The Jeff Gerstmann situation is something that seemed sort of inevitable to me. This sort of advertising-vs.-game reviews confrontation has been bubbling under the surface for years now, and it seems that Gerstmann is finally the turning point. No stranger to controversial reviews after he gave widely praised Zelda: The Twilight Princess an 8.8/10, his 6.0 score of Kane & Lynch: Dead Men stirred the pot again. His video review certainly didn't make publisher Eidos any happier. According to a Gamespot tipster, Eidos threatened to withhold hundreds of thousands or future advertising for the site unless something was done about the review, and complained of Gerstmann's negative "tone".
This conflict of interest has been a focal point of complaints about game reviews on Gamespot and other gaming news sources for years. Comments on message boards and letters to gaming magazines are constantly questioning the objectivity and fairness of various sites, claiming sites favor one company or another (usually between Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo) or give high profile games with big advertising budgets better reviews. This controversy is sure to only add fuel to the fire. Whether or not Gerstmann was the fall guy in this situation, the timing is definitely suspicious.
The controversy brings to mind another complaint that readers have had with game reviewers recently: the scores of reviews for games. What's the difference between a 7.5/10 and an 8/10? Does the number mean anything? Apparently yes, because reviews without some sort of final number are unheard of in the reviews industry, gaming and otherwise. So what determines that number? In Gerstmann's case, if he had given Kane & Lynch a 7.0 or 8.0/10, would he have been fired? How much do the review numbers effect game sales?
I'd like to think that the game reviews I read every day aren't effected by advertiser pressure or sales figures, especially from a large, highly respected site like Gamespot.com...but the reality, it seems, might be just that.
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