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Latest developments in "Gerstmann-gate"
More tidbits surrounding Jeff Gerstmann's controversial firing from Gamespot, from around the web and our own reporting: Gerstmann has confirmed to Joystiq that there are "legal reasons" why he can't comment on the controversy, in addition to questions of "respect for the product team still on board at GameSpot, who are some of the most amazing people I've ever met." He added that he is not under any sort of non-compete agreement regarding future work in the industry. Eidos issues a 'no comment' to 1UP: "Eidos is not able to comment on another company's policies and procedures." Valleywag says Eidos "insiders" are "freaking out" over being blamed for something they say they had nothing to do with. Still no response from Eidos to our requests for comment. Former Gamespot editor-in-chief Greg Kasavin, on his GameSpot blog: "As the longest-tenured GameSpot editor, Jeff Gerstmann deserved a respectful send-off." Current Gamespot editor-in-chief Alex Navarro compares the whole situation to hitting the disaster button in SimCity. Former Gamespot staffer Bob Colayco and Adam Buchen clarify that just because Gerstmann was fired doesn't mean Gamespot staffers routinely get paid off for good reviews. Buchen also cancels his Gamespot account and urges others to do the same. An anonymous Valleywag commenter going by the handle "gamespot" and claiming to be a company insider: "There has been an increasing amount of pressure to allow the advertising teams to have more of a say in the editorial process." More: "Also, despite the fact that this occured [sic] two weeks ago, there was no way they were going to fire him then; the last big games didn't come out until just before Thanksgiving, and there was no doubt that management knew that the rest of the reviewers would refuse to write any reviews after his termination, which is indeed what is happening. [emphasis added]" We'll continue to update as more information comes out. Thanks to Gamespot user subrosian and all the tipsters who sent in information. Keep it coming.
GameSpot denies Eidos pressured firing of Gerstmann
We just got off the phone with Sarah Cain, a CNET spokesperson who wanted to amend CNET's previous statement to Joystiq on the recent firing of executive editor Jeff Gerstmann. While reiterating that CNET does not discuss personal employee matters with the press, Cain said directly that "we do not terminate employees based on external pressure from advertisers." When asked specifically about whether any such pressure was even attempted on Eidos' part, Cain had no comment. We're still waiting for a response to multiple e-mail requests for comment by Eidos PR.While we had Cain on the line, we also asked her about the odd disappearance of Gerstmann's video review of the game from the GameSpot site. She responded by pointing out a note at the bottom of the still-running text review for the game, which states that "this review has been updated to include differences between the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions and a clarification on the game's multiplayer mode."When pressed for clarification, Cain said that this note applied to the video review as well. "At the bottom of the post of the [text] review we made a note that we have updated the review, and we made those decisions based on our own editorial standards," she said. "It was our decision to take down the [video] review." Given this justification, we can't help but wonder why GameSpot couldn't just edit the video review, as they did the text version. Why remove the entire thing if the problem was really just a "clarification?" When asked just that question, Cain reiterated her initial statement.
GameSpot issues short comment on Gerstmann firing
In the wake of the rumors surrounding Jeff Gerstmann's suspicious removal as editorial director of Gamespot, Gamespot owner CNET has issued a short, official comment on the situation. "GameSpot takes its editorial integrity extremely seriously," the statement reads. "For over a decade, Gamespot and the many members of its editorial team have produced thousands of unbiased reviews that have been a valuable resource for the gaming community. At CNET Networks, we stand behind the editorial content that our teams produce on a daily basis."As for Gerstmann specifically, CNET repeated their assertion that "it is CNET Networks' policy not to comment on the status of its employees, current of former."While it's nice to see CNET taking the accusations seriously, the statement doesn't confirm or deny the facts behind the controversy, or add any significant information to the story. With the rumor still generating significant discussion throughout the online gaming community, such a short, pat statement seems unlikely to stop the gathering storm of attention.
Eidos and Gamespot forums exploding over Gerstmann incident
Although Gamespot and publisher Eidos have not yet made public statements over what led to the firing of Gamespot's Editorial Director Jeff Gerstmann, the accusation of publisher pressure is exploding all over the companies' forums. Gamespot currently has numerous threads on the incident, with one thread in particular having thousands of posts. Eidos has taken a different approach, locking down all threads on their site after apparently purging derogatory posts from thousands of angry gamers reacting to the rumor yesterday night.More sources are now confirming that Gerstmann's firing was indeed over his Kane & Lynch review. The situation will likely continue to escalate among the gaming community until somebody either tells the truth or gives some reasonable spin to what's going on. At this point the reputations of Eidos, Gamespot and Gerstmann actually do hang in the balance within the industry. In the wake of Sony's stumbles attacking Kotaku, we just can't imagine that the Gamespot executives didn't expect this to explode as it has. Are they so out of touch? The simple fact of the matter is until someone talks, this isn't going away.
Rumor: Gamespot's editorial director fired over Kane & Lynch review
Update 2:45 PM EST: Gamespot has issued a massive Q&A addressing many outstanding issues surrounding the firing.Update: 11:50 AM EST Dec. 5, 2007: Check out Joystiq's analysis of the edits to Gerstmann's Kane & Lynch review. GameSpot editors comment on their Hot Spot podcast. Also: Tuesday and Wednesday updates from around the web.Update 10:00 PM EST: Gamespot has posted official notice of the firing on their website. Meanwhile, some editors at CNET have commented on the controversy in a podcast.Update - 11:20 AM EST Dec. 3, 2007: Further updates, and Gerstmann's exclusive comments to Joystiq.Update - 11:00AM EST Dec. 2, 2007: More updates from around the web.Update - 3:45PM EST: Ziff Davis employees rally for GerstmannUpdate - 9:00AM EST Dec. 1, 2007: The latest developments on the story.Update - 5:45PM EST: CNET has amended their earlier statement with Joystiq.Update - 3:20PM EST: We just noticed that Gerstmann's video review, previously accessible only through a direct link, has been removed from the site. Here's an alternate YouTube link.Update - 2:20PM EST: We got a response from CNET, GameSpot's parent company, that totally explains the whole thing away ... you see. Actually, they don't say much. Update - 12:52 AM EST: Penny Arcade, which helped popularize this story with their comic last night, has posted an accompanying commentary piece on the issue. The story they were told (by whom, we do not know) has Gamespot management angry at Gerstmann for long-standing problems with his reviewing "tone." The Kane & Lynch review, which allegedly caused Eidos to withdraw "hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of future advertising from the site," served as the straw that broke the camel's back. There's no named source for this information, but the piece does say that "the firm belief internally [is] that Jeff was sacrificed."Update - 11:00 AM EST: The anonymous source/speculation train rolls on. Rock Paper Shotgun has posted a story citing an unnamed "very reliable source" as saying that "while Gerstmann wasn't the most popular man with the CNET owners, it was his Kane & Lynch review alone that saw him lose his job." Meanwhile, a poster at Forumopolis who claims to be directly involved with the Kane & Lynch ad campaign says that the whole thing is just a matter of bad timing. "I sincerely doubt that Eidos made Gamespot fire him," the poster writes. "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." Make of this what you will.Update - 10:44 AM EST: Gamespot PR representative Leslie Van Every has responded to Joystiq's request for comment with ... a predictable 'no comment.' "It is CNET Networks' policy to never comment on individual employees--current or former--regarding their job status," Van Every told Joystiq. "This policy is in place out of respect for the individuals' privacy."Update - 7:12 AM EST: Jeff has confirmed his firing to us via e-mail, but says he's "not really able to comment on the specifics of my termination." He added that he's "looking forward to getting back out there and figuring out what's next." We're still digging.Update - 1:35 AM EST: The Kane and Lynch ads that blanketed Gamespot's front page are no longer being shown. Check out the picture above to see what the site looked at just an hour ago.Original Post:So before we get going, we should make it clear that this post is still just a rumor and many of the facts behind it are still up in the air. That being said, word around game journalism's virtual water cooler is that Gamespot Editorial Director Jeff Gerstmann has been fired because publisher Eidos was unhappy about his negative review of Kane & Lynch: Dead Men.What seems in little dispute, going by forum chatter as well as multiple published sources (referencing conversations with multiple CNet employees), is that Gerstmann has indeed been fired after over ten years working at the site. We were not immediately able to confirm the firing with Gamespot or Gerstmann directly, but an e-mail sent to his Gamespot address did get returned with a "permanent failure" error. Seems pretty serious to us ... (see 7:12 AM update above)
New tips for audio journalism from Apple
As a holiday weekend treat for the ink-stained wretches among us, Apple added a new article Friday to the ongoing series for journalists making the leap to multimedia newsgathering, Audio in Rich Media, up on the Pro site. Focused on the right gadget choices for audio recording on the go, Joe Gore's Audio Gear for Rich Media tip story suggests picking up a digital recorder and a reasonable-quality dynamic microphone before adding sound to your bag of tricks. He also lists four favorite recorders for $500 or less. Hey, Father's Day is coming up...
Thompson sues Kotaku owner over comments, suit dismissed
[Update: The Kotaku suit has been dismissed by Federal District Court Judge Paul Huck, GamePolitics.com is now reporting. Apparently, Thompson "failed to follow the proper federal court procedure for amending a complaint." Thompson says he'll try it again though, so please, read on.]The smoldering battle between Florida lawyer Jack Thompson and the gaming press has been taken to a new level. In a tersely worded post yesterday on Kotaku, Brian Crecente revealed that Thompson has added a complaint against Kotaku owner Gawker Media to a March 13 suit against the Florida Bar.The childishly-worded complaint (He actually makes a "NOT!" joke on page 27) focuses on a few Kotaku commenters (which Thompson mistakenly refers to as "bloggers") that allegedly said Thompson "should be shot ... struck with a baseball bat, shot in the face by an irate gamer, [and] castrated and his testicles stuffed down his throat," among other things. To be fair, those are some strong, hateful words, and threats like these are not necessarily protected by the first amendment. Still, Gawker or Kotaku probably can't be held liable for them -- a federal judge ruled in June 2006 that "bloggers cannot be hit with libel suits on the basis of anonymous postings on their Web sites."Perhaps knowing this, Thompson goes a different route in his complaint by alleging Kotaku is part of a "civil conspiracy ... to deprive Thompson of his various basic constitutional rights" and that the site is "attempt[ing] to intimidate a citizen for the exercise of his constitutional rights." Mark Methenitis goes into detail on what exactly is legally wrong with this overreach over at his Law of the Game blog. All we'll add is that we're sickened by this obvious attempt at legal intimidation and we support our blogging brothers at Gawker all the way.
Awards to recognize best in game media
Most people with minimal literacy skills know good writing when they see it. But some people, tragically, are unable to distinguish the good from the bad in games writing. For those tragically handicapped people, help is on the way in the form of Britain's Games Media Awards.Sponsored by Intent Media (publishers of British trade mag MCV), the just-announced awards will be given out Oct. 11 in London's Soho Revue Bar (not exactly the Kodak Theatre, but you gotta start somewhere). A dozen awards will be presented for everything from print publications to podcasts with winners "voted by the industry itself" according to the press release. We can only hope this means the journalism industry and not the larger game industry as a whole. We can see the potential blackmail now: "Oh, look who gave my latest game a bad review. I guess I know who I won't be voting for at the GMAs this year."
Writing original content about gaming
Faith Naked, "The Girl Gamer," has written up her tips on how struggling video game bloggers can come up with original content, which will then be passed around the intertubes like a plague. It's a pretty nice little compact list with each reasonable subhead hiding a paragraph that could get you in some serious trouble. We can agree with almost every single subhead, except for the last one and we're sure Faith was joking about that one too -- we really hope she was.
"Dmitri" and the anonymous source
After numerous incidents of trolling "Dmitri" was banned from Sony Online Entertainment's Star Wars Galaxies. During an in-game commitment ceremony of lesbian avatars "Dmitri" called them "anti-Patriotic," "scum of society," and "bunch of liberal, hippie, homo lovin' scum." In 2004 he also wrote, "No negros can walk this street by order of the furher [sic]" and "We're dedicated to sending jedi to the gas chamber! Send a tell!" There is a laundry list of other incidents but "Dmitri" blames his banning on SOE having, "No room for individuals to have more conservative, traditional leanings ... that's unacceptable."Interestingly enough, for a man that believes so strongly in his conservative ideals, "Dmitri" requested to stay anonymous in a story regarding political protesting within video games for the November issue of Computer Games magazine. Computer Games magazine obliged him and Lara Crigger wrote the article A Tale of Two Protests. The piece examines the right-leaning "Dmitri" and the liberal Joseph DeLappe, who writes the names of dead soldiers within America's Army as part of his "Dead in Iraq" project.Anonymous sources hold a role in journalism, but that role is still debated in journalism schools across the country. Ideally they should never be quoted and only used to connect the dots of a story until the journalist can find a source willing to go on the record. Features Editor of Computer Games magazine Cindy Yans says, "Sometimes they have a good point, but don't want to give their name. I'm still kinda on the fence about it."Should "Dmitri" have ever been quoted in the first place? When journalists publish political ideas without a name to stand behind them, does this add fuel to the reasons games journalism is bogus?
Foxconn gets into the graphics card business. Huh?
Ok folks, let's do a little role playing: imagine you're some big manufacturing company in Taiwan. Just for argument's sake, call yourself Foxconn Technology Group. Now imagine that your company produces one of the world's most popular gadgets (call it the iPod) for a company in California (call them Apple Computer), and then two Chinese journalists also investigate and then your company later sues them for $3.77 million. Then, a British journalist investigates your factory and confirms that your workers are working in erm, questionable conditions -- and even Apple starts looking into the matter. Upon further reflection of the absurdity of your lawsuit your company rescinds the lawsuit and reduces the damages to one yuan (12 cents). So, here's the question: what is the next logical step in this crazy sequence of events? After studying every successful business guide that we could get our hands on and consulting with everyone from Bill Gates to Steve Jobs, we've discovered that the only possible, rational and meaningful subsequent business move would be to start selling Joan Mirò-inspired NVIDIA graphics cards. Yes, we knew they were coming as of a few months ago -- but no, we don't think that makes it a good idea now.
Foxconn sues two Chinese journalists over iPod city story
You're a huge business worried about your recently tarnished image -- what's the first thing you do? If you answered sue the hell out of the journalists who reported possible sweatshop labor tactics going down in your factories, congratulations, you might be prepared for a fast-paced career at Foxconn, proprietor of iPod city! We don't normally like to get all meta on you guys, but not only did Foxconn attempt to sue for US $3.77 million Wang You and Weng Bao, the journalist and editor at China Business News that published the iPod City story, the company went so far as to have the Chinese courts freeze their assets, locking them out of their cars and homes -- you know, a totally appropriate reaction to the journalistic community for trying to expose corporate malfeasance. (Did we tell you Microsoft hired a lone sniper to take us out after FairUse4WM?) So our hats go off to you Foxconn, for setting the bar so very high for moral business practices and fair treatment of others; now more than ever we're totally convinced that you're totally and completely innocent of all charges leveled against you by the press.[Via iLounge]
Wherefore art thou Lester Bangs of gaming?
Chuck Klosterman, a contributing writer for Esquire and regular columnist for SPIN Magazine, has written a fascinating and frustrating feature for the former inquiring as to the whereabouts of "The Lester Bangs of Video Games." Klosterman wants to know why there is no video game analog to film-critics like Pauline Kael or music-critics like Lester Bangs, and explains why he suspects there never will be. He asks Steven Johnson, whose Everything Bad is Good for You Klosterman calls "one of the only mainstream books that comes remotely close to the kind of gaming criticism I just described," about the dilemma. Johnson responds, "Video games generally have narratives and some kind of character development, but-almost without exception-these are the least interesting things about them. Gamers don't play because they're drawn into the story line; they play because there's something intoxicating about the mix of exploring an environment and solving problems. The stories are an afterthought." He also talks with MIT's Henry Jenkins who says, "Game designers are asking themselves questions about how a game should look and what it should do, but not about what the game is supposed to mean."What's refreshing about Klosterman's take is that he's willing to acknowledge the importance and potential of video games (unlike other critics who've issued similar dictums) while also noting and understanding the shortcomings. What's frustrating are the ommissions; some would be heirs to this throne do come to mind and -- curiously enough -- some even appear on Something Awful's list of the five worst game reviews. Do gamers want anything more than a shopping guide out of their reviews? Do game designers even mean anything with the games they make? So we're all on the same page, before you start commenting on the column, be sure to read it first![Update: for some rebuttals, check out Game Girl Advance, John Scalzi, and Clive Thompson.]
AOL refreshes Netscape as social news site with a twist
AOL yesterday relaunched the aging Netscape.com as a social news site (yea, like digg) but with a professional journalistic twist. Check it out. Anyone can sign up, submit and vote on interesting stories from across the web in a wide range of categories from politics, money, television, technology, health and even 'do no evil'. Going above and beyond the social news bookmarking concept, however, is a staff of journalists, including TUAW's own C.K. Sample III and Fabienne Serriere, who will follow up on some of the stories and dig deeper by nabbing interviews, posting related links and keeping users informed as the situation develops (on a side note, we finally figured out why C.K. and Fabs gave us that 'we'd tell you what we're working on, but then we'd have to kill you' bit a while ago).Why are we telling you about all this since it isn't specifically Apple-related, you ask? Well, we should probably tell you the project was headed up by Weblogs Inc.'s CEO, Jason Calacanis. Granted, Weblogs Inc., including TUAW, are owned by AOL, but we could still call it crummy if we wanted to - fortunately, that isn't the case. We think it's a great concept that you should go have some fun with. Still, if you're looking for some Apple-specific details before you fire off a flaming comment, how does 'full-Safari compatibility' work for you? In fact, I think the site actually looks surprisingly better in Safari than Firefox.
Kicking up a storm: The Escapist on Blizzard
This week's Escapist is fascinating as ever, dealing with the behemoth that is Blizzard Entertainment. While the pieces looking at the rise of Blizzard and its company culture are interesting enough, the real gem is the World of Warcraft article.Of course, no mention of Blizzard would be complete without WoW these days. However, the game's dominance of the MMO genre means that, as the folks at Terra Nova noticed, no discussion of MMOs is really complete without WoW:For better or worse, WoW is the face of the massive genre. In a very small part of the galaxy, it's a gravity well bending light that passes anywhere near it. When discussing PvP, questing, guilds or class balance, commentators now have a lingua franca: the common tongue of World of Warcraft.When on the hunt for a MMO to play that isn't "just another WoW clone", then, bear in mind that many people are looking at what clearly works for inspiration. We will certainly see games with strange and innovative MMO gameplay, but will they attract the numbers necessary to survive?
Carnival of Gamers #15: roll up, roll up!
We've followed the Carnival of Gamers for several months now, and its latest stop chez Kim Pallister is, once again, a treat. With articles on topics ranging from "why E3 sucked" to the next-gen console battle, via an assault on "girl gamer" articles, the subjects are as varied as ever. If you have the time, it's worth checking Carnival #15 out for a cross-section of some of the past month's best games writing.See also:Carnival of Gamers celebrates first anniversaryCarnival of Gamers gets n3rfedCarnival of Gamers rolls on to Virgin WorldsCarnival of Gamers gathers under Slashdot's tent[Thanks, Tony]
7 more reasons for bogus games "journalism" [update 1]
Why do games "journalists" publish so many lies, untruths and half-truths? There are seven reasons, according to GameDaily BIZ: (1) fanboyishness, (2) wimpiness, (3) laziness, (4) inexperience with real journalism, (5) herd mentality, (6) sensationalism, (7) confusion over technicalities. A solid list on an important topic... We just wish GameDaily BIZ hadn't unwittingly illustrated one of their own points. By publishing their best criticism under an anonymous pseudonym ("Mr. Media Coverage"), GameDaily proves a corollary of rule #2: few games-industry writers are willing to put their own names down next to honest criticism because they fear reprisals of some sort. [Update 1: corrected a typo in third paragraph.]
Power to bloggers
This ain't strictly gaming related, but there's no doubt that the decision last week by a California appeals court to grant bloggers the same First Amendment rights that are afforded to traditional journalists can be a good thing for gamers. In a nutshell, the ruling means that we can't be forced by some wicked company to divulge the source of leaked information that we post on the blog. That means that information Joystiq sources send to us (either directly or via our anonymous tips form) and that we subsequently publish is generally protected under the First Amendment. This matters, because it improves the quantity and quality of information through us to you. Of course, company insiders who are considering divulging information to an online or offline writer of any sort still need to consider whether they can trust the writer to whom they intend to dish. The basic rules of relationships still apply, but this ruling should at the very least remove worry that those who publish online are somehow less protected than those who publish on dead trees.
Overheard: polite clapping for Nintendo is quite enough, fanboys
Fellow Joystiq blogger Chris Grant forwarded the following quote to me and asked, "Why does this sound like something you'd say?" Washington Post blogger Mike Musgrove overheard one member of a cluster of bloggers behind him caution his fellow bloggers just prior to the beginning of the Nintendo's E3 press conference: "Remember, no fanboyism -- if something happens, polite clapping is enough." Hilarious! ... but only for a moment. Editorialising follows after the post break.
