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- Gamespot Heavily Edits Kane & Lynch Review
- Posted About 1 year ago by Veggie Jackson
In all the hubbub about the Jeff Gerstmann firing over at Gamespot, people may have forgotten an important fact; the review is still up on the site. Sure, there's a little note at the bottom stating that the review "has been updated to include differences between the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions and a clarification on the game's multiplayer mode.", but I'm sure that neither Gamespot nor parent company CNet would make any real changes to the review. A move like that would undermine whatever's left of their journalistic integrity, and nobody would be stupid enough to do that, right? Right?!?
Wrong.
A cached EB Games page shows the original, untouched review, and when it is compared to the review that is up now it's obvious that extensive edits have been made since the firing. The first paragraph in particular has been completely changed, with all references to the unlikeable characters removed and replaced with a general overview of the game. The sugar coating doesn't stop there, though. All mentions of the shoddy AI have been removed, and an out of place reference to the game doing "a good job of moving the action around" has been added (this statement was mentioned by Gerstmann in his video review).
Strangely, there are some additions to the review that specifically point out some of the game's shortcomings. The edited version calls the poor execution of the multiplayer features a "bummer", while the original referred to the multiplayer mode as "a great idea that's mucked up by a few different things." While it isn't certain exactly who did the editing, it is clear that the editorial note does not come close to describing the amount of changes made to the review. If this is Gamespot's idea of damage control, they may be in need of some new spin doctors.
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Comments
that is why I wrote Future, it is the first word of my comment...
They pulled future advertising, not current. Not saying that it was right, just clarifying.
Reviews are just other people's paid opinions, lawl.
Well, mass media wise.
Future advertising money was pulled then Jeff was fired.....Sarcasticgamer.com article: Eidos Marketing Strategy 101 ad was pulled right after review was posted.....Tolecnal.net Gamespot fires Gerstmann article, 7th paragraph down...OrlandoSentinel.com article: Gerst-Gate 2007 Penny arcades Jerry Holkins quote....the part about how they pulled hundreds of thousands of dollars of future advertising after the review...thempcwordpress.com article: the ethics of journalism in gaming 6th paragraph down....are all these people wrong????
The money didn't get pulled, mellow. The AD ended.
I don't know exactly who would be in a convenient position based on any of these goings-on.
The time line just seems to convenient for his dismissal....Eidos shells out advertising money.....Gerstmann does his review...the money gets pulled.....Gerstmann gets fired.....seems a little weird....and I guess he wasn't the best reviewer but then again none of us got any job offers from Gamespot.....
I call it karma for giving Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 a perfect 10.
I don't know what's going on here. I hate it when Journalistic integrity is brought into question. Can't we just write what we think/the truth/enough to make people understand enough to make their OWN opinions?
Isnt that journalism's primary purpose?
Coop, agreed, my piece gets at that. I've read Gerstmann a number of times, his reviews were awful.
Last month Gamespot's website was covered with advertisments by Sony for Ratchet and Clank - they gave it a 7.5. Compared to the average that score is lower then K&L's, but nothing happened there. Sony is also a bigger company with more pull.
I personally thought the Gerstmann review was a solid review for that game.
I find it really odd that some of the edits bash the game more. This all fuels the thoughts that he was fired for being a bad reviewer, not for giving a bad score.