• 5Dec 07

  You got questions? We (finally) got answers

  

  Hey All,

  GS Newsman Tor Thorsen here for a quick personal aside about the past couple days. As I'm sure most of you know, it's been a long week at GameSpot. I haven't been this tired since E3 2006. However, after days of effort and frustration, we've finally been given the go-ahead to post a FAQ about Jeff Gerstmann's termination from GameSpot, which nobody here is happy about.

  Despite feeling subjective personally, I took it upon myself to write the story as I would write any other news story--as objectively as I could with the facts I've been given by my bosses at GameSpot and CNET. Anyone who's worked for the corporate world know it's very rare for a company to make their inner HR workings transparent following a firing. We've convinced our higher-ups to let us do that in this one instance as best we can, just to explain to you guys how this "perfect storm" was unleashed into the information void. I went to the ad sales dept and got the schedule, I talked to the GSlive guys, I talked to the bosses, and just laid it all out in that news piece in as "newsy" a manner as I could. Here it is:

  http://www.gamespot.com/news/6183666.html

  I know many of you out there are going to see this as the latest in a series of attempts at damage control. Guess what? You're right. It is damage control, because--let's face it--GameSpot has taken a beating over the past week. However, just because it's damage control doesn't mean we're being disingenuous or misleading.

  Though silence following dismissals is par for the course in the corporate world, it's by-now obvious that the standard PR approach to Jeff's dismissal backfired. It was totally ill-suited to the gaming community and was timed to be in the middle of an site-wide advertising campaign many took as a smoking gun. We're addressing that unfortunate series of events in the article and on this week's HotSpot and On the Spot in the most straightforward manner we can.

  Here we have a series of coinciding events revolving around one event--a game shipping. Since Kane & Lynch was released on November 13, its text review and video review went up right around then, and Eidos was publishing ads right around then. There's a perfectly rational explanation for all those going up at the same time. And given the crush of games coming out in the two weeks before Thanksgiving, it's easy to see why nobody had time to redo the K&L video review before the turky binges began.

  So why was Jeff fired when he was fired? Honestly, the editorial rank and file don't know the official reason. (Though we do know it couldn't have been more badly timed.) All the information given to us is in the story above--we don't know any more, and neither management nor Jeff can talk about it for legal reasons as well. That's the way big companies work. And if you think CNET is big, remember two of our biggest competitors are owned by NewsCorp and TimeWarner. That's big.

  What we editors do know for a rock-solid hard fact is that, to a man, we miss Jeff. He is amongst the funniest, craziest people I've ever met, and he's forgotten more about games than I'll ever know. I consider him a good friend and a fallen comrade.

  We also know that, if anything, this whole mess will make us even more resistant to any kind of advertiser pressure, even though we've never, ever buckled to it in the past. Now, we've have opened up our books to you, the readers, as much as we possibly can about the sad chapter that is so-called "Gerstmanngate." We hope a lot of you will believe us, stick around, and keep reading.

  Cheers _ TOR

  [UPDATE] I had to switch to the "Staff" byline because my inbox just exploded from a hate mail assault. I know you guys were upset, but neither I nor any of the rank-and-file editors fired Jeff. Had I known he was going to be fired I would've voiced my objections in the strongest possible way.

  That said, the task his hand can be summed up in one word--salvage. I didn't read this site religously since 1998 and then put in 4.5 years of 65-70 hour work weeks since 2003 just to see this place die in 7 days. I am not leaving until the last rites are read and the dr. turns off the EKG machine.

  • Posted Dec 5, 2007 11:34 am PT
  • Category:
  • 59 Comments
  • Tag
  • Print
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Digg
• 2Dec 07

  To whom it may concern....

  To whom it may concern: It's the policy of CNET Networks, GameSpot's parent company, that employees do not comment on the status of current or former employees. It's in said employees' contracts, and said employees have to abide by said contract. It's CNET policy, plain and simple.

  That said, please take into account that terminations of employees are made at levels higher than the employee who was terminated, and not those people who worked under said employee. Please especially take that into account when posting such charming missives with words like "you can all go ****ing DIE" and "LAME$POT SUX" since that basically tells many people who poured years of blood, sweat and tears into GameSpot feel like said precious fluids were excreted in vain.

  Also keep in mind that the GS editorial staff has always held itself interally to the highest levels of integrity. As cliched as it sounds, those that remain here in edit, news, and GS live are a tight-knit family coping with a major loss at the moment. So, please, let loose your anger in ways that don't rub salt in the wounds of people who have worked extremely hard to try and bring you the best gaming news, previews, videos, and reviews that they could for nearly 11 years.

  

  • Posted Dec 2, 2007 3:50 pm PT
  • Category:
  • 58 Comments
  • Tag
  • Print
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Digg

See Previous Blog Posts