It’s not often that you witness a company self-destruct, but that seems to be what is happening with game publisher Eidos and hard-core gaming portal GameSpot. Eidos seems to have committed a great deal of its budget into their new FPS Kane & Lynch for the holiday season. I’ve seen commercials for this game on Space TV, but really wasn’t aware of what it was until the current scandal started, infact I thought it was somehow religious (i.e., Cain), but perhaps I got it confused with Assassin’s Creed.

This holiday season seems to have a cornucopia of “great” games, which even though I won’t play any of them, I’ve read all about. Think Mass Effect (again first heard about on TV), the aforementioned Assassin’s Creed (which is really due to the Jade Raymond scandal), Call of Duty 4, Super Mario Galaxy, Guitar Hero 3, Rock Band, Bioshock etc etc. Because there are so many great games, it’s difficult for a game without a lot of hype to get awareness and to bank the lucrative gift-giving season. So it’s not surprising to see Eidos market the hell out of Kane & Lynch, such as splattering their ads all over GameSpot.

What kicked off the debacle was the less-than-favorable review that Jeff Gerstmann, a 10-year veteran at GameSpot, wrote giving a 6/10 to the game. Surely a bomb in the video game ratings world. After a couple of weeks delay, Gerstmann was fired and the issue blew up in the face of GameSpot and Eidos when Penny Arcade posted a comic about Gerstmann. It may be a coincidence that is being overblown, but the negative reviews have been cleaned up, and anonymous insider accounts have given some compelling evidence of wrongdoing, centered around the issue that the new Editor-In-Chief seems to be more favorable to the Sales department that maintaining editorial integrity.

This has led to a devaluation of the GameSpot brand, as well as its parent, CNet, as people are beginning to boycott their services. It’s tough though as CNet is well diversified in its properties, owning MetaCritic, GameFAQs, download.com, mp3.com, tv.com, to name a few. However my guess is that the long term effect will reside with Eidos and game (and other media) reviews in general. This issue has focused the spotlight on Eidos and other shady practices are becoming apparent, including their manipulation of game (p)reviews by misquoting and displaying fake 5-star reviews. Along with movie studios using invented critics and publishers paying for book blurbs from well-known authors, it should be evident that there is substantial bias in “positive reviews” of entertainment.

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: advertising, games, scam