118
Future of Giant Bomb website in doubt following prominent staff departures
(www.videogameschronicle.com)
this post was submitted on 02 May 2025
118 points (98.4% liked)
Games
38299 readers
1246 users here now
Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.
Weekly Threads:
Rules:
-
Submissions have to be related to games
-
No bigotry or harassment, be civil
-
No excessive self-promotion
-
Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts
-
Mark Spoilers and NSFW
-
No linking to piracy
More information about the community rules can be found here and here.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Wasn't the whole existence of Giant Bomb due to similar drama?
https://kotaku.com/yes-a-games-writer-was-fired-over-review-scores-5893785
Even going back to the 90s video game magazines and their reviews were ragged on as marketing material for publishers but there was still some semblance of reverence over the years for the big magazines and websites (IGN and Gamespot. Maybe 1Up). After the Kane and Lynch Gamespot review fiasco, that to me was when gamer internet discourse over game journalism tanked to ever worsening hostility towards games reporters/journalist.
That Kane and Lynch review scandal tanked Gamespots reputation. That was probably also the era of making fun of the game awards guy as the Dorito/Mountain Dew Pope with that Spike TV video game award show
The irony is outlets have never been more transparent about review process, embargoes, disclosures, etc. because of all that, and yet....
Can only lead a horse to water, though. A staggering amount of people can't tell the difference between independent reviewers and paid influencers.
The ~2010's, official game review scandal which all big videogame influencers like IGN, G4tv, Gamespot etc... (this was before instagram and tiktok) got bribed by corporations so the aftermath of that was splintergroups of indie review sites like GiantBomb. And so let's plays got born. Still never trusting triple-A game marketing ever again
Got any sources for that? Unless you think advertisement are bribes, this didn't happen.
Jeff was fired because he didn't want to change his low score for a Kane & Lynch game, after Gamespot was pressured by the publisher, who was running some huge ads on Gamespot. He also said that usually this doesn't happen, because the review side and marketing on these big sites are completely separate, and the reviewers don't hear of these complaints. In his case however, Gamespot had new execs, who got cold feet, and caved. They left shortly after.
I have never heard of anything else like this happening, except from angry fanboys, that think reviewers are on the take, when Zelda gets an 8.8.