Gamespot exodus continues

[Blotus]

Gerstmann, Provo, Navarro, and now Ryan Davis. His blog:
http://www.arrowpointingdown.com/blog/


Departures within the last year:

Greg Kassavin
Carrie Gouskos
Rich Gallup
Jeff Gerstmann
Frank Provo
Alex Navarro
Ryan Davis


I used to be able to name damn near their whole editorial staff. Now the only ones I know of, or give a shit about, are Ricardo Torres, Ryan Macdonald, and Brad Shoemaker. I think we've come to the end of the resignations, however. Gerstmann, Navarro, and Davis were really tight. I do hope Shoemaker takes a job elsewhere, though (Ziff? C'mon....)

[RentCavalier]

Hmph.

This whole gamespot thing has left a bad taste in my mouth, but I'm comforted by the fact that I never really spent much time there anyway.

[Blotus]

I used to read it a lot for news and reviews.

But with sites like Kotaku and Joystiq, most news of note is compiled. As for reviews, like I said, I hardly know any of their writers anymore.

[Julius Seeker]

CNet are a bunch of idiots. The only place I can really see them going is IGN since it is the only site that they can get a platform to speak on as large as Gamespot. I would like to see them all form up and start a new site independent of CNet, I would say that with the proper investor they would easily become large enough.

[Blotus]

There may be something like that in the works.

[Andrew, Killer Bee]

I'm hoping for a new site. Gerstmann was editorial director at the most popular gaming website on the 'net. I can't imagine he'd have a lot of trouble raising VC if he wanted to start something new.

[Julius Seeker]

Does CNet own the rights to the name Videogamespot? No matter what happens, I just really hope CNet is made to regret their decision. Though there is a major problem, and that is gamefaqs which attracts an absolutely gigantic crowd, and it links directly to Gamespot.

Even though we do have disagreements on other sites, Gamespot has traditionally been one of everyones favourites. So it would be sad to see it all go away.

[Blotus]

Another. I wasn't very familiar with him, but I knew the name: reviewer Jason Ocampo.

http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/02/ano ... viewe.html

[SineSwiper]

Yep. People always get the occasional offer for one gig or another, but when you're job starts to suck or you fear for the state of the workplace, you start actually perking up at those offers.

[Eric]

http://kotaku.com/369519/another-gamespot-editor-quits

Another one down

As the dust on Gerstmann-gate has finally more than settled, another GameSpot staffer is exiting the building. As announced on GameSpot's podcast "HotSpot", Senior Editor Brad Shoemaker will be leaving the site this Friday. He's been working at GameSpot since 1999. Shame they never gave him a larger GIF image. We wish him luck in his future endeavors.

[Blotus]

That guy was great.

[Fea]

Just noticed that it hasn't been posted yet — http://www.giantbomb.com/

It's Gerstmann and Davis' new thing. Shaping up pretty nicely.

[Andrew, Killer Bee]

Oops, that was me.

[Eric]

http://kotaku.com/376217/the-man-who-fi ... een-sacked

When long-time GameSpot reviewer and editorial director Jeff Gerstmann was let go from the site last November—with sources pointing to his review of Kane & Lynch: Dead Men as the catalyst for his termination—fingers were also pointed at executive Josh Larson, VP of games at parent company CNET. Larson, who replaced former Editor in Chief Greg Kasavin, was implicated by anonymous GameSpot employees to have had the "church-and-state separation between the sales teams and the editorial team" "cracked" under his tenure. Whether the VP, Jeff's supervisor at the time, was the key decision maker in letting Gerstmann go we can't confirm, but we can confirm that Larson will be leaving the company next week.

Internal communication informing employees of the cut were forwarded to Kotaku last night, indicating that a "new management structure means that Josh Larson's position as VP, Games is being eliminated and Josh will be leaving the company." CNET announced last week that it would cut 10 percent of its work force, about 120 employees. We contacted GameSpot Editor in Chief Ricardo Torres to verify the news this morning.

Torres confirmed that Larson's last day would be April 9, but declined to comment much further on the restructuring, citing the "internal" nature of the news.

It was clear that, at the time, Larson's capabilities as editorial lead weren't well regarded by some of the GameSpot staff. The anonymous "gamespot" commented at sister site Valleywag that Larson was "a suit [...] who had no editorial experience and was only involved on the business side of things." The anonymous commenter lamented that the presence of the sales team had become much more visible under Larson's watch, with other contributors going on and off record with less than favorable comments of CNET management.

In the months that followed Gerstmann's dismissal, GameSpot lost a sizable portion of its editorial staff, with reviewers Alex Navarro, Frank Provo, Ryan Davis, Brad Shoemaker and Jason Ocampo leaving for other, sometimes unspecified opportunities. Torres told us that GameSpot continues to bring on new editorial talent and plans to continue its coverage "with the same breadth and depth we have in our previous 11 years."

[SineSwiper]

Eventually, karma punishes the wicked, especially when there are people higher up than you.

[Julius Seeker]

Just a note, it does not appear that Gamespot's traffic is being effected at all by any of this. Then again, they pull in a ton of viewers from Gamefaqs; but it doesn't even appear as though they've even suffered a dent.

[Blotus]

Just a note, it does not appear that Gamespot's traffic is being effected at all by any of this. Then again, they pull in a ton of viewers from Gamefaqs; but it doesn't even appear as though they've even suffered a dent.

True. I think most people who go there are just watching videos and looking at review scores and could care less about who's writing for them.



Also, Brad Shoemaker was on IGN's Gamesages and 1up's 1up Yours podcasts last week.

[SineSwiper]

By including GameFAQs in the figures, it makes the rest of GameSpot look like an ant, so you can't really tell if there's a dent or not.