Last winter GameSpot, one of the web’s largest video game sites, was embroiled in a scandal that led to the loss of a number of veteran employees and, as far as many gamers are concerned, any shred of credibility. On November 28 the site suddenly fired Editorial Director Jeff Gerstmann who had been with the site for over 10 years. Rumors soon emerged that Gerstmann had been fired for posting a lukewarm review for the game Kane & Lynch after the game’s publisher (and GameSpot advertiser) Eidos Interactive put pressure on the site to take action. In the subsequent months, GameSpot lost a number of its core staff who had been with the site for years.
Now Gerstmann has teamed with a handful of fellow GameSpot refugees to launch GiantBomb, a new videogame site that will feature both editorial content and a user-edited database of everything related to gaming. The site uses a powerful relational database that Gerstmann says will give users the tools to create professional entries, while still allowing administrators to effectively monitor edits.
One of the biggest problems with modern gaming sites (advertiser controversy aside) is that they tend to cover absolutely every game. Gerstmann says that his small team (3 writers and a video guy) will acts as a video game “strike team”, forgoing the overabundance of news found on sites like IGN and Gamespot in favor of articles related to only the most important issues in gaming.
These gaming articles and reviews will complement the site’s encyclopedia, which features entries on individual games, their characters, items, and a number of other elements. The site hopes to become a definitive resource for games, and while some might say such a resource is totally unnecessary (why should we care how many games Mario has appeared in?), gamers are generally a passionate crowd.
Gerstmann’s experienced team will be facing long odds – the gaming space is very crowded, and is dominated by a number of well established players like Kotaku, IGN, and GameSpot. That said, GiantBomb may well turn into a place for gamers “in the know”, who respect the team’s experience and are ready for a change.
good idea. wish I’d thought of that.
I am glad to see that Gerstmann has found something better to move on to; when Gamespot revealed themselves as the corporate shills they are they also proved themselves not worthy of an editor of his caliber anyway. Plus, Kane and Lynch really did suck.
Gamers will definitely attack this site. 24/7 at least when they are not gaming lol.. http://blabtech.blogspot.com
Techdude, I think I glimpsed a few articles between the millions of ads your “blog” displays, but I’m not too sure.
“Gerstmann’s experienced team will be facing long odds”
Not so much, I think. Those guys have a BIG fanbase and cred in the industry as I’ve known it. Their fans saw this coming. And this is what the Spot should have grown to be.
I was looking forward to the launch of Giant Bomb, just thinking it would be gaming review/vidcast site with some balls. But the wiki/community portion of the website is a wonderful surprise.
I’m sure this will be a great endeavour for Gerstmann, Davis and the rest of the team.
I like this concept, it is funny
brian
http://www.them...rfulcompany.com
I really wish them well…they know their stuff and I’m sure they’ll be succesful!
After the firing fiasco I’ve rarely go to Gamespot for gaming news, but rather go to Kotaku, or listen to Giantbomb, Games for Windows Gametheory and PC Gamer podcasts (all are excellent).
IMHO Gamespot has really lost its way… whilst it’s a well designed site, if you can’t trust the content to be unbiased and opinionated, then it’s far less attractive…
I love how gamespot is listed as a “well established player” – duh, this is the company they are coming from, no?
Hmmm, seems redundant. I wonder how much of the nerd/fanboy crowd will gravitate to this. Seeing as how there are already more established and filled game databases/wikis. This smells of hot name=sellout to me. Future publishing has been making some buys maybe this would look good on their plate. I wont deadpool this. Yet….
Credibility is everything in gaming, This guy became an overnight star, and hero to all gamers overnight because of what happened at GameSpot and everyone knows his name. I suspect this will be a quick success due to these two things.
Why are these startup companies always compared to the biggest of the industry? Gamespot & ign employ hundreds of people, they don’t need to be as big as them to be considered successful. The site looks impressive so far and the users seem very active.
To bad this fiasco has caused Gamespot’s page views to go up and not down.
he was a nutcase who ‘reviewed’ games without opening the box, a god in his own long lunch hours. giant bomb is a perfect name for his site.
They got the right name alright watch it “bomb” and it will be a “giant” one as well,just because you got some kind of following or credibilty does not mean you will succeed although it helps.
Are they going to use an open content encyclopedia, like Wikipedia? or is it a closed one?
It’d be interesting to see something similar where users can add hints and tips too.
FYI, GiantBomb runs off the same codebase as the well-established http://www.comicvine.com/
Michael, How about doing a piece on Whiskey Media and there plans? They seem to be building a very powerful platform. They’ve got decent pedigree. Can we expect other sites like politicalbase.com and comicvine.com in the near future ?
The search for “gamespot” on google had dropped recently and it might that Gamespot lost its edge in the gaming industry.