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Gamespot Readers Push Back!

November 30th, 2007 at 5:42 pm · 7 Comments

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This is NOT a Fiction Friday article

lamespot

Suggested reading:

Kotaku -Gamespot Editor Fired Over Kane & Lynch Review?

Joystiq -Rumor: Gamespot’s editorial director fired over Kane & Lynch review

SG -Rumor: Game$pot Fire$ a Reviewer for Ca$h

The outrage over the dismissal of Gamespot’s former Editorial Director Jeff Gerstmann now seems to be impacting Gamespot from the other end of the business plan. Not the advertising channels, but you know, the part of the plan where people come and actually pay for memberships…. and read stuff.

According to a forum thread on their site, more than 400 of Gamespot’s paid subscribers have already cancelled their subscriptions in direct protest of the move, with many more vowing to do so if Gamespot and parent company CNET do not answer up to the fairly heavy charges of putting advertising dollars ahead of editorial integrity.

Our community has reacted quite charismatically to the reports. Here are a few of my personal favorites.

AriesDog: Loonnngggg time reader of Gamespot.com but Jeff Gerstmann’s firing makes me wary of Gamespot’s reviews if the advertiser pays enough. Sorry, going to EGM and 1up.com exclusively for reviews after this.

VenemousDuck: So many review sites have their pockets filled with money from game publishers that it was only a matter of time. It’s not like losing ads from Eidos would have bankrupted Gamespot.

Chrispenny: I’ll never go to Gamespot for another review again.

Sharde: I’m not sure I’m ready to jump off the bandwagon quite yet. Their reviews in the past have been spot on. If that changes going forward, I’ll unsubscribe and find another site… but do you really think with an press nightmare like this happening they’re going to risk messing up future reviews with ad profits?

While we might not all agree on the validity of these pretty serious allegations, one thing is for sure. Gamespot has probably never seen a day like this before. Guilty or not, I think they learned a big lesson.

UPDATE: Mountain Dew ads are gone from_Gamespot.

Previous coverage of this Gamespot Controversy:

Eidos_Strategery_101

Sony_Pepsi_Dell_Support_Gamespot

Rumor: Gamespot_Fires_Editor_over_Bad_Score




Related posts:

  1. Quake Wars Demo on Gamespot
  2. Rumor: Game$pot Fire$ a Reviewer for Ca$h
  3. Review of the Reviews for Assassin’s Creed!
  4. Welcome Back! So What Did You Miss?
  5. Rothbart’s Rant #41 – “Rating Reviews”

Tags:
Categories: News

  • Wiccan Lover

    SO does this mean that Adam Sessler and Morgan Webb should watch out for thier job now ??

    Gamestop needs to get a life. I cancelled my membership today.

  • Conflict NZ

    Good to see so much protest, the only thing these corporate bastards understand is loss of profit.

  • keith22

    lol if you go and see kane and lynch the score is down to 2.5 from users like an 400 new reviews have benn submited and almost all contain the name jeff somewhere in the lines also the number of paid subscribers cancelkling their accounts have rissen on top of that gamespot lost all it’s credibility and wont stop saying this to them ”shame on you, shame on you”

  • Hollywood

    Wos gamespot looks just discusting right now. Their is a very interesting

  • Hollywood

    oops. forget that i was gunna post something but i will put it int he forums

  • http://www.surpashoespro.com supra skytop

    oh, interesting.

  • http://www.onitsukatiger.cc/ onitsuka tiger

    ahh,Funking minutes!