Comments on: Gamespot, Gerstmann, and Gratuitous Grandstanding

By: Alex

Alex — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 17:18:14 +0000

Thanks peterb. I stopped reading Gamespot years ago and frankly have a hard time figuring out why anyone would. Their reviews are only useful at the margins: over nine or under seven. Pretty much anyone who reads reviews and plays games has figured that out. Tleaves reviews, on the other hand, are very useful.

Also, what’s the deal with screenshots? Why do people like looking at screenshots so much?

By: peterb

peterb — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 12:22:59 +0000

The set of people who google for a game and click on the Gamespot link is 100% disjoint from the set of people shouting “Remember Gerstmann! Â¡Viva La RevoluÃ§ion!”

And no, I really don’t think the people in that first set understand that “90″ means “this game is a pretty bad, but I don’t want to get yelled at by rabid fans.”

The way to change the culture is not to spread rumors and rally around non-events, but to produce more and better writing, and to consume better writing in preference to crap writing when you see it.

By: Tony E.

Tony E. — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 09:43:08 +0000

You think the typical Gamespot reader, who googles for a game and clicks on the link, is making a conscious decision to read corrupt reviews? I don’t think the question of corruption crosses the reader’s mind. Everyone knows about grade inflation, and they know “90″ doesn’t mean better than 90% of all games. They click the top-N list and look at the distribution.

Watershed changes in the white collar world of journalism don’t come about by people complaining about the status quo while tacitly supporting it. We need these kinds of things to rally around if we hope to make a real difference. I think this particular brouhaha may fizzle, but the next one will be stronger for it.

Someday we’ll get the kind of independence that automobile reviewers enjoy.

By: GregL

GregL — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 06:18:04 +0000

I’ve read Gamespot for years, not because I love every review, but because I have never found a better site that reviews every game for the platforms I care about (PC, Xbox, Wii, DS at the moment). With respect to the “scandal”, all the main game review sites are in the same boat as far as I can tell — they’re big sites with lots of ads from publishers. It could have happened to any of them, presumably.

As a corollary, I’d love to hear about a better site that systematically reviews games (or aggregates reviews from blogs like this one!), even if I’d need several sites to get the coverage I want — it just means a couple more feeds to add to Google Reader!