Jeff Gerstmann was fired from Gamestop, er, I mean Gamespot, over an impolitic and honest thrashing of 360 averagefest Kane and Lynch. The reason he was fired was because, among other things, Eidos, the publisher of Kane and Lynch, had paid an unholy amount of money to promote K&L with obtrusive site-skinning advertisments. Gerstmann's honest, accurate, if not completely disciplined review subsequently came out. Eidos went apoplectic at the indecorous lack of lack of quid pro quo (read: we gave you money, you go publish good review now). Ads were yanked, threats were made. GameSpot caved. Gerstmann was summarily fired. The last shredded ounce of journalistic integrity in the enthusiast gaming press fluttered away.
That much is the basic truth. Just pretend I dutifully inserted the word 'allegedly' before any and all statements that might require CYA. It's such a clunky word, 'allegedly.' It gets in the way.
The first thing that will fall out of the Gerstmann Scandal: it will blow over. Nothing will really change in the short-term. Everyone will go home and celebrate Christmas.
The second thing that will happen: game journalism will die. The very relational structure of the press has been sprained, and I doubt it's just going to manifest at GameSpot. I imagine everyone at 1up or IGN, anywhere, the next time they are stuck in a situation even 1/5 as severe as the fabled event, his name will be uttered with nervous laughter, and then things will start to creak. And then the reader will hear the creaks, and they'll quietly bolt.
Because it won't be big mean Eidoses and threatened mass-resignations that will kill it. The death will come via the Major Nelsons of the world. Fans turn to Major for their Xbox 360 content almost as often as they'll turn to one of the big news sites. In fact, the 'news sites' are usually feeding off the same teat, and then regurgitating a new HTML layout. If you're a fan, why not get it from the source (or an aggregate like Kotaku)?
That is the future of the fandom. The future is direct corporation-to-consumer communication. Folks like Bungie and Valve are already doing it, and other publishers, manufacturers, and developers alike have followed such models, on and off, for years (remember reading developers' .plan files, back in the day?).
Only now, it's really starting to take hold. Heck, the very week Gerstmann was fired, the new XBL Dashboard update dropped, and we now have even more convenient access to the Major. And the thing is, Major Nelson isn't bad. This new face of corporate shillery is much friendlier. Heck, he'll even toss around competing products in conversation. And compliment them. Just a little. Just a little. It's not so bad. At least when it's coming from the source, you know who's pocket is paying for the words.
So what then? What the hell will game journalists do? The only thing they can do: actually become journalists. Or, uh, 'die,' as my subject said, but rise again, as a phoenix from the ashes. We'll see more Investigative pieces. Meaningful opinions. Feature articles based on something other than screenshots.Sure, there will still be fluff, but whatever.
And game reviews. A new generation of game reviews. Naturally, reviews will be the last thing to change, due to the 'hotness' of publishing simultaneous to release. That hotness will fade, and when they do change, they'll finally become reviews. Not just buying guides. Reviews. Based on all-new conventions. For example, in the future, I expect that nobody will finish a game before reviewing it. In truth, you shouldn't have to. That 'completion metric' has always been horseshit. People will review it when they feel they've experienced enough. If Portal taught us anything, it's that 5 hours should be enough.
Game journalism will die. Long live game journalism. I can't wait.
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