New GameSpot Editor in Chief wants to regain your trust [Joystiq]

[DP ServBot]

Filed under: Culture (http://www.joystiq.com/category/culture/)

We know that a lot of you harbor resentment towards GameSpot in the wake of the whole Gerstmann-gate (http://www.joystiq.com/tag/jeff-gerstmann/) affair, and we can't blame you. We've all got hefty, Gerstmann-shaped holes in our hearts, and our faith in the once great review database is now shaken. However, Ricardo Torres, GameSpot's recently appointed Editor in Chief (http://www.joystiq.com/2008/01/28/ricardo-torres-promoted-to-gamespot-eic/), is determined to regain your trust (http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/news/new-gamespot-eic-i-want-to-regain-your-trust/19273/) in the site, regardless of how many stern 7.5s he'll have to hand out in order to do so.

In a recent interview with GameDaily (http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/features/media-coverage-meet-the-games-press-ricardo-torres/71359/?biz=),Torres claims that GameSpot staffers are coming back to work (those who haven't resigned (http://www.joystiq.com/2008/01/14/gamespot-staffer-alex-navarro-quits-in-wake-of-gerstmann-gate/)), and that "people are getting back into the swing of things." He also hopes that their strengthened dedication to putting out untainted content will win back their original readers. What do you think, gang? Is it possible to forgive and forget? Or has that ship sailed, been boarded by pirates, then viciously torpedoed by U-Boats?

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[KanYozakura]

Regain? Like they ever had it in the first place.

[Snapple]

Sounds like empty words right now. Usually when you want to regain someone's trust, you have to actually take an action to show good will.

[TonyTheTiger]

The problem is, what would that action be? This is one of those situations where the damage has been done and there's not exactly a fair way to fix it. What do you do? Go in the backlog and start randomly lowering scores? "Hey, look! We're docking points from games that got 9s! That's fair, right?" Do you start intentionally giving lower scores to games to try to prove your worth? That would be pretty much the exact same problem as before just in the opposite direction. The only fair action to take is to just start doing things better from here on in. You can't "prove" it, really. You just have to do it and hope people notice.

[calthaer]

I remember reading Gamespot regularly.

Back in 1999 when the Internet was a newer beast and I was an immature college student.

Before this whole fiasco, I was ambivalent about them. Now, I think I'll actually avoid the site, and occasionally jeer at those who believe that Gamspot does "journalism."

[Push Upstairs]

I don't read Gamespot and I have never used its scores to decide on a game purchase.

[diskoboy]

I've never considered GameSpot a credible site.

So they can try all they want - It's not gonna help.

[Dreamc@sting]

It still boggles my mind that they ever had a following in the first place o.O no trust was ever given from me to regain

[Sotenga]

To Mr. Torres: "Your words are as empty as your soul! Mankind ill needs a savior such as you!" LOL

... okay, maybe that was a little mean. But seriously, this is just a big "meh" for me. Even before this whole Gerstmann dealy, I've never really taken much heed of GameStop.

[RCM]

Regain? Like they ever had it in the first place.

Couldn't have said it better.

[Half Japanese]

Much more succinct version: "I got a raise to give damage control a shot."

[DreamTR]

Ricardo has been there a long time. I have the utmost respect for him, he's been in this industry for over a decade.

[Flashback2012]

I used to frequent Gamespot on a regular basis. I was never a subscriber and never really felt the need to. It was my defacto place to look at gaming news for the longest time and occasionally I would click on "New Releases" to get an idea on when games were coming out.

I never really looked at their scoring of games or watched their video reviews and not too long ago I started frequenting Kotaku more and more. I really had no idea who Jeff Gerstmann was nor what he did at Gamespot but right around the time of his firing I had all but stopped going to that site and was on Kotaku full time.

Will I ever go back? Sparingly I imagine and just for the New Releases tab, unless there's another site that comes along and has the same kind of info they do regarding that. I wouldn't say the sight lost my trust per se, it's mostly coincidental that I've frequented it less around the same time as Gerstmann's firing. I will say the slipshod way they've handled things since then hasn't instilled in me the desire to start supporting the site anytime soon. ;)

[Sothy]

I dont need gamespot.

Just go in #vbender and ask if a game is good.

if Papastu likes it then it sucks.

[lendelin]

From the Jeff Gerstmann incident a lot of lessons should be learned. The most basic lesson is that videogame journalism has to mature as did game content, the gamers, and the importance of the economic impact of the industry.

This growing-up phase isn’t easy for video game journalists, and a lot of steps have been taken already to grow out of infantile stages of the 80s and early 90s: the editorial content of reviews and reports about games and the economic issues of the industry became undoubtedly better.

However, the reasons for the firing of Gerstmann revealed longstanding weaknesses of website and print magazines. I addressed these weaknesses already years ago in posts. Unfortunately, nothing has changed.


1. Advertisement earnings of video game websites and print mags should not be paid to 90% by game developers and publishers.

I don’t know a critical magazine about newspapers where the same papers subject to criticism pay the vast majority of ads, nor do I know respectable movie sites where movie companies advertise and 90% of ads are for the movies subject to criticism.

Where money is involved there are dependencies. The setup of ads overwhelmingly by game publishers spells doom and failure. Instead, game sites and mags should dramatically reduce ads by game publishers and focus on ads for other products attractive for the same age brackets of gamers – Ipod, Izunes, movies, TVs, PCs, digital cameras, all kinds of products of electronic entertainment.


2. Preview sections should be dramatically reduced, and the review sections should be increased in size. Look at any game mag today – 60% previews, 20% reviews, the rest is miscellaneous stuff.

This is important because game quality doesn’t show in carefully shipped or presented demos by publishers, they are always selective. Game quality shows in the finished product. More often than not premature judgement calls about game quality are made in previews of mags and websites, even worse is if these premature evaluations are based on a couple of screenshots and mere little fact sheets sent out by publishers.

This is bad for gamers, and even worse for the independency of videogame journalists.

If the focus is on previews mixed with premature evaluations, publishers have to and will attempt to use previews as marketing tools. The understandable natural enthusiasm and curiosity of gamers about upcoming games becomes easily hype for specific games and mags become instruments of marketing departments.

All of the above played a major role why Gerstmann was fired.


3. Never ever let a game journalist who writes in-depth previews about a game do the actual review. This should be always done by two different staff members.

Game publishers and developers invite journalists, sometimes very selective, to a one-day or two -day visit in order to give in-depth information and sometimes exclusive content of games. This already creates dependency for even the most hardened and independent journalist. After all, if guys treat you nicely, are helpful, explain their honest intentions, and give you great news about games, it is very difficult to hurt them by giving a game bad review scores. It is a natural reaction of human beings.

GameInformer was guilty of point two and three when they previewed and reviewed Enter the Matrix years ago. The same guy who fell for the developers marketing strategy by repeating in a four page preview the hype about revolutionizing games and innovation of the connection between Hollywood and the game industry wrote also the review of the game. The result was a hyped review score and the recommendation to buy a clearly sub-par game.


4. The streamlining of review scores if two or more scores are given by different reviewers.

There is a minority of certain love-them or hate-them games and average games which are for some worth while playing and for others not even worth a rental; but this phenomenon mysteriously disappears in mags and websites.

GameInformer for example has hardly two scores which differ by more than one point (out of ten). This was also the case in the unfortunate biased reviews of Enter the Matrix where three reviewers for the same game on different platforms gave the same biased scores. Adjustments of scores for the clarity of game recommendations are not necessary for mature gamers, actually, I like to be confused. It is a good starting point to think.


5. Please mags and websites, let game journalists grow up, and use experienced and seasoned ones.

All the critical hurdles addressed above created by the necessity of money, the necessary economic interdependency of the industry and game mags, and the conflict between getting news and maintaining independency are mastered better by experienced journalists from 30 to 70 years old.

The times when 17 year old High School students wrote reviews for GamePro are fortunately over; but young age and inexperience is still all too often a characteristic of game journalists. The guys of the industry who move the wheels of marketing are seasoned and hardened business pros, and independent journalism has to match that.

Game development is a young mens world, but the business side of developers and publishers is done by experienced guys who might eat young journalists for breakfast. Political journalism isn’t done by 25 and 30 year olds, the age of journalists range from 18 to 70.

[FlufflePuff]

Never use the site so I don't care either way.

[ProgrammingAce]

Ricardo has been there a long time. I have the utmost respect for him, he's been in this industry for over a decade.

But the question is, do you respect the management that runs the place?

Because IGN is such a trustworthy site these days...

http://katchoo.net/linked/ign.jpg

[Slate]

Ever since I played Kane & Lynch and Vampire rain and liked both games (And both which had low ratings) I figured that I shouldn't bother with reviewers and that I'd play whatever looked good to me and then I'd make up my own mind about it.

[lendelin]

Ever since I played Kane & Lynch and Vampire rain and liked both games (And both which had low ratings) I figured that I shouldn't bother with reviewers and that I'd play whatever looked good to me and then I'd make up my own mind about it.

That's a given. I do it the same way, after all we can make up our own minds; but that's not the issue.

The issue is if a game reviewer can make up his own mind and give a honest review score -- or if advertisement money can buy great reviews. In the latter case the big loosers are gamers and journalists.

[YoshiM]

2. Preview sections should be dramatically reduced, and the review sections should be increased in size. Look at any game mag today – 60% previews, 20% reviews, the rest is miscellaneous stuff.

This is important because game quality doesn’t show in carefully shipped or presented demos by publishers, they are always selective. Game quality shows in the finished product. More often than not premature judgement calls about game quality are made in previews of mags and websites, even worse is if these premature evaluations are based on a couple of screenshots and mere little fact sheets sent out by publishers.

This is bad for gamers, and even worse for the independency of videogame journalists.

If the focus is on previews mixed with premature evaluations, publishers have to and will attempt to use previews as marketing tools. The understandable natural enthusiasm and curiosity of gamers about upcoming games becomes easily hype for specific games and mags become instruments of marketing departments.


The big problem is that in order to help sell magazines/online subscriptions/get eyeballs to view online ads, previews have to get the brunt because that's pretty much what the majority of the gaming masses seem to want to know: what's coming out next. If one mag doesn't capitalize on that, others will so it's a constant battle of hype-mongering and one-upping the competition.

Funny you bring this point up, I've been reading old issues of EGM lately and something along this thought process came up. In issue #69 (which came out sometime in 1995, I'm not home so I can't look it up) Ed Semrad mentions in his editorial that EGM was strongly focusing on getting the new info on games before they came out, even mentioning and dissing the "old" VG&CE in regards to their "we won't report on it until it's out" (as Semrad puts it) mentality.

[PDorr3]

according to joystiq.com Ryan Davis has now said he will be leaving gamespot in wake of the gerstmann issue. 3 huge figures of gamespot leave the website due to jeff's "departure", I cant imagine gamespot will be the same.

[Berserker]

What a shameless line of disingenuous bullshit.

Bottom-line, they canned him for doing what everyone there should have been doing. They chose their advertisers over their own staff, and their own readers. It's going to take more than an upbeat, can-do press release to stitch up those wounds.

I can only see people taking this as another slap to the face, and an insult to their intelligence if they've been following this mess. They're just wasting their time and our time with this dodgy Public Relations bullshit, when what they should be doing instead is shutting their fucking yaps and trying to salvage what small crumbs of journalistic integrity might possibly remain in this wretched chasm, along with their reputations and reader's trust.

Now I haven't been too overly concerned with this beyond catching this bullshit as it comes, headline-to-ridiculous-headline, but whenever it comes up it just somehow manages to get me wound up again. "Forgive and forget"? Just shut up and go belly-up already, you bunch of motherfucking clowns.