Last week the Editor-in-Chief of GameSpot (probably the biggest game reviewing fish on the Internet – DISCLOSURE: I worked for parent-company CNet about 8 years ago, but never for GameSpot.com), Jeff Gerstmann was abruptly fired. This had the bad timing to coincide with Gerstmann penning a brutal review of a bad game called “Kane & Lynch: Dead Men” and rumors that Eidos, the game’s distributor, was threatening to pull a giant ad campaign as a result. (Here’s more for the curious.)

I understand the outrage that’s reared its head on the Internet over Gerstmann’s firing. But we’re not really privy to enough real info to say anything other than that whomever fired him probably should be fired for being an idiot. I can only say that after 11 years now working for EVERYBODY (except the console mags)….

I, Andrew Bub, GamerDad, have never seen anything fishy regarding reviews and game companies. I know ads get pulled and I’m just a freelancer, but it’s important to note that after all the negative reviews I’ve personally written – and I used to be a pretty hard to please contentious kind of reviewer – I never ever saw a score I chose changed without my approval. I was also never fired or reprimanded. Once Company X opted to stop sending me review copies but they resumed when they noticed that PCGamer was sending me Company X games to review specifically because they were freezing me out. (True story.)

Further, I run a small website and I’ve ALWAYS found that as Owner of GamerDad I can usually bully these game companies rather than the other way around (and I use “bully” very loosely – if anything what I do could be called “squeaky wheel”) as I want to. They’ve never threatened us, stopped sending games, or anything like that. They don’t even send me angry letters.

Again, I don’t have a marketing/ad department for them to appeal to. I’m the boss. But I’m also a REALLY tiny fish when compared to a multi-million unique-hit getter like GameSpot.

I know it’s tempting – and reasonable given how little money game magazines actually make – to believe that game companies have this kind of influence over reviews and magazines – but I’ve also learned that a C-rate developer has more to lose by pissing off an opinion maker like GameSpot than it does suffering a bad review of Kane & Lynch.

GameSpot made it worse by firing the reviewer and thereby making Eidos suffer FAR more flack than it would have in any other outcome -and- hurting GameSpot’s credibility and feeding a paranoia on the Internets.

I’m not saying that the game press isn’t corrupt. As a member, I truly hope it isn’t.

I am saying that I’ve never seen any evidence that it is.

And I feel strongly that someone needs to say that at this time.

(But I still acknowledge that in the business of consumer advocacy, credibility is the only coin that matters. Even if something only looks bad, it is bad. Perception is crucial. That said, this looks really bad for all parties involved except, interestingly, the person who got fired.)

Tags: Misc