Media Coverage: Gamers Go Gaga Over GameSpot's 'Gerstmann-gate'

A few months ago, when I ranked the top ten video game journalism controversies, I thought the list would stay relatively consistent for the near future. At the very least, I thought New Games Journalism's No. 1 spot would hold steady for a good long while. Turns out I was wrong. The week of controversy following GameSpot's sudden firing of Jeff Gerstmann last Wednesday has unquestionably jumped to the top of the list, and the public's impressions of video game journalism will never be the same.

While this isn't the first time there have been accusations of the games press being unduly influenced by game publishers and/or advertisers, it is the first time those accusations have seemed so credible and gotten such wide coverage. All the elements aligned to create a truly epic controversy:

• A long-standing editor of a major site, fired abruptly and without warning or public announcement.
• A plausible connection to a negative review of a major advertiser's game.
• The suspicious removal of the video review (later reposted) and editing of the text review of said game.
• A confused and disgruntled staff leaking information – on deep background, of course – to a willing press.
• An insanely popular webcomic calling the gaming community to arms.
• A slow, post-Thanksgiving news cycle which allowed the story to break and expand (Activision Blizzard who?)
• And finally, relative silence from the parties involved, leaving the press to trip all over itself on rumors and innuendo.

It's that relative silence that probably hurt GameSpot more than anything else. The powers-that-be at CNET seemed truly unprepared for the storm of attention and controversy that Gerstmann's firing would provoke. Not that they necessarily should have expected any differently. While there are a few game journalists with the name recognition and brand-power to demand their own following, most readers recognize the name of the outlet before the name on the byline (if they read the byline at all). Gerstmann was moderately well-known and liked in gaming circles, but he wasn't really a household name, even among the hardcore. Under slightly different circumstances, the firing probably wouldn't have ranked more than a passing mention on most gaming news sites.

CNET's real mistake, as they'd probably acknowledge, was not responding quickly enough once the rumors started swirling late Thursday night. Friday's brief, blanket statement that "we do not terminate employees based on external pressure from advertisers" was both insufficiently detailed and insufficiently disseminated to truly stem the tide of discussion. The firing wasn't even officially mentioned on GameSpot's site until Monday, when the repeated denial of advertiser influence had to contend with an entire weekend's worth of speculation and discussions (a lifetime in the Internet age). By the time Wednesday's one-two punch of a candid staff podcast and in-depth Q&A started to really address the questions everyone wanted answered, public opinion had largely gelled and the damage was largely done.

Of course, any response would have been too late for many readers, who had made up their minds as soon as they first heard the rumors discussed. The gaming community's ready acceptance of these allegations (and other, less credible ones) highlights the deep image problem that runs throughout game journalism. Talk to many gamers, and it's taken as a base assumption the review scores are constantly "bought" via advertising, access, swag, trips, or even direct pay-offs to editors. The default reaction among many readers to any positive review they don't agree with is invariably, "I wonder how much *game publisher X* paid them to write that one?" (or, if the review is negative, "I wonder how much *rival publisher X* paid them to pan that one?"). Some healthy skepticism among the public is to be expected, but the prevalence of such views in the gaming community is staggering. Indeed, it's questionable whether this controversy would have even gotten off the ground had the community not been so conditioned to believe the worst about game journalism off the bat.

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