Jeff Gerstmann Finally Speaks

Even though this story continues to be about as unrelated to role-playing games as you can get, I think it’s worth keeping tabs on the whole GameSpot fiasco. If a little extra coverage helps expose a company’s shady dealings and assists in keeping mainstream game reviews legitimate, that can only be a good thing, right?

Anyway, the guys at Joystiq were able to have a little chat with Jeff Gerstmann about his termination of employment from GameSpot, allegedly due to advertiser pressure over his low review score of Kane & Lynch: Dead Men. Though there are legal reasons why he can’t come completely clean, his comments certainly don’t dispel any of the rumors:

“Losing a job you’ve held for over 11 years in an abrupt manner is shocking, yes.”

…

“I stand behind my work, regardless of where I do it,” Gerstmann told Joystiq in an e-mail. “If there was content that I felt I couldn’t support, it wouldn’t see the light of day.” Gerstmann did not comment specifically on the edits made to his text review of Kane & Lynch, or the site’s removal of the video review, but he did support the editing process in general. “If factual errors are made, I have no problem owning up to that error, correcting it, noting that a correction has been made, and feeling like an idiot for making the mistake in the first place,” he said.

Gerstmann also directly addressed the somewhat pernicious rumor that he did not complete Kane & Lynch before he finished his review. “A reviewer’s Xbox Live Gamercard is rarely a good place to look for answers about how much that reviewer has (or hasn’t) played a game,” he said. “For the record, I saw both endings in Kane & Lynch before writing about it.”

Just out of curiosity, what “legal reasons” would he be bound by here? Unless he signed something while accepting some sort of separation package, I don’t see why he couldn’t speak his mind.