All parties remaining silent, whatever their reasons are, only served to fuel the scandal.
From that other blog linked to earlier on [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.51757.356035], here's the stuff to retain (grain of salt and all that):
- Jeff was the Editor in Chief. If any of his stuff was unprofessionnal, it must have been something recent. He worked for the company for 11 years apparently, and his appointment as EiC was seemingly done when he was "walking on thin ice".
- There's been some accusations that he didn't really play Kane & Lynch, and only browsed the first level, based on the observation of his public gamer tag. This was without considering the ParnerNet account, which he'd be ought to use for a proper review.
- Some amusing but highly unlikely theory: His departure was already planned before hand, but he didn't quite digest the reasons formulated by Gamespot, so he ruminated a way to get out with a bang, so he found K&L to be the perfect time and oportunity to become a martyr.
- Of course, if he was really treading on eggs, why give him the oportunity to review K&L, considering the huge amount of advertising on the site?
- If the video review wasn't part of the problem, why did Gamespot remove it?
Let's understand that Jeff also concludes his review with "it's probably not worth purchase" though he previously encourages people to take a look at the multiplayer because it's still has neat ideas.
- It seems that years ago, Gamespot removed a review made by an editor who was blamed for not actually playing enough of the game.
A person working at Gamespot if he or she is to be believed, wrote this:
From a GS editor, anonymous of course:
What you might not be aware of is that GS is well known for appealing mostly to hardcore gamers. The mucky-mucks have been doing a lot of "brand research" over the last year or so and indicating that they want to reach out to more casual gamers. Our last executive editor, Greg Kasavin, left to go to EA, and he was replaced by a suit, Josh Larson, who had no editorial experience and was only involved on the business side of things. Over the last year there has been an increasing amount of pressure to allow the advertising teams to have more of a say in the editorial process; we've started having to give our sales team heads-ups when a game is getting a low score, for instance, so that they can let the advertisers know that before a review goes up. Other publishers have started giving us notes involving when our reviews can go up; if a game's getting a 9 or above, it can go up early; if not, it'll have to wait until after the game is on the shelves.
I was in the meeting where Josh Larson was trying to explain this firing and the guy had absolutely no response to any of the criticisms we were sending his way. He kept dodging the question, saying that there were "multiple instances of tone" in the reviews that he hadn't been happy about, but that wasn't Jeff's problem since we all vet every review. He also implied that "AAA" titles deserved more attention when they were being reviewed, which sounded to all of us that he was implying that they should get higher scores, especially since those titles are usually more highly advertised on our site.
I know that it's all about the money, and hey, I like money. I like advertising because it pays my salary. Unfortunately after Kasavin left the church-and-state separation between the sales teams and the editorial team has cracked, and with Jeff's firing I think it's clear that the management now has no interest at all in integrity and are instead looking for an editorial team that will be nicer to the advertisors.
When companies make games as downright contemptible as Kane and Lynch, they deserve to be called on it. I guess you'll have to go to Onion or a smaller site for objective reviews now, because everyone at GS now thinks that if they give a low score to a high-profile game, they'll be[fired]. Everyone's **** scared and we're all hoping to get Josh Larson removed from his position because no one trusts him anymore. If that doesn't happen then look for every game to be Game of the Year material at GameSpot.
Posted by: Gimli000 | Nov 30, 2007 4:50:29 PM
Current situation at Gamespot:
"Kane & Lynch User Reviews Are Currently Disabled
Thank you for your efforts to contribute to the gaming community.
Ratings for Kane & Lynch are currently not being accepted for display on GameSpot.com."
As always, nothing solid, just hearsays, remote observations and rampant speculation. But what kind of speculation, really!
