When I woke up this morning, I checked the good ol’ AWGP Inbox (awgpodcast@yahoo.com) and see what spam we’d gotten today. Amongst some spam, there was an e-mail that I was slightly apprehensive about reading and responding to:
Hey Arb. So, why haven’t you talked about Gertsmann on the podcast or blog? I mean, you must have heard about it. So what’s your opinion?
Click the little more button here to read on:
There’s a specific reason as to why I haven’t truly voiced my opinion about Gertsmanngate: I’m not a professional journalist. I can’t truly say how this affects the writing process, or the inner workings of magazines and websites. It’s an extremely complicated issue. But it’s also an old issue now, in terms of gaming news. I mean, we’re all focusing on other issues now, and Gertsmann is not at the forefront of our minds. But it will always be there.
Gertsmanngate has left a stink on gaming journalism. It’s left us wondering who we can trust. Gertsmann was trusted by many who read his articles and watched his video reviews, and was a pro. It’s like with all editors, after reading and listening to them for a while, you get to know their personal likes and dislikes, as well as what’s really an amazing game to them. So, it obviously struck a nerve when he was fired without notice from GameSpot.
What really leaves a stink is that Gertsmanngate is the most believable thing we’ve ever read. As Jeff Green, Games For Windows Magazine’s EIC, says:
No, the reason this sticks in the craw of so many of us in the industry, and the reason it won’t go away, is just how close to home it hits. It doesn’t really matter anymore whether Gerstmann lost his job as a direct result of Cnet/GameSpot buckling to pressure because of Eidos’ unhappiness with his Kane & Lynch review. The real problem is just how fucking believable it is. The very fact that no one can just laugh it off or brush it aside is the most pathetic and telling aspect of this entire affair.
And it’s true. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to trust anyone on the internet these days, from alliwantforxmasisapsp.com to PR people disguising themselves as “just one of us” on message boards. Add in money and advertising dollars, and suddenly you find yourself facing a huge problem.
GameSpot has constantly said that Gerstmann was not fired because of the Kane and Lynch review, despite the editing of his text review to “better represent the 6.0″. Whether he was fired or not because of Kane and Lynch, we don’t know. But what we do know, is that it’s made us as a community think about advertising hidden in what we read, and that is a problem.
Videogame advertisements in a videogame magazine or on a videogame blog make sense to belong there from a business standpoint. Because the only people who read magazines like EGM or GameInformer are hardcore gamers.
Now, let’s say that “Super Mega Ultraman” is being advertised all over fakevideogamesite.com. Fakevieogamesite.com reviews “Super Mega Ultraman” and gives it a 3/10, which is far from good. This lowers “Super Mega Ultraman”’s MetaCritic score, and makes the publisher of “SMU” mad. So, the publisher argues with fakevideogamesite and threatens to pull advertising coverage.
Gaming news sites and magazines need to move away from videogame advertisements plastering their pages. Because if “SMU” gets a 3/10, do you think Welch’s will care? Or ABC? Or Doritos? No, it doesn’t affect them. Of course, reviewers will still get harassed by publishers, but there’s not going to be as much suspicion from the gaming community that something fishy is going on when there’s not. Gaming media outlets need to increase the gap between advertising and what they write about immediately.
“If you work for a media outlet, and have managerial responsibility over your editors, and would seriously sacrifice one of your editors to appease your advertisers, then I submit that you are a disgrace to your profession. And before you do so again, I’d humbly request you fire yourself first. And get far away from anything involving journalism for the rest of your fucking life.” - Jeff Green
Filed under: Miscellaneous, News, Opinion, Reviews, Video Games
