Jeff Gerstmann's Shadow

I have to say that as fucked up as the situation appears to be, I am encouraged by the tide of popular support for Jeff and the sheer rage that is burning up the message boards right now. I am appreciative of responses like N'Gai's blog post, and by 1UP's sincere show of support for GameSpot editorial.

I don't know if there is a way to escape the system so eloquently described (with an edge of pure fury) by N'Gai. I'm not sure that other entertainment media have successfully broken the ties to their advertisers. If gaming press can secure non-endemic advertising that could be one way. Or if they drop review scores, then they would also drop out of the publisher's radar and be free to write whatever they wish.

Hm.

Comments

[Astromantic]

I think, on a lark, the enthusiast press should switch to text-only reviews and let the accompanying numeric score be set by the users only. The publishers can then really learn what good PR means when the all-important Metacritic/Gamerankings average is determined by a gaming audience largely allergic to BS.

[Tim!]

Penny Arcade and The Escapist seem to be evidence that you can support your media empire with gaming ads but also have (apparently) quite a bit of independence in terms of giving your opinions.

Of course, both of these publications are web-only and both offer a lot of compelling content that is not pure previews/reviews content. I'm really not sure if Zero Punctuation is really the model for future successful gaming reviews, though it is hell of awesome.

Maybe this is the problem that the bulk of gaming press face? When your content is almost entirely made up of reviews and previews with your competitive advantage over the other publications being exclusive previews or exclusive reviews then you are in a tough position when it comes to relationships with publishers of games.

But if your site is coming from a position of strength through high eyeball numbers that are not dependent on your ability to secure exclusives, then maybe the situation gets turned around. That seems to be the Penny Arcade success model at any rate.