Jeff Gerstman fired from Gamespot

[vulturesrow]

[ QUOTE ]
Dire, DVaut, you two Gents are correct.

In some ways this is like the rating scale for women.

Clearly 5 is the middle of the ground, completely average, etc... blah blah blah. But most people seem to say 7 is average, 8 is great, 9 is amazing, 10 is perfect. Its like numbers 1-6 are thrown away, or have equal value, which isn't true. So, yeah, those average games should be a 5, but come on, when they say 7, we know what they mean. Its average.

A rating on a scale means what people want it to mean. In this case, 7 out of 10 means average.

[/ QUOTE ]

Flawed analogy IMO. You only need a 3 point scale for women:

0, never; 1, after a few beers; 3, yes.

Questions? [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[Senor Cardgage]

Yeah, the tension between 5 or 7 being average seems to stem from school grading, IMO. When you're used to thinking of anything 60% or below as failing, it kind of makes sense.

I do wish the games were more spaced out, with 5 being around the mean. When the average game is around a 7, there's not as much space to differentiate between the good and great games.

[Blarg]

I like the 7 being construed as average because it applies so well to so many things in ways that actually matter. Though there may be large variations in the disgustingness of food or the unattractiveness of women, for instance, it doesn't really matter. The numbers lower than 7 are functionally identical if we discount the influence of alcohol. At which point we're past the ability to argue fine distinctions anyway.

[zyrrth]

Tycho (Penny Arcade) who got the story out:
It's been a couple weeks discussing reviews and reviewers around here, but somewhere along the way I neglected to mention that their job is essentially impossible. The 7-9 scale they toil under is largely the result of an uneasy peace between the business and editorial wings of the venue. No matter what score they give it, high or low, they're reviled equally by the online chorus. Apparently, even when they do it right they're doing it wrong.

Jeff Gerstmann is no stranger to controversy. In general terms, Gamespot can be relied upon to give high-profile games scores which are slightly lower than their counterparts elsewhere. It's almost as though there is an algorithm in place there to correct the heady rush associated with cracking open an anticipated new title. Gerstmann's 8.8 review of Twilight Princess cemented his reputation as a criminal renegade with no law but his own, even though he gave the game an 8.9 - a nine, essentially - out of ten.

I will tell you the Gerstmann Story as we heard it. Management claimed to have spoken to Jeff about his "tone" before, and no doubt it was this tone that created tensions between their editorial content, the direction of the site, and the carefully crafted relationships that allowed Gamespot to act as an engine of revenue creation. After Gerstmann's savage flogging of **** & *****, a game whose marketing investment on Gamespot alone reached into the hundreds of thousands, Eidos (we are told) pulled hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of future advertising from the site.

Management has another story, of course: management always has another story. But it's the firm belief internally that Jeff was sacrificed. And it had to be Jeff, at least, we believe, precisely because of his stature and longevity. It made for a dramatic public execution that left the editorial staff in disarray. Would that it were only about the 6.0 - at least then you'd know how to score something if you wanted to keep your Goddamned job. No, this was worse: the more nebulous "tone" would be the guide. I assume it was designed to terrify them.

For Gabriel, this tale proves out his darkest suspicions. People believe things like this anyway, but they don't know it, and the shift from intuitive to objective knowledge is startling. I think it rarely gets to this point. The apparatus is very tight: there are layers of editorial control that can massage the score, even when the text tells a different tale. A more junior reviewer might have seen their **** & ***** review streamlined by this process, divested of its worrisome angles and overall troubling shape. It was Jeff Gerstmann's role high in the site's infrastructure that allowed his raw editorial content to pierce the core of the business.

(CW)TB out.

[toss]

I really wished you played it if just for a little bit.

[cassette]

I liked that guy. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

[Khaos4k]

I think gamespy's scoring system is perfect. 5 star instead of 10 point or 100 point system. Average gets a 2.5-3.5 while great games get a 4 and game of the year candidates get 5's.

[zyrrth]

http://valleywag.com/tech/jeff-gerst...ter-328775.php

[GetThere1Time]

[Dire]

lol... wait. is that a photoshop?