Hey, I never read Gamespot simply because of the garish, flashy look of the site and the piss-poor strategy guides(which spent pages talking about the basics of gameplay rather than real strategy).
Just going by the superficiality of the whole place, it only makes sense they would care more about advertisers than substance.
The story isn’t necessarily as simple as it seems, from what I hear. In any case, though, Eidos isn’t to blame. It’s their job to put pressure on people to say good things about their products. It’s the media that bends to their pressure that isn’t doing their job.
I have to say that RPGamer’s reviews are almost always well-written, long, useful, and fair - despite the fact that those games are advertised on their site. I have a lot of respect for them.
The only thing I heard about it further was that he had other negative reviews, like the infamous 8.8 Zelda TP (which I would’ve rated much much lower). God forbid that 1 site has a different opinion on a game than another review site.
Again, I’m gonna say that, idealistically at least, Eidos game is to make good games that reviewers give good reviews to because they like them, as opposed to just threatening people. Though they’re going to. Unfortunately.
True, of course. But like any company, whatever product they’ve sunk money into is what they have to tout, and their duty to their shareholders is to try as hard as they can to do so without breaking any laws. It’s the media’s responsibility not to give in.
People depend too much on the final score; they could as well snip the whole review apart from the initial blurb. I like how Eurogamer emphasizes the review and uses the score to make a point. Not to mention that the 1-10 scale is bull if almost all games get 5+ and people complain that 8,8 is a low score.
Gamespot keeps saying “pressure from an advertiser” did not cause Gerstmann to be fired. That’s clever. I suspect <i>CNET</i> noted the possibility of losing advertisement profits from Eidos, noted that Gerstmann had a history of giving low scores, predicted that Gerstmann’s reviews would cost the company more money in the future, and <i>preemptively</i> fired him.
High-ranking businessmen tend to forget that ordinary consumers can put two and two together, and collectively take down a business in a blink.