was different back in your day. How does it work at Gamespy (if you're still there)?

Do you remember the situation when Jeff Green had to pull Matt Peckham's Neverwinter Nights 2 review off of 1up.com? It wasn't because of pressure but because to Jeff, the review wasn't well-written and did not do the job of a review.

@sample032: One would think that someone would be able to let a mistake slip by here and there.

I should add that they make sure I explain myself if I make a criticism or point of praise to the "all they do is..." part of my post. I don't see that as reviewing by committee.

This incident seems to be the real deal, or at least real enough that it has GameSpot employees up in arms. And not just here -- people have been leaking information all over gaming forums for the past 24 hours about how things went down and how pissed they all are. Tim Tracy, who seems to have been some other employee, appears to have resigned in protest (or maybe I have it wrong, and he's just a random blogger on the site, I don't know, but people seem to think his departure is significant), and other employees are posting decidedly lukewarm stuff on their GS blogs.

It's sort of exciting. This is looking like we might have an actual revolt.

Tim Tracy worked for Gamespot - I believe in the Art Department - before going on to MP3.com, another CNET site.

Normally I don't just jump on typos, but again, this didn't seem like a mistake that a writer would make, and this person claimed to be a writer.

Yes, mistakes happen, and, if that was the case, I apologize to gamespot.

@twig: Apologies for spouting hearsay, but I believe someone "in the know" came forward on the gaming forum NeoGAF to say Tim Tracy's departure is completely unrelated to Gerstmanngate.

@PAUL BOUTIN: "I haven't yet seen anything from a named source. Just because someone works at CNET doesn't mean they have the story correct. The fact that they won't identify themselves but want to be quoted is, Reporting 101, a reason to be skeptical about their motives. Treating it as fact because it came from his former coworkers is bad, bad reporting. The reason 'the news sites don't even know it yet' is because they're not going to run office gossip as factual news!"

And then you post this? Oy vey. That's not to say you shouldn't have. Quite the contrary. Just stop fucking whining and pointing fingers claiming loss of journalistic integrity in the practice of others, and in the very next breath completely negate your argument and post an uncited potential rumor yourself.

Also, consider that you're debating journalistic integrity as contributer on a Gawker Media site. Again, Gawker Media: where frenzied, alarmist, rumor-milled news blogging is not only standard practice, but the very foundation of what drives attention to these sites in the first place.

Just can it, post more potential rumors (just like everyone expects of you around these parts), and (just like every other editor contributing for this media company) label them as "news." I wonder if doing that lets you guys sleep better at night.

Fucking news blogs.

Just for reference, I pulled Boutin's quote from his comments in the comment section in this valleywag "news" post concerning the topic at hand:

[valleywag.com]

What I'd really like is for this Gamespot editor (?) to contact a news site and verify his identity. Whichever site it is can then vouch for the integrity of the source, but continue to keep him anonymous.

You know, journalism.

i was going to explain the obvious difference between valleywag's posts and penny arcade on this story. then i realized i was spending my friday night talking to someone with an even lamer pseud than mine.

@Surfninja:

Uh did you ever stop and think that he would be putting his job at risk by revealing his identity? Yes, integrity is great, but people have bills. I worked internet tech support and was not allowed to post on public forums about our ISP's services. This guys is doing what he should if he was indeed at that meeting. He is making the truth known without sacrificing his position at the company. This will also allow for more info to be leaked. We can't be sure he's who he says, but you can't ever be sure about anything.

@Surfninja:
Did you ever stop and think that the guy would also get fired if he revealed his identity and that he wouldn't be able to pass on any more info from meetings? I worked internet tech support for numerous ISP's and was not allowed to post anything about their services on forums. People have bills to pay. We can't be sure he actually works for CNET, but you can't ever be completely sure of anything. And to the person calling him out for a typo, who ever said he was a proof reader?

@Mary Jane Irwin: Ah, could be. I read most of that NeoGAF thread this morning, but anything since then I've missed. And, some of the stuff before I missed too. It was 45 pages long, and I may have done some skimming.

Gamespot, what is happening to your organization is not new, in fact its the oldest gambit in the (history) books. The pattern is: New management, or a new political regime, what have you, come into power. The new regime selects a few dissenters and makes examples of them by firing them (or firing at them!) citing fabricated or exaggerated reasons, and may include something to the effect that they were not on-board with the new direction. The rest cower for fear of losing their jobs / lives. The message is clear, "tow the line", "get with the program", "put up or shut up". If you dissent, you will be run through the gamut of workplace bullying tactics.

This new figure in management may be a "workplace sociopath". For more info, just google it. In the commonwealth countries (UK, Australia, etc...) its referred to as "bullying in the workplace". They are not the same but the two are IMHO linked.

Here's a link for more info:

[www.bullyonline.org]

It is a political tactic used by the Roman emperors, was used by the Bush adminstration in the outing of Valerie Plame, and was used at my former IT division. We were an IT division turned upside down, delivering terrible assbackward solutions in a completely abusive workplace. In your case, if you find Gamespot delivering the exact opposite to its mission statement, well then you'd find yourself as I did, maybe working in fear and delivering work you're not proud of.

Drewster

If the highly detailed rumors surrounding Jeff Gerstmann’s firing are true, then the people who run GameSpot have, by their own hand, utterly trashed a great media brand. The Spot has long been regarded as the most professional of all the game-oriented news and review sites.

As a former journalist this post is par for the course for wronged writers. I wouldn't go off the record with a reporter unless I knew him and trusted him. An anonymous forum post, hopefully through a proxy server, was the best available option. This kind of thing happens at real papers all the time. I'd be surprised if it doesn't happen more often. The offending review was well reasoned and thought out, it didn't seem irresponsible. This is the result of an ad buyer getting pissed and a manager not having the experience to tell him that the reviews only have value if people can be honest. If the site isn't honest people know the game sucks and they won't respect the site's views.

On the debate of whether or not this commenter really works for Gamespot - why would he post his comments on Valleywag and not Kotaku?

Boutin goaded him into it with that 'I don't believe it' post. Watch and learn.

I wish I could say I was that clever. @penguin: The difference is simple. Valleywag reposts the exact words from comments, Facebook, PR people on phone, etc. Penny Arcade says "from what we heard" -- did they really hear it, or did they read it on a computer screen? -- and then launches into a lot of speculation about who did what and why, and how the people at GameSpot must feel. We'd much rather get all that from the GameSpot editors themselves, not even from GameSpot ad sales or engineering people. I think we got it here.

p.s. I'm not "impugning the integrity" of Penny Arcade, as someone said. I'm just saying I don't care for that sort of speculative writing that pretends to know the story. Cringely and others do it and are popular. But I got put off of the genre when people started speculating about my motivations or what was going on at Wired or Slate, and they were completely wrong. It's much more fun to try to get a word direclty out of Gerstmann, his coworkers, or an Eidos spokesperson than to sit here and pontificate that I know how things work.

Ooh, I'm even boring myself now. Outta here.

@sample032: maybe cause hes pissed off

@Did GameSpot Commit Brand Suicide with Jeff Gerstmann Firin...: "The Spot has long been regarded as the most professional of all the game-oriented news and review sites." I don't know about you, but a lot of gamers don't follow this viewpoint. If anything, game sites such as IGN and GameSpot have long been seen as a necessary evil, so to speak.

The reason why all the outrage from the gaming community is happening is that many gamers have long suspected that the game reviews have been skewed and influenced by ad money. Why? Because of people's disappointment with high scoring reviews on games; only to find out later that the game was just mediocre or over rated. Same goes for non-high profile games...only in reverse. When is the last time a game received a high score that wasn't backed by uber bucks?

Whether Gerstmann was fired because of outside pressure from an ad company is real or not is besides the point. The gaming community is fed up with reviews that are not only inaccurate, but seem to be influenced by outside sources. They have lost much of their credibility, and the mere hint of corruption regarding game reviews is just playing on everyone's worst fears...the reviewers of games are either bought out or sell outs.

This just shows how clueless it was to hire a print and a tv executive to take over the entertainment sites. They have no idea how the internet works or they would know that something like this would happen. You can easily fire someone from a magazine and no one would notice, nor would they have any recourse. Neil Ashe needs to get the boot and they need to bring Shelby back!

I think the editors should give EVERY game a 10 rating until the management realizes what is going on. Could they be fired for giving a great rating to a crap game? Maybe they could get back some of their church and state seperation.

Actually, I heard it was a drunken disgruntled fan running through the office and randomly firing people, 365 Main style.

@ValleyWorker: Speaking of clueless, here on the Internet we don't leave identical comments on multiple posts.

At the risk of crossing the streams, it would be remiss of us not to point you to N'Gai Croal's take on the firing of Jeff Gerstmann from his editorial position at Gamespot.

Just want to say that advertisor is the correct English way of spelling the word - in the US you guys use advertiser - if word is set to English: UK in the language settings it would not pick up that mistake, so saying he splet it advertisor instead of advertiser is not really a valid argument. I have to say that I think this post is probably real because emotion definately carries through it, like the writer is feeling like that at the time - of he could just be a good writer.