It's not like the relationship between Kane & Lynch and review scores wasn't messy enough. But now this? Visitors to the game's official site will notice, once the page's flash intro is done, that two review scores for the game are flashed for your perusal. One from GameSpy, one from Game Informer. Both look positively glowing! Both give the game a very encouraging five stars! Thing is, both are...well, not real. They're fabricated. Lies, if you will.
"Losing a job you've held for over 11 years in an abrupt manner is shocking, yes."
Developments have slowed down a little bit over the weekend, but there is still plenty of chatter around the web about Gamespot's controversial firing of Jeff Gerstmann. Among the juicier bits from around the intertubes:
The author of the petition writes: "We the games community, based on the recent events that have transpired with the game review conglomerate GameSpot.com hereby present the following petition to Metacritic's chief operations officer in charge of content.
ValleyWag reports that Eidos is "freaking out" over l'affaire Gerstmann; top management there, an insider says, sincerely believes they didn't prompt CNET to fire Gerstmann, but fears they'll get the blame anyway.
Not all advertisers are headed out the door, over the Gamespot controversy. Several companies, like Mountain Dew (Pepsi), Dell, and Sony are devouring the now available inventory left by the exodus of game ads.
A number of Ziff Davis staffers (including a few writers for 1UP, arguably GameSpot's biggest competition) recently crafted an uplifting banner and marched to the GameSpot offices just two blocks away. The demonstration was a response to the recent unexplained firing of GameSpot contributor Jeff Gerstmann. After hearing the rumors that Gerstmann was fired due to pressure from advertisers following his lackluster review of Kane and Lynch, the ZD staff decided to show their support for their fellow gaming journalist.
Joystiq 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.
Who says the average Joe is powerless against "the man"?
1UP confirms through their own source that Jeff Gerstmann was fired for his negative review of Eidos Interactive's Kane & Lynch.