Jeff Gerstmann from Gamespot.com fired...

This explain why Halo 3 got a high score on every gaming review sites. I wonder how much did Microsoft paid each of them, and who got more money?
 
This explain why Halo 3 got a high score on every gaming review sites. I wonder how much did Microsoft paid each of them, and who got more money?
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I love Halo 3. I generaly agree with the reviews, and microsoft didnt pay me anything to say that. So there.

Anyways, I'm thinking about joining gamespot.com just to be one of the many people who are 1 ing cane and lynch. This move with any luck is going to screw over both companies, and its a relief to see that this hasent passed unnoticed. Keep it up..

Like I said earlier, GFW, [H], and Maximum PC. No one else.
 
Horrorsphere said:
Certainly. Even in your personal life, there are many who you'd think would never turn on you, and the next thing you know, you've got knives in your back.

But I've spoken with him personally, and have seen his attitude all around here for years and how he runs [H], and I think he has some strong principals I couldn't see him going against. Anything could happen, but...

...and yeah, I could only imagine the revolt of all the loyal [H]'ers here... it would be Bedlam ;)
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Hate to say it but [H] has sold out before, but they fessed up and haven't (I dont think) since.
 
Cypther said:
This explain why Halo 3 got a high score on every gaming review sites. I wonder how much did Microsoft paid each of them, and who got more money?
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You'd be surprised... a friend told me about this a few month's ago, I found a post on a random news blog, but I remember it was on Joystiq or something back in the day. Ah, the news was broke by Dean Takahashi, who I assume is a bigger name.

http://newlevelgaming.blog-city.com/microsofts_halo_3_reviewer_bribe_worth_800.htm

Apparently all reviewers got around $800 worth of Halo 3 merchandise, I remember him telling me they got a Halo 3 Xbox 360 as well as a copy of the Legendary Edition, among other Halo goodies.
 
inotocracy said:
Trying to find a more complete article but this sums up the event:

EDIT: better thread, god this brings back memories:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=4828
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Ummm... Sounds like a bunch of people whining about how the [H] sucks. I don't even know what they're complaining about because none of the links in that thread work. WTF are you getting on about? All I see is that somebody saw one number (an 8) and then it changed to a 3, later. I dunno... I'm calling shens on these complaints, particularly because Kyle's come out and said "Ooops, I screwed the pooch. Here's the real numbers." before. It doesn't look like selling out. It looks like they typoed or somebody read something wrong.
 
Dont really wanna get into it, but read the entire thread. There was a lot that went on at that time. I still respect [H] regardless.. but they slipped up there.
 
I guess that's why I missed it.. 2002, I was 13 and running a 75MHz Mac Performa with OS7.

I do find it hilarious that they just bash every member here.. I have almost 1500 posts at XS but that thread is retarded. And honestly I can't be bothered to read more than the first page :p
 
inotocracy said:
Dont really wanna get into it, but read the entire thread. There was a lot that went on at that time. I still respect [H] regardless.. but they slipped up there.
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Yep. That was just before I joined but I had been reading the forums here for about a year before. The original Genmay had just been deleted a couple months before. It was a tormultuous time here at [H] but in the end it was probably for the best.
 
eurin said:
Gamespot has gone down hill. Their reviews use to be more inline with 1up, giving out average scores to even the hyped games. Lately, they've been tossing fantastic scores at every big ad budget game.

Example
3 of the 5 top rated PC games of all time have come out in the last 2.5 months.

http://www.gamespot.com/games.html?...ames&dlx_type=all&date_filter=all&sortdir=asc

The Hellgate review also comes to mind, but atleast it wasn't as bad as PCgamers 89%.
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Isn't that the truth? Hellgate:London is a train wreck. I seldom disagree with the [H]'s opinion on things, either, but giving HG:L a positive spin is where we part ways. It is unfinished, buggy garbage. After you've suffered through that, you can pay the developers a subscription fee for them to finish the game and unlock the rest of the content, and get rid of the gamebreakers. The final straw for me was a few days ago when you couldn't even play multiplayer because no one could enter an instance together - that is after nearly a month of no one being able to see each other in multiplayer because of the invisible party member bug.

I would not be shocked in the least to discover that Eidos pressured Gamespot to fire Jeff because of a less than stellar review. When reviewers ignore bugs, unfinished games and sloppy mechanics, it makes you wonder if they are playing the same game you are. Whether someone likes a story line or not is subjective, as is whether you like the artistic direction of the art and music; that the game has poor controls, game-breaking bugs that prevent completion and illogical gameplay mechanics is not. I might not like the same movies that you do, but if it cuts out after 30 minutes, the actors keep tripping over the scenery, and the sound loses the right channel randomly, it is pretty clear that neither of us got what we paid for.

EDIT: For clarity, I wanted to make sure that I was clear when I said I disagreed with the [H]'s assessment on the positive side of HG:L - this is an enthusiast site and it is noteworthy that HG:L has some DX10 graphics. I disagree that it is a good game, however I am not implying in the slightest that there was anything about their review on the DX10 graphics that was biased. I think it was a bit too sunshiny, but hey, everyone is entitled their opinion - that doesn't mean they are paid off. I don't doubt the credibility of the [H], I just disagree in this case :).
 
An editor at GS speaks up:

http://valleywag.com/tech/jeff-gerstmann/gamespot-editor--on-fired-reviewer-328775.php

Interesting quote from the article:

I was in the meeting where Josh Larson was trying to explain this firing and the guy had absolutely no response to any of the criticisms we were sending his way. He kept dodging the question, saying that there were "multiple instances of tone" in the reviews that he hadn't been happy about, but that wasn't Jeff's problem since we all vet every review. He also implied that "AAA" titles deserved more attention when they were being reviewed, which sounded to all of us that he was implying that they should get higher scores, especially since those titles are usually more highly advertised on our site.
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..seems he did get fired for his review. :mad:
 
Yeah, but how can you have a positive tone when you are saying a game is crap? No matter how you say "It took me an hour to get waited on and two hours for the food to get to me, the meal looked like something the cat drug in and gave me the runs but hey, the napkins were pretty!" it still sounds bad :p
 
75% "abysmal" ratings. Funny :D

If you click on the last page of user reviews, they're all from like 7-10. Then if you go to the first page, everything is a 1.0. Good to see the gaming community band together like this against the pathetic corporate practices.
 
People should think about the real world implications of such actions. If this happens in the video game industry, what about industries, where accurate, unbiased, and truthful information is crucial like the news media. Advertisement is what pays these companies also.
 
lol if you look at the game he got fired for reviewing you will see that the user score is 2.6.
I guess everyone is voting really low on it to show their support.

*goes and votes a 1*

EDIT: Kane & Lynch User Reviews Are Currently Disabled

Thank you for your efforts to contribute to the gaming community.
Ratings for Kane & Lynch are currently not being accepted for display on GameSpot.com
 
I'm glad that idiot is gone. He gave Twilight Princess an 8.8, which in my opinion shows he is not fit to review games. He wouldn't know a good game if one sat on his face.

Gamespot as a whole is a joke. They gave Twilight Princess an 8.8, but Phantom Hourglass gets a 9.0. Phantom Hourglass is a better game than Twilight Princess? Something is wrong there.
 
I'm sure he will get another job. 11 years in the industry he has a good grasp on games. :)
 
I'm sure that .2 difference doesn't account for personal differences in taste.

Call it a "margin of error" if you need to keep everything so analytical and scientific.
 
Really pathetic. If this story is true I hope everyone cancels their membership. (I don't have one, I always thought GS was sketchy)
 
I thought Jeff was kind of a douche, not that he deserves to be fired for it, but I'm surprised of all the Jeff Gerstmann worshipping going on since this whole incident.
 
Cypther said:
This explain why Halo 3 got a high score on every gaming review sites. I wonder how much did Microsoft paid each of them, and who got more money?
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Agreed.

The amount of marketing dollars Microsoft put into this game, and the amount of free goodies they sent along with it to reviewers (entire X360 systems, accessories, etc.) is just shameful.

I mean, talk about conflict of interest. If reviewers want to continue receiving their $800 bags of goodies from Microsoft, then they were pretty much coerced into reviewing Halo3 favorably.

Pathetic. Halo3 really didn't deserve to be more than a 7.5 average game, if that.
 
Hamidxa said:
Agreed.

The amount of marketing dollars Microsoft put into this game, and the amount of free goodies they sent along with it to reviewers (entire X360 systems, accessories, etc.) is just shameful.

I mean, talk about conflict of interest. If reviewers want to continue receiving their $800 bags of goodies from Microsoft, then they were pretty much coerced into reviewing Halo3 favorably.

Pathetic. Halo3 really didn't deserve to be more than a 7.5 average game, if that.
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I totally agree with you. I am a shame of buying Halo 3. I am stunned that how Halo 3 got a better score than Crysis, Unreal 3, Call of Duty 4, and Bioshock on most sites. I don't think Halo did any innovation or anything creative but somehow got the highest review this year.
If Halo 3 gets game of the year for any site than those sites are tool boxes.
 
Halo 3 single player 6
Halo 3 multi player 9
Halo 3 average 7.5

i agree.
 
Cypther said:
I totally agree with you. I am a shame of buying Halo 3. I am stunned that how Halo 3 got a better score than Crysis, Unreal 3, Call of Duty 4, and Bioshock on most sites. I don't think Halo did any innovation or anything creative but somehow got the highest review this year.
If Halo 3 gets game of the year for any site than those sites are tool boxes.
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Dreaz said:
Halo 3 single player 6
Halo 3 multi player 9
Halo 3 average 7.5

i agree.
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Agreed and agreed.
 
trick_m0nkey said:
I have absolutely no worries about [H] and it's staff. Though some people say that anything could happen, I think history has proven time and time again that Kyle is willing to go down to the mat for us in the name of fair journalism. Love him or hate him, he is the kind of man who's principles dont break. Kind of like John Clark or Jack Ryan in the Tom Clancy series (the good ones) :p.

Other than [H], I'm finding only 2 places where I have a reasonable amount of trust: IGN and Maximum PC. Games for Windows isnt bad either I trust them much more than PC Gamer, which has been going to hell lately. I used to think that cnet or gamespot was a decent place for reviews seeing as they have been around for a while...clearly I was wrong. I wish I could do more but really, this is a collective thing and the only way they can hear our voice is by hitting them where it hurts: site views. And they are going to get zero from me.
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ShackNews has some fairly honest reviews.
 
Blackstone said:
I'm glad that idiot is gone. He gave Twilight Princess an 8.8, which in my opinion shows he is not fit to review games. He wouldn't know a good game if one sat on his face.

Gamespot as a whole is a joke. They gave Twilight Princess an 8.8, but Phantom Hourglass gets a 9.0. Phantom Hourglass is a better game than Twilight Princess? Something is wrong there.
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I don’t think I would admit to know the names of the games like that much less caring about a review of them.:eek:

It would be nice to see Gamespot to feel the impact of this poor and callous business decision.
 
Luthorcrow said:
It would be nice to see Gamespot to feel the impact of this poor and callous business decision.
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It's almost assured to be in due time :) Given that how we gamers have sounded off, add the fact that other officials have also spoken in Jeff's behave, it's defnitely posing a hard blow to GS.
 
lol... kinda funny that they disabled the reviews...
Prolly on the way to be the worse game of all time ! :p

But on topic, it sucks and big corporation needs to be taught a lesson and the only people that can do it is us by not buying their products.
 
Vorret said:
lol... kinda funny that they disabled the reviews...
Prolly on the way to be the worse game of all time ! :p

But on topic, it sucks and big corporation needs to be taught a lesson and the only people that can do it is us by not buying their products.
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Much agreed. This absolutely will NOT be the last time that something like this occurs. I'd be willing to bet that during some of these buyouts, firings, and other corprate crap - the gamers and public who actually care about what is going on will rail against things like this...and it will not be pretty. The people have the power.
 
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