Check out yesterday’s comic at Penny Arcade. It’s in reference to a rumor going around which claims that GameSpot’s Jeff Gertsmann got shit-canned for giving Kane & Lynch: Dead Men a “poor” review score. A score that supposedly upset publisher Eidos, who you will notice has obviously spent a ton of money on advertising with GameSpot, with Kane & Lynch banners, a custom page background, and all other sorts of product placement within the site’s super-busy pages.
Seeing how Jeff is such a fine writer and has been employed at GameSpot for the past 11 years, it’s kinda hard to believe that he would be told to walk simply for giving an honest opinion. I mean, that’s the sort of base prerequisite one would expect from a good critic, right?
However, we are talking about one of the biggest corporate gaming sites of all-time, and at the end of the day, profit rules all. If Jeff’s Kane & Lynch review really did cause Eidos to rethink their advertising budget with GameSpot and result in his termination, then I can’t say that I’d be too surprised. After all, this is the gaming-exclusive site that shamelessly advertised the non-gaming product of McDonald’s fast food. “Anything for a buck”, as they say.
By the way, if you visit GameSpot’s “On The Spot” page (Jeff’s weekly video show), you’ll notice that tomorrow’s scheduled episode has been cancelled. Also, it appears that they removed Jeff’s video review of Kane & Lynch, just shortly after it was published. Mere coincidence? I doubt it.
Be First to Comment