Gaming Payola: What’s it going to take?

On November 28th, 2007 the internet came to a screeching halt when Gamespot terminated the employment of long-time Editorial Director, Jeff Gerstmann. Writers get hired and fired on a daily basis in this business, but this case was exacerbated by unconfirmed rumors, leaked from within Gamespot’s ranks. Within moments, Kotaku was reporting those rumors, which included accusations that Gamespot’s decision to terminate Gerstmann was influenced by Kane & Lynch:Dean Men developer, Eidos, who pulled their advertising, and hundreds of thousands of future contracts after Gerstmann’s mediocre review of the title.

To make matters worse, Gamespot apparently got advice from the Church of Scientology when it came to their PR plan in this matter. An agonizing week later, Gamespot ran an interview (of itself) where the overall tone was “Nu-Uh! Did not!,” followed by a nauseatingly contrived reader/staff memorial to Gerstmann. By the time Gamespot figured out that the world was falling apart around them, their credibility had moved all of its crap out of that nice 3-story townhouse and was residing in a cardboard box on skid row.

In the months that have followed this controversy, writers and staff at Gamespot have been jumping ship like drunken rats, with each survivor bring with him stories that support the rumors, while also sort-of exonerating Gamespot. The blame, apparently, lay with CNet, Gamespot’s parent company.

Freelance reviewer, Frank Provo, told the truth as he saw it, when he recently got the hell out of Dodge.

“I believe CNet management let Jeff go for all the wrong reasons. I believe CNet intends to soften the site’s tone and push for higher scores to make advertisers happy.”

Others, including Alex Navaro, seconded the motion while asserting that local Gamespot management had acted solely on the orders issued from CNet-topolis.

CNet’s position on this has remained firm. In a press release on the matter, they told us all that they had never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,ever, never, ever, ever fired an employee due to advertiser pressures, ever, ever, never, ever, ever. Sadly, there’s only so much that they CAN say, since anything more particular to Gerstmann’s case would violate his rights or some hogwash. Who cares about his rights, when the credibility of the sacred Gamespot review score hangs in the balance? What kind of world are we living in?

More recently, EGM (kissin’ cousin of 1UP.com) editor Dan Hsu published a bombshell that seems to reinforce what many gamers suspected: That game companies can literally buy great reviews if they really want to. EGM, apparently, got blacklisted from pre-release coverage by Midway, Sony Sports, and Ubisoft due to what they felt were “unfairly low review scores.”

Of course they’re unfair…. TO THEM. Like these guys are going to sit up and say, “Hey… ha ha,.. you got us! That game does suck. Good catch.”

If these companies were looking to defend their brands they can officially add another tally mark to the “miserable failures” column. Hats off to EGM for exposing the seedy underbelly of the Video Game industry, although I’m not past wondering whether there’s more to this that they are NOT telling us…  So… hats… half off.  What happened there was nothing short of attempted payola, something that has been outlawed and litigated HEAVILY in the radio industry where I work.

I have a lot of questions that I’d love to get a straight answer on.

What happens next? How can anyone possibly trust a review score from a corporate-operated gaming site? What kind of fallout will CNet see in this? How much longer are the big game developers going to have Carte Blanche to run around in a cash firetruck, spraying Ben Franklins on every bad review score that affects them? Who in the hell has the power to get to the bottom of this thing and get some (*gasp… dare I say it?) regulation on these fools? What really happened to Jeff Gerstmann? It’s abundantly apparent that his pink slip may turn out to be our ticket to a huge song and dance routine. These mega-publishers continue to sail their yachts further and further into uncharted waters, testing just how far gamers will let them go. I just hope they’ve piled a lot of supplies on their little SS Minnow, because I have a feeling it won’t be long before they find themselves swallowed up by a hate-hurricane. When you piss of a gamer, they don’t just stop buying your games. They also tell a hundred friends, who also tell a hundred friends. Before long, wealthy men in big suits are sitting around a gigantic board room table, trying to figure out how to salvage their image.

So my first “What for which I want an answer” is:

What is it going to take to get you pissed off enough about the state of gaming journalism and broad-daylight payoffs, to do something about it?

CONTINUE TO PAGE: 1 2 3 4 5