High Dynamic Range Lying

This week’s editorial was scheduled to be on character creation and the virtues of avatar design, but that will have to wait, because of more pressing matters. The events of the last couple days came out of nowhere, but it is the job of any writer connected to the industry to take notice.

By now, I trust the majority of HDRL’s readership has heard about the recent dismissal of Jeff Gerstmann from Gamespot.com, part of the C|Net community. Those who are still unaware of the situation should check out the link. A lot of information is still under wraps, and Jeff himself has not commented on the exact circumstances behind his dismissal, but gaming community favorite Penny Arcade bucked their usual schedule just to post the comic early in order to get the word out.

Penny Arcade’s insinuation, largely, is that Gerstmann was let go after game publisher Eidos Interactive read his scathing review of their recent release, Kane and Lynch. The game received a 6.0 (regarded as “Fair” by Gamespot’s review scale), which was uniquely ill-timed, as Eidos was paying for a gross portion of ad space on Gamespot around the time the review went live. Once they received news of the score, Eidos contacted C|Net, asking for Jeff’s head. Kowtowing to pressure, Jeff was dismissed from his job as Editor-in-Chief, and the Internet subsequently explodes.

Now, I think it is fair to state that at the present time, we’re not entirely sure if Penny Arcade’s accusations and cause/effect relation are entirely accurate. The important thing is that if this is all true, we have on our hands a major blow to journalistic integrity.

It is also incredibly important to state my stance on Gamespot.com and its affiliates. I am not a fan of Gamespot’s content, or the site itself. I find it overly sterile and mostly lacking in the character needed to make it truly great. I also do not agree with the majority of Gerstmann’s reviews. His taste in games really does not fall in line with my own. That said, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Voltaire was a smart chap.

There’s no mystery that a journalist’s job is to report fact, as well as provide an unbiased opinion when needed. They act as a mediator between publisher and consumer; a much needed bridge that not only informs gamers on what games exist, but what is truly worth spending their hard earned money on. What is only recently becoming more and more noticeable, as a result of being more prevalent, is the conflict of interest that arises when the company whose products you review are the same products that are being advertised on the website.

We all know that in order to run a website as a business, one needs money. Unlike a print magazine, which can rely on newsstand sales and subscriptions, websites are largely free for people to access, with the exception of premium content that some sites such as IGN and Gamespot provide. Because of this delicate balancing act, web based media outlets are far more susceptible to the kind of blackmailing that apparently did Gerstmann in.

It’s not abnormal to see publishers or developers angry over low scores, but how they deal with it is often different. Some are friends with the media outlet of choice, and personally call, asking specifically for advice on how to improve future projects. Some publishers have a veritable Public Relations Gestapo, knocking down doors and cornering editors at press events to get answers on their poor reviews.

The problem lies mostly in how most publishers view media outlets. Unlike movie critics or music magazines, game enthusiast publications are viewed as a marketing tool by which to spread feelers to gamers they could not normally touch. That seems overly nefarious, but the way they use the media is just that: nefarious. This is not to say that publishers are inherently evil. They provide small development teams with the money required to make a game. They provide media outlets with the proper information and tools to make accurate and helpful articles.

Their influence, though, should end there. On more than one occasion (specifically cited by a number of journalists), companies have asked media outlets to fire a specific writer for a bad review, but these media outlets usually ignore such requests. There have even been reports that Public Relations representatives are issued bonuses based on the final score of the game. Any intelligent human being would see that this would suggest that a PR rep’s worth in their given profession is their ability to coerce a good score out of a given press source. Whether or not this sequence of events is true is pertinent to this entire situation, of course. If in fact C|Net bowed to pressure and dismissed Gerstmann on these grounds, what part of this situation did they believe would work out?

One constant about the internet is that word always gets out. Someone always finds out, and with the power of anonymity, it always spreads. Even if Gerstmann’s reviews are hated by a gross majority of enthusiast gamers, his dismissal is enough for each and every one of them to rally to his side. Why? Quite simply, the integrity of the enthusiast press community is far more valuable that quibbling over point scores.

The ramifications of such a situation reaches far past that of Gamespot’s borders. Numerous editors that work for competitor Ziff Davis have already spoken out about their condemnation of the situation, going so far as to offer a spot on their podcast for Jeff to appear and clear the air on the subject.

Who is to blame in all of this? Eidos? C|Net? Gamespot? Going on the information so far, it is hard not to point fingers at both Eidos and C|Net. While Gamespot the entity itself has no authority to fire Jeff as their Editor-in-Chief, C|Net does. While Eidos’ actions were reprehensible, they were also predictable. The truly vile thing was C|Net taking them up on the suggestion. These are the kinds of board room shenanigans that truly threaten to destroy our industry.

How can we make our voices heard? How can we stop incidents like this from occurring in the future? NeoGAF, one of the largest game related message boards on the internet, has already taken steps in protest. Ziff Davis editors Shawn Elliot, Jeff Green and Andrew Fitch have already confirmed that the topic will be heavily debated during next week’s wave of podcasts.

Since much ambiguity still surrounds the situation, I urge all gamers to do research and get more information before taking any action. In the event that concrete confirmation appears that Gerstmann’s dismissal was indeed in regards to his review, I strongly urge all gamers to boycott not only C|Net owned websites (including Metacritic, GameFAQs, and News.com), but also Eidos published games. We as gamers and members of this industry should not stand for this, and will not.

UPDATE: We have received all but absolute confirmation. A supposed Gamespot insider made his voice heard on Valleywag, saying the following:

“I was in the meeting where Josh Larson [Executive Editor replacement for now Electronic Arts employee Greg Kasavin] 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.”

A dark day for gaming indeed.