Imo, visai interesants stāstījums par spēļu industriju, kas neaprobežojas ar "Gamespot SUX, visi spēļu recenzenti ir idioti!!!" retoriku (kas dominē pat šķietami inteliģentu geimeru izteikumos), bet arī aplūko notikušā cēloņus. Vienā teikumā: Gamespot menedžments pamazām sāka jaukties recenzentu darbā, cenšoties izpatikt reklāmdevējiem (tiesa, galvenokārt sakot, kad publicēt recenzijas, nevis kādām tām jābūt), kas Gerštmanam noriebās, un viņš apzināti ielika Kane & Lynch sliktāku vērtējumu kā spēle bija pelnījusi - tā teikt, lai aizietu ar blīkšķi, jo vairs negribēja strādāt Gamespot.
" You see, at least until recently, GameSpot's policies for reviews were some of the strictest in the business -- going further than even ours at the 1UP Network in some ways. For example, if you were to visit a developer to preview a game for GameSpot, that would immediately bar you from reviewing it later on -- just so there couldn't be any possibility of bias or taint when it came to critiquing the game."
"But then others left, most importantly Greg Kasavin, at the start of 2007. Like Jeff, Greg had been at GameSpot for over a decade, and had become somewhat synonymous with the site. Before his departure, he oversaw all of editorial and ensured that GameSpot's ideals were absolutely upheld (somewhat famously even going so far as to require editors to buy all of their own games just so they'd recognize their true value)."
"Retailers would pay attention to the "buzz" a title was seeing on GameSpot and, in theory, place unit orders based off of that data -- after all, the retailer could potentially sell more units of a title seeing increased momentum online. But by spending money with Gamespot, it was possible for game publishers to raise the buzz ranking of their titles; publishers could make it appear as though there was a larger interest in their product than there perhaps really was."
"I don't mean to maliciously call GameSpot out on this, but if you didn't know, they sell a lot of their content coverage. The front-door rotation spots, otherwise known as "gumballs," on the homepage are paid for by game publishers at $7,000/2 weeks (March 2006); and if you remember back, they absolutely whored themselves out to Vivendi for the release of 50 Cent: Bulletproof, a game that everyone and their mother knew was going to be terrible."
"This purchasing of placement of content seemed quite at odds with GameSpot's strict editorial policies. But GameSpot would justify this by saying that as long as the editorial itself wasn't tainted, it didn't matter how people got to it. Personally, I'm of the opinion that the selection of the top stories on a site is still part of the editorial process, but I can certainly see this justification."
"But after Broady, Kasavin, and others left GameSpot, Larson took over the editorial aspect of the site as well. So here you had Josh Larson -- the man behind selling sponsorships of editorial -- now placed directly in charge of the editorial itself."
"Over the last year there has been an increasing amount of pressure to allow the advertising teams to have more of a say in the editorial process; we've started having to give our sales team heads-ups when a game is getting a low score, for instance, so that they can let the advertisers know that before a review goes up. Other publishers have started giving us notes involving when our reviews can go up; if a game's getting a 9 or above, it can go up early; if not, it'll have to wait until after the game is on the shelves. (..) I guess you'll have to go to Onion or a smaller site for objective reviews now, because everyone at GS now thinks that if they give a low score to a high-profile game, they'll be shitcanned. Everyone's fucking scared and we're all hoping to get Josh Larson removed from his position because no one trusts him anymore." (anonīma G-Spot recenzenta citāts)
" In an age where that sort of stuff goes on, do we need to worry about more publishers trying to control the media? I look at EA as reason to have hope. As the largest publisher of games, EA has the most weight to throw around, but the company absolutely respects editorial integrity. Did we hear some grumbling about our 4 out of 10 for Hellgate? Sure. But never once in all my years of working with the company can I remember EA saying a review score was wrong, or trying to strong-arm us into to changing text or a score."
"Gerstmann-gate, coupled with the Assassin's Creed selective review embargoing (the average review score of Assassin's Creed the week before release as a 98%, while the average score when the game released and the general embargo was lifted was a 83.5%. Huh.), made him want to give the industry a nice kick in the pants. I applaud his motives, but again, it's a shame to have this sort of doubt hanging over us all."
"The GameSpot staff are NOT corrupt. GameSpot itself is NOT the problem. CNet is. CNet's management is. The problem lies with the puppet masters. Unfortunately, those masters have RUINED GameSpot's credibility and reputation... a reputation built up for more than a decade." (8 gadus G-Spot'ā nostrādājušais recenzents Frenks Provo, kurš arī nesen aizgāja)