ugachaka :: Jacob was here

It all started with a Kotaku post under “Rumor” that Jeff Gerstmann, longtime editor and game reviewer at Gamespot, had been fired because of pressure from Eidos, publisher of Kane & Lynch: Dead Men, after Gerstmann gave the game a 6.0/10. Eidos has a huge ad campaign running on Gamespot that had to be redirected from pointing to the review to pointing at the official Kane & Lynch site after word of the review score got out.

A Penny Arcade cartoon later, the Internet was full of gossip and no comments as everyone sought to get to the bottom of it all. The text review of the game was edited, and the video review disappeared under fishy circumstances.

Since then, there has been some moving and shaking, but nothing has been really determined. Gamers seem to be coming to a boil all over the Internet about this latest controversy because if indeed Gerstmann was fired mainly for not catering to the advertiser, it threatens game journalism’s integrity.

The most disturbing piece of the whole mystery comes from an anonymous commentator on Valleywag known as only “gamespot.” Kotaku summed up his several comments. Together, they paint the picture that Gamespot is becoming more and more advertiser-friendly and business-controlled with less editorial control. That’s not exactly what gamers want from their game review houses, so it is really getting people riled up now.

This whole situation is disgusting with each new bit of info popping out through the cracks. Enjoy your brand-building CNET family, you just pissed off your core readerbase. Have fun living that down. When you start wondering why your hits are plummeting into the crapper, just look back to this.

-Nikilii, commenter at Kotaku.com

My personal take on this whole situation is that there must be some hidden facts that we just don’t know yet about this situation. Even though the timing seems right if Gamespot was going to make a drastic move like this and get all the gamers upset–considering the big game push for the holidays is on a down swing–I don’t think that Gamespot would have overlooked the timing in relation to the Kane & Lynch fiasco. They would have had to realize that they should wait just a few weeks simply to offset any suspicious correlations.

Most journalistic institutions also understand the need to keep the business end of things away from the editorial side, and I wouldn’t jump to blame Gamespot of trying to combine the two until there was more hard evidence.

Rumor is that more will be heard officially on Tuesday.

Until then, gamers can only wait, argue and speculate over whether they should be suspicious of one of the major gaming hubs of the Web.

So I just became a commenter on Kotaku several days ago…longtime reader, first time commenter. Then I caught this incident…

The Kotaku bloggers themselves have posted several times about banning more people and banning this person or that person from commenting but never have I actually seen the post in question that got someone banned or the way they handle that person besides what they say publicly after the fact.

This blogger, smaller in publication audience than Kotaku, got some publicity when he actually posted about his whole experience including his email exchange with several of the head people over at Kotaku. I believe I first caught wind of it on digg–but I can no longer find the digg posting. Note that his blog post doesn’t allow comments either…sort of a black kettle situation there.

To sum up what happened, this commenter happened to comment on this thread at Kotaku a little harshly with the following:

BY SOULSCREMERETURNS AT 08/06/07 11:35 PM

Yes, there are many thieves in third world countries. How is this still news? Or even interesting?

The Kotaku blogger who posted the article, Luke Plunkett, then responded with the following:

BY PLUNKETT AT 08/06/07 11:46 PM

@soulscremereturns: Who the fuck are you? Why are you posting comments? Nobody finds you interesting.

A vengeful response if I have ever seen one.

When the commenter sought an answer to why exactly he was banned after that one comment, two of Kotaku’s editors responded with the following:

Ashcraft: “Yah, dude. That’s an instant ban. No ifs ands or buts about it. The last thing an editor wants to hear is why something has been posted. That’s why he went off on you.”

Crecente: “It has nothing to do with questioning our authority, it has to do with a pin head saying “how is this news”. How is that a comment? How does that bring anything relevant to the topic at hand? How is that anything but some dipshit spouting off because he thinks he has a soapbox to stand on?

Yours in christ”

Now taken that I know nothing specific about this situation other than what has been seen on Kotaku and the posting by the commenter who was banned, I cannot for sure say that this incident happened in the exact words that appear hear and in said commenter’s blog, but it certainly does seem possibly since the word choice and style of speaking seems consistent with the Kotaku editors.

Granted journalists are a sailor-like bunch and no one wants to hear someone question their newsworthiness, does banning someone after just one comment that was slightly harsh maintain the free flow of comments?

I guess it goes back to how you want to utilize blog comments. In my experience, most blogs want comments to generate conversation. Heavy moderation, in my belief, can threaten a free flow of conversation and delve into a more dictated comment stream. If someone is commenting worthless phrases and arguments–especially of a vulgar nature–it would be perfectly legitimate to remove them by banning. However, this commenter simply challenged the story almost out of a seeming boredom. If the blogger didn’t feel that his story stood up to the criticism of the blogger, then he shouldn’t have posted it, but if it did have news value, the blogger, Plunkett, really didn’t need to step up to the plate and attack the guy.

Yeah, the commenter was a little stupid, but he can be looked over at least once, can’t he? In removing him as a commenter when he *seemingly* has some knowledge on the subject of the thread, Kotaku may have taken from further discussion and questions.

Another angle on the whole incident is the way that the editors treated the commenter once he was banned. His pretty polite email inquiring as to why he was banned so quickly resulted in a bunch of namecalling and “you are a dumb for asking” from the entire editorial staff. In any other business, including most mainstream media, I would assume that the journalist or editor in question would at least provide one serious response without jumping on the person as a “dip shit” and pinhead. Yes, no nonsense is a great way to be, but the guy didn’t really deserve all the smashing of the head abuse that he got.

I am not hating on Kotaku at all. I guess just surprised the way the whole incident was handled. I like Kotaku and the writers there, but I never once assumed that they might be overstepping their needs with the banning–although they always seem very happy when they can ban someone.

Anyone in any other fields feel that this whole incident was over the top on Kotaku’s part? Or does anyone slightly doubt–as I might–the commenter who posted the entire incident? I now wonder how often this happens with Kotaku. I am sure as a big blog, you have to attack quickly to remove bad seeds from the community, but banning with such harsh replies seems unnecessary. I, however, am not such a big blog just yet, so I can’t really talk.

Kotaku posted today that the dev team over at Microsoft Game Studios has a playable version of Halo Wars to show the big wigs.

For those friends of mine who can’t stop playing Age of Empires unless there is Halo 2 multiplayer going on, this may ruin their lives.