In a conversation earlier today with a colleague, and one of my mentors, I came to think a little bit about the depth of harm that has really been done to the CNet / Gamespot reputation by Jeff Gerstmann’s firing. The evidence? Its nearly a year later (the original firing was in November 2007), and I am still thinking about it enough to be writing about it.
For those unfamiliar with the controversy and the original events, I invite you to read through the Kotaku coverage on the subject. It’s as good as any. In particular, I would like to direct you to two of my favorite pieces of media that illustrate the situation in a non-traditional way: Penny-Arcade’s comic on the subject, and the “JFG” movie which was a modification of Oliver Stone’s JFK, brilliantly redone for the subject.
The Internet goes Nuts
… And I don’t mean nuts in a “lets all go frantically active” context as sometimes the phrase is used, but more in the “dial 911 and get an officer over here to arrest this crazy sucker” tone of nuts. Jeff published a review and accompanying video review on a game called Kane and Lynch. The game was just mediocre. Jeff rated the game honestly and the treatment in the video review was in Jeff’s characteristically irreverent sarcastic tone reserved for games which have truly messed up in some way.
Jeff was fired soon thereafter.
The review (video and text) were immediately removed from the site.
The reviews were edited (some might say censored and re-cast in a positive light) and re-posted in their modified format without any indication that a modification had occurred.
Enter the crazy mob of homicidal insanity.
Within hours, the Eidos and Gamespot forums were either closed or were actively removing any posts from anyone on the subject. Gamespot users had added user tags to related articles both to the firing and to the review such that the overwhelming majority of the first 50 tags were user-selected and highly negative. A storm of requests to delete accounts were immediately evidenced on the Gamespot premium users’ forums to the editor. A series of death threats were made to Gamespot’s other editors and any webmaster and advertising email addresses exposed on the website.
Virtually every other gaming site across the Internet was enveloped with the news and the response for days with equally vitriolic commentary to the articles.
The Economics of Gaming Sites
A disclaimer: I am not an accountant, an economist, nor have I ever been a senior manager for any games site. I have however worked for a small game development firm who has advertised with Gamespot in the past and have been involved with both Gamespy and IDGA for a while.
The gaming user audience is a rich demographic in two ways: they have a high level of technical knowledge which allows advertisers to use much more rich media experiences and they also have a deep propensity for spending hard earnings on hardware and software products. Even more than an equivalent sized audience of IT professionals, the gaming enthusiast segment drives money into the top tier of technology products and associated Internet related gadgets at a phenomenal rate to the point of having a dedicated market of hardware for that segment.
Gaming sites depend on Developers and Publishers for information. When a game is in the development stages, or in beta, or in demo, or about to go retail, the only legal source for a game site to obtain information, screenshots, or even a copy of the game is the developer or publisher of the title looking to build buzz and positive coverage on the title. This deep content based on a network of positive relationships then builds the basis for a community to evolve and build around. It is this kind of user interaction that drives the greatest portion of page impressions for a site which in turn makes uses of ads and premium position content on a site for that site’s advertisers.
The problem where the economics runs into trouble then becomes that these same sponsors for the most part ARE the same developers and, more often, publishers which are investing in reaching that gaming audience! IN addition to the traditional banner ads that are omnipresent throughout the Internet, a modern gaming site has the capacity to build further on the content positioning in front of the users beyond the standard ad models. The very positioning of where a review is carried can make a difference in how much traffic the game will receive in the site content, for example. Companies can pay for better placement on the homepage or on the entry page for a sub-section.
Other rich media, too, can be bought. The very user interface of the site, for example can be re-“skinned” for non-subscribing users of the Gamespot website. These users can be presented with “roadblock” type near-full-screen advertisements before they get to a designated piece of content. Before and during a download, users can be presented some content about a particular game, your game, for a fee. Companies can even pay to “surround” a page with their content. Think the PS 3 games launch. Wouldn’t it be great if a company like Microsoft could surround the PS 3 launch page with images of the Xbox 360 and some advertisements for the console? That’s exactly what they did.
The Trains, They Are Colliding
To be clear, everything discussed to this part is normal and acceptable. Gaming sites and magazines all require content from the people who hold that content. They also sell rich advertising to the companies which want to get product in front of gamers. The conflict of interest is obvious but so long as the editing is un-linked from advertising, this relationship can sometimes be uncomfortable but can be maintained. For years, for example, oddities have appeared in magazines where an editor will have trashed a game in a review and on the opposing page, advertising has just happened to make that page the placement for an advertisement touting the same game title.
In Gamespot’s case, this line appears to have been well and truly crossed last year. Eidos has openly admitted to threatening to change the nature of their advertising relationship with Gamespot over the incident. A VP at Gamespot, the VP of advertising in fact, who already had a weak reputation with the editors, stepped in and arranged for Jeff to be let go over a consistent pattern of a perceived negative tone in the editing of the site and the articles he was responsible for.
It was this irreverent tone and solid review scores that constructed the trust of the community in the site in the first place!
In the next 5 days, Gamespot issued 2 separate PR attempts to control the situation, at first issuing no additional details, and the second time an obvious marketing-written carefully-worded commentary which denied everything the community was concerned about but felt like press-release toilet paper.
The Fallout
In the past year, 6 additional Gamespot editors have left specifically indicating this firing as one of the factors in their leaving Gamespot. CNet, the parent company of Gamespot sent in another VP to investigate the possibility of an ethics compromise. The VP of advertising who instigated Jeff Gerstmann’s firing was fired himself in April 2008.
If nothing else, by these actions, the gaming community’s assertion that there was a credibility and ethics gap here in the first place seems to have been validated.
Captaining the Obvious
There were some key lessons learned here. The first is that gaming sites need to be more transparent in the way that certain types of operations are handled. There needs to be a formal and publicly posted ethics policy on how the relationship between content and advertisement is allowed to work and specifically stating that advertisers may not have input into the operational aspects of the personnel of the site or the policies by which articles may be published.
To put it bluntly, don’t expect to screw over a popular writer in the full light of day and somehow act surprised when your audience does not like watching that. The statement that you cannot comment on the details of a personnel decision will do absolutely nothing to ameliorate the situation. To this day, I am unaware of a mea culpa from Gamespot in this matter in any published medium aside from the behind-the-scenes actions in which they certainly appear to have recognized the problem.
Publish the policy where your editors are and are not allowed to comment on something. Have something to point to. If Gamespot had come out early and said that “here are some of the things we take issue with and hence we feel this is justified”, the situation might have been a whole lot different. Sure, maybe its FUD, but don’t stay silent. At the very least have something to point to that says that “this is why I can’t talk about what is going on, here is the detail I can give, and that’s all I can say according to policy, sorry”.
Transparency is key and ethics should be non-negotiable.
The trust of the gaming community was harmed and we are a fickle crowd. Here it is 10 months later and I still cannot trust Gamespot again.
It probably doesn’t help that for the 10 months since the firing, Gamespot has consistently been reviewing games higher than comparable outlets according to metascore – an influence of advertisers and an ad-motivated firing? I’ll leave that for you to decide.