The Man Who Fired Jeff Gerstmann From GameSpot Has Been Sacked

When long-time GameSpot reviewer and editorial director Jeff Gerstmann was let go from the site last November-with sources pointing to his review of Kane & Lynch: Dead Men as the catalyst for his termination-fingers were also pointed at executive Josh Larson, VP of games at parent company CNET. Larson, who replaced former Editor in Chief Greg Kasavin, was implicated by anonymous GameSpot employees to have had the "church-and-state separation between the sales teams and the editorial team" "cracked" under his tenure. Whether the VP, Jeff's supervisor at the time, was the key decision maker in letting Gerstmann go we can't confirm, but we can confirm that Larson will be leaving the company next week.

[TriggerHappy]

This calls for a celebration...pop those battles guys

[Truckasaurus]

LOL!

It is absolutely bizarre this watching people and certain media outlets still trying to pretend that Jeff Gerstmann was fired for anything other than being an unprofessional clown who had finally run out his welcome and got his ass fired.

The gaming world is a better place with him banished to some poorly named gaming blog that no one cares to read.

Hopefully with Gerstmann gone Gamespot can move on from fanboyism to honest reviews. So far since Gerstmann got dumped Gamespot has dramatically improved the quality of their reviews.

Good job whoever really was responsible for firing Gerstmann, Gamespot is making progress to once again become a respectable review site for gamers of all platforms.

[Enigma_2099]

... you either LIKED Kane vs Lynch, or he gave a low score to one of your favorite games... which one is it?

Cause I seriously doubt you even WORKED with him long enough to critique his work ethics...

Improved the quality of their reviews? What, did they stop selling ad space and Game of the Month awards to publishers?

[Truckasaurus]

Enigma_2099 WTF???

Go away...

[Enigma_2099]

So you and your friend can just deal with it.

Hmmm... what a response.... you either ignored me once, or maybe had me reported for something.... am I correct?

[decapitator]

What goes around do REALLY come back around.

[niall77]

maybe gamespot can get back on track.

[Vip3r]

Does anyone actually give a toss?

[Mcrmarcher]

Kinda ironic

[Covenant]

Karma's a b!tch.

[ooop]

Jeff gertsmann is an idiot! He gave rachet a 7.5 because he hates playstation so much!

The guy who fired him deserves a medal!

[Vicophine]

Erm, that wasn't Gerstamann..

[TwissT]

Lol bubbles to Vicophine.

[Taco_Waffle]

Who reviewed it?

[Silellak]

Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked, have been sacked.

EDIT: Curse you, whoever disagreed with this post, and thus insulted the great Monty Python.

[Vicophine]

A moose bit my sister once

(mynd you m00se bites can be pretti nasti)

Monty Python ftw.

[whoelse]

What gamespot are just destroying themselves!

[Enigma_2099]

Their trump card, Ricardo Torres, isn't working,

*sigh* Street cred ain't what it used to be....

[donscrillinger]

fasho uck this beech azz dude .he canned the only other cat on that show that was cool besides that one cat with the fade on his eyebrow......suck made ussy .how the uck you fire an cat for what he was there for in the first place ,and that was to keep it real about games and give he aspect of the game ,WOW ...u ucking BEECH!!!!

[DailyAddict]

For anyone that's actually worked in a professional videogame editorial environment - and I'm pretty sure most of you haven't - the pressure to "please" the developers is pretty high. Granted, I've only spent maybe 2 years total in a professional environment, working out of the offices of a large electronic gaming outlet that shall remain anonymous, but even then I remember being told to be "lenient" and "forgiving" with my reviews, with the main reason that ultimately their and my paycheck comes from the developers through advertising and they didn't want to risk losing the money. I left the corp journalism biz for the reason that I thought it was retarded to be told what I could and couldn't say. It's like working for Ford and having to tell your customers that their cars are actually good! (zing!)

I do even remember some of my reviews being editing, but not to fix any errors. They simply took anything that sounded too negative out of my review. I don't recall any of my scores being adjusted, but I do recall having the 'worse' parts of the review completely removed without my knowledge.

It was ridiculous. I wouldn't be surprised if he did get fired over it. Considering the amount of Kayne and Lynch ads up at the time and the fact that Eidos hasn't really had a successful game in.... wow that long... I'm sure Eidos was pissed and complained about it. Seeing as how his review was editing as well, that sort of proves what happened.

You guys forget that just ONE well respected journalist who scores a game bad can result in a LOT of lost sales. Money talks and if you're not talking back to it then you gotta go, as Jeff found out.