Petition to Remove GameSpot and its Sponsors from Metacritic

The author of the petition writes: "We the games community, based on the recent events that have transpired with the game review conglomerate GameSpot.com hereby present the following petition to Metacritic's chief operations officer in charge of content.

On November 29, 2007 GameSpot.com fired its chief editor in charge of game reviews Jeff Gerstmann. Because of a number of issues relating to game reviews, a number of employees left GameSpot completely even while their reviews are still up on that site. In the process, it became immediately clear that GameSpot's reviews are largely inconsistent as well as possibly fraudulent for certain games across all platforms.

We as gamers can not, and will not tolerate shady business practices in the video games industry as in the end that ruins gaming for everyone who will not tow the line".

[FirstknighT]

You sony fanboys need to stop crying and whining so much.

"We as gamers can not, and will not tolerate shady business practices in the video games industry as in the end that ruins gaming for everyone who will not tow the line".

Yet it's okay for Sony to lie about rumble and the numerous price cuts???

Big babies!

[shmee]

GS will now be an unbiased site and wont be giving subpar x360 games good scores and vice versa to ps3 games.

Is it okay for MS to sell their defective and low powered x360s????

good job CNET . now fire AARON THOMAS

[ruibing]

What does this have to do with Sony? All that happened when GS gave R&C one of the lowest scores is a bunch of PS3 fans cancelled their accounts, which they had every right to. No one was fired, because it was just a protest at the ridiculous score. This time its about marketing versus journalism, a completely different issue.

I know from all your previous posts that you despise Sony and the PS3, but there is no need in trying to shift blame to it like this. The price cut was simply their strategy of increasing sales, you can't honestly have thought any business would ever plan something like that. And I hardly recall any of you questioning the morality of MS when they never really acknowledged the RRoD issue, and they simply extended the warranty (though a little too late for some fans if I recall correctly) and offered the Falcon SKUs with the bundled games (a little too late for the millions who bought the early SKUs). Please don't play the blame game, trust me on this.

[aaquib5]

I bet they planned to keep the price point at $500 and $600, but due to lackluster sales they had to drop the price. Am I pissed? A bit, but essentially it leads to more consoles sold, which leads to more publishers feeling comfortable making PS3 games, which means to more exclusive games.

[Zhuk]

While I agree the fandroids have failed to keep Sony accountable for all their lies and deceit which has harmed the gaming industry throughout the years, I think we have to come together as gamers and try our best to make Gamespot pay for the things they have done.

Xbots and fandroids unite to get rid of this cancer on the gaming industry

[Mr PS3]

You have just proved that you are indeed the biggest pile of cr*p walkin the earth
now go and pull your bottom lip over your forehead and swallow

[Bubble Buddy]

FirstknighT your mom's calling, she's done your laundry

[The Killer]

but i just signed in for the petition and i am number 496!! i think everybody should sign! it really hurt the industry, for a moment forget about ur 360 and think of the big picture, many people wont spend money on ps3 because their games have low scores, it doent mean they will go and buy 360 some probably will, but some will just wait and let many companies loose money or dont get enough money by making ps3 games(or ported) and that hurt everybody including 360! because the companies wont spend extra cash for making a AAA game!

this is what i wrote for the petition:

GS is for a long while so bias in their reviews especially for ps3 games reviews

its time to stop this kind of bias against any console or games, it hurt the industry a lot, people when they see low scores for ps3 games probably wont buy ps3 thus they wont spend money for game companies.

[shysun]

How did Sony lie about a Price cut?

[Chubear]

Yes that's all very well and all but if gamers don't understand that gamespot isn't the only one doing this and that ALL major gaming sites do it then it's all futile and means nothing at all.

How's it help to kill just one snake biting you and leave the 9 others alone? It makes no sense. If you're serious, you'd kill them all.

[Garrison]

Just so you guys know. And btw those xbot trolls crack me up, they show up in every possible thread out here with xbox domination propaganda. Really, you almost couldn't even pay someone for such loyal advertising. Gates got you guys covered? lol

[The Killer]

yes i know, but i will do what i can do!
gamespot is kind of the leader of the 9 other snakes hopefully by killing the leader the others well start respecting them selfs!!
1UP is similar to gamespot but by doing this to game spot i hope the others will back down somewhat.

gamespot is(was) a big gaming site that many respected including me but not after the ps3 launch!! 1UP and other let them do what ever they want! they are not that big and i hope this incident will teach them a lesson!

[BrianC6234]

What a gay petition. Sony never said anything about the lame review of R&CF. Gamers were up in arms and Jeff Gerstmann deserved to be fired over that whole debacle. He gave the game to that loser Aaron Thomas to review. A sports game nut. Good thinking Jeffy. I'm happy you lost your job. Now Aaron Thomas must go too.

[led1090]

this is seriously getting out of hand i think i mean cancelling subscriptions is fine but i think signing petitions n all is a bit too much

[actas123]

couldn't agree more. But, there are too many people that are bored to death nowadays,Except for Microsoft refurbishing shop they are always busy.

[radzy]

kane & lynch is on both ps3 and xbox360 consoles. Why are the sony fanboys making it out to be against ratchet it clank. gamespot has always been harsh with reviews because they expect more from games and give a proper review. i finished kane and lynch on my xbox 360 (did both endings) and i totally agree with jeff. that game is so badly put together (controls and gameplay and a.i. ) , i dont know why it wasnt delayed. nevertheless i loved the game , if it was put together properly i think it would have got 10's all round.
so you sony fanboys should stop making it out that it was because of ratchet and clank, and stop claiming that "haha , we got him fired"
just face it , games on the ps3 arent up to par with the xbox 360 games. now you ps3 fanboys are trying to do a partition, wtf. how old are you all, really? grow the f...k up.
if ratchet and clank was such a ten out of ten game , then why sales of the game are sooooo poooor.

[joten]

Wtf are you talking about? You're right Kane & Lynch is a multi-platform game and that guy got fired over that, but no one ever said he got fired over a Ratchet and Clank review. He gave it a low score when it deserved better which is widely known, and then said the reason it was so low was because it had too much variety. Does that make sense to your little Xbox fanboy mind? And ps3 games aren't sub par with 360 games is untrue. Resistance, Ratchet, Uncharted, Warhawk, Folklore and others are UNHYPED games that are really good. I'm not a fanboy or anything, but it's dumb, close-minded people like you that give the gaming industry a bad name. Maybe someone should start a petition that locks your IP address from every website on the internet because that'd make more sense to me than this petition.

[UnblessedSoul]

Why is everyone still going on about this, get over it you cry babies

[aaquib5]

Cnet Networks owns Gamespot and Metacritic. Cnet isn't stupid, and they wouldn't harm their own company.

[ReBurn]

This would be a lot more effective if it weren't an online petition and if people actually knew what happened instead of responding to rumor and speculation. The people involved aren't talking, so all of the information available is coming from the blogosphere. And we all know how accurate that is.

But since when does the internet hate machine need fact?

[cloud360-7th_account]

Does this person know that Cnet and Gamespot own metacritic

[Zhuk]

obviously not, but nonetheless a strong show of solidarity cannot hurt

[Chubear]

..when they all do the same thing - IGN, gamespro, gamestrailers, EGM, 1UP. They all cater to PR groups on games and they do it to compete.

Gamespot isn't the only one at all, they're just the only ones that sliped and were caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

If gamers are saying gamespot should be removed then other major gaming sites should be too cause they all have the same business module.

[RadientFlux]

Wow talk about pointless petition, it's not like Metacritic even matters.

Buy/Rent/Borrow make you own decision don't allow your enjoyment of a game to be affected by someone else's review.

[Chubear]

in this world the vast majority of the gaming community are sheep to editorial reviews and go by them religiously.

Idiotic uh? yes it is but that's the stat of our community. We can say "try the games yourselves!!!!!" all we want it's just not going to happen.

Like I said, the vast majority of the gaming community are total mindless sheep to reviews and these gaming sites and PR groups know this that's why they can spew what ever BS they want about a game and don't need to fear that they'll be held accountable.

[dhammalama]

If the site is slamming games due to marketing pressures or financial backer, than it's wrong and it has to stop. But I don't know the whole story.

NEW* Killzone 2 Screenshots *(Just as new as the ones in the previous story!! aka, not new just taken from the existing videos)
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[TheMART]

Oh come on. If you want to remove Gamespot from Metacritics, don't forget to remove Play Magazine (they give 100% score to PS3's games like it's nothing) and more of those.

Please. Gamespot did fack up with Gerstman, but that happens more in the industry. That's why averaged reviews on Metacritic/Gamerankings are important. They flat out overrating/underrating by biased reviewers by the large amount of reviews.

[Foliage]

While you are at it remove:

Official Xbox Magazine
MS Xbox World
Planet Xbox 360
Team Xbox
Xbox 360 Advanced
Xbox World 360 Magazine UK
Official Xbox Magazine UK
360 Gamer Magazine UK
XboxAddict

For increasing the average rating of subpar games with nothing more than fanboy biased ratings, some of which give away perfect scores to the most average games.

[xplosneer]

and Sonydefenseforce.com. Please. I only own a PS3 and I hate that site.

[Sarick]

When I see ratings from a magazine or site that isn't multplatform I expect better reviews.

I'll try and explain this. Reviews from a 360 site rate their games vs other 360 games. With a multiplatform site games are rated vs. other games and the consoles their used on. This could mean a company cuts scores on one console and inflates them on another. It's like this R&C reviewer who is a sports reviewer trying to give fair reviews to a platformer. It just doesn't work IMHO.

With a site or magazine dedicated to your console the reviewers are less likely to judge a game on what console it's developed on and more along the lines of how well it stacks up against other titles on its own console.

No matter how hard people try and deny it everyone has their favorite console or playstyle in some fashion. If you have one guy review the same game on 2 consoles sometimes they'll discuss how one is inferior etc. etc. If I don't own that console I really don't care. As long as It's similar in entertainment value i'm fine with it being compaired to other similar titles on that platform.

I'm interested more on how games on a single platform stack up on that console more then how popular a console is to a reviewer.

If this is what it takes to make reviews fair then by all means take a stand for what you believe in. ^.~

[Vojkan]

Yeahheyyy! Now same 100 people will sign that petition. and thats it, nice.

[gamesblow]

Removing Gamespot isn't going to help... Cnet and Microsoft own both meta and gamerankings... So nothing passes the test that they don't want. Reviews from paid sites are all a wash. User reviews and independent websites are where you go now. Simple as that. Ign, 1up and the whole lot are all scams.

You're going to see low scores just for spite now... just to prove a point. Wait and see.

[Chubear]

At least ONE gamer sees this. Gosh there MIGHT be hope for the gaming community yet... I hope.

[Foliage]

It's so obvious how anyone can predict the next move by these guys. Get ready for the 6/10 ratings. And when it happens just know that a few people called it, and that their reviews (opinions) were in fact predetermined once again.

[Sarick]

I think what really needs done is to limit big brother companies and let the gaming public rate the games they've actually played.

Letting big corporate companies like Cnet or Ign decide how good a game is based on 1 or two professional reviewers allows outside advertiser to influence ratings.

If your getting your paycheck from CompanyX or have invested interests in it, are you really going to ruin it's reputation?

Real players decide what they want and sales figures are the best method of purchase decisions I've seen yet. I think that is what happened here a bunch of players disagreed with multiple reviews. If your customers aren't happy the fastest way to make them happy is to make it look like your fixing things.

In this case it has backfired and created a controversy.

[OpiZA]

Bizarre.

[ThisIsWaiting]

its interesting ... for as much as I read 'I never pay attention to reviews anyway' on this site ... there's a whole lot of people b*tchin about this.

[LJWooly]

It's the same everywhere,ThisIsWaiting. You constantly hear "I hate Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo and the PS3/X360/Wii, yet they show up IN EVERY DAMN ARTICLE about the console they hate, b1thching. Someone should start a petition about THIS site, for christ's sake.

[LJWooly]

I mean, sure, gerstmann shouldn't have been fired, but he was pi55ing a lot of people off, including me.
This happens so much in the games industry, why are we making such a big deal out of this instance?
Microsoft backstab and cheat and f*ck up so often it's not even funny, but on every instance, people just laugh about it and dismiss it as another of "Microsoft's Antics". And yeah, Sony make tons of false promises all the friggin' time. I mean, sure, in the end they deliver, but it gets frustrating. But no-one seems to care. It just seems to me that Gamespot are getting too much of a hammering for this. Sure, management was in the wrong, but when the site's credibility gets damged this much, it starts to affect the jobs of the employees, people are taking this too far, let it go already.

[felidae]

fvck gamespot

fvck reviews

fvck the internet

fvck fanboys

... oh, and btw, fvck Mass Effect - the biggest next-gen disappointment ever. the framerate goes below 15fps and the environment graphics are just really really bad. after 18 hours i finished the game and i thought: WTF? This is Mass Effect? 360's days are over, i think i will sell mine. ps3 is the future

[ThisIsWaiting]

I really dont think anyone cares if you are going to sell your 360.

[Foliage]

I'm sure Microsoft and the Bill Gates Bunker Buddies around here care a lot.

[ThisIsWaiting]

I really dont think so.

[ArmrdChaos]

This little statement here:

"... oh, and btw, fvck Mass Effect - the biggest next-gen disappointment ever. the framerate goes below 15fps and the environment graphics are just really really bad. after 18 hours i finished the game and i thought: WTF? This is Mass Effect? 360's days are over, i think i will sell mine. ps3 is the future."

would put you in this catagory by your own words...

"fvck fanboys"

so by the transitive property you are really saying you need to go "fvck yourself".

[happygamer]

blackout monday dont join in on gamespot dont visit support jeff day!

[Winter47th]

Signed brotha, #515

[Hayabusa 117]

Honestly, who gives a sh1t...

[Tsukasah]

I say we should shut down ALL major game reviewing companies, leave the minor ones, and let new ones join. Someone just needs to get a group of friends, about 2000 in donations, and a web domain. Buy a 360, a PS3, and a Wii, and with the remaining money buy the games!! Have one friend who's a 360 fanboy just review the 360 games, another who is a Wii fanboy review the wii games, and same with the PS3. Eventually hire other people, get more donations! :D

I'd do it myself but I'm only 15.. :P

[IGNFTW]

ONE DOWN,*LOOKS AT 1UP.COM*,ONE MORE TO GO.

[happygamer]

http://www.gamespot.com/pag...

[Ghoul]

lol metacritics and gamespot is owned bith by cnet

sure guys go ahead sign a petition that wants someone to shutdown its own subcompany

hilarious

[snipermk0]

you stupid dikes! metacritic is a part of gamespot! They're all owned by the same Cnet entertainment company!

[ironwolf]

I suggest they learn the difference between "tow" and "toe". Obviously attended or attends a public school.

[Antiomo]

I dont pay attention to gamespot's scores anymore, I just use their site to view some videos.

I knew something was fishy ever since xbox came out, refer to perfect darks review. My god that game was crap, but they made it sound too good.

[ElementX]

This is so lame. GS reviews are generally lower, not higher than other sites (from what I've seen they're more critical). It's not like companies are giving money for their games to get a higher score.

[The_Engineer]

this goes to show you just how dumb fanboys can be

CNET Networks Entertainment GameSpot | GameFAQs | Metacritic | MP3.com | TV.com

TAKEN DIRECTLY FROM METACRITICS FRONT PAGE,NOW WE ALL KNOW WHO OWNS CNET. ITS NOTHING BUT UNDECOVER XBOT SITES, XBOTS LIKE MART WHO COME IN HERE USING THEIR CRAP ALL THE TIME KNOW EXACTLY WHAT THEY ARE DOING, THOSE PS3 OWNERS OR SUPPORTERS OUT THERE WHO TAKE THE TIME TO ARGUE INTENTIONALLY LOW SCORES FOR PS3 GAMES FROM ANYONE OF THOSE SITES ARE AS DUMB AS THE XBOTS ARE.

[FCOLitsjustagame]

If you remove Gamespot then you need to remove almost all the major game sites and especially the magazines. Especially anything that has Sony, microsoft or nintendo references like Playstation magazine or OXM. Or any TV show like gamehead and xplay.... The only sites that you would have left are the little "independant" sites, which are just mostly fanboys spreading their own opinion so why is that better?

Gamespots reviews are almost always in line with other review sites and with the fan reviews on the site. Occassionally a reviewer will see things differently then others and post their opinion about it... and then people scream of bias. But if their opinion was always that of everyone else, people would scream bias. Nothing can be done that would satisfy everyone.

Gamespot should stay part of Metacritic just like all the other sites. You can look at the average score and user reviews and actually try READING some of the reviews and you will get an idea what sites represent your opinion the best and you can get a sense of the games this way.

[supnub5]

cnet owns metacritic and gamespot so wtf, maybe not anymorfe

[Jamaicangmr]

What good will this do? Does anyone really think that they can get CNET or whoever owns gamespot to close it down because of this? Let channel our energy somewhere else guys this is silly.

[Bnet343]

CNET owns Meta, GR, and Gamespot ... frikkin moron

[TheHater]

Why isn't there a petition to remove Gamespot from the web?

[squirrelly89]

Uh, Metacritic is owned in part by CNet....could be wrong but I read an article yesterday bout that.

Disagree all you want it is the truth. Troll the forums on N4G to get that confirmation!! Also look at NeoGaf forum about removal of all CNet sites and you will plainly see MetaCritic as one of their properties!! Pwned again!

[ArmrdChaos]

They have no validity or credibility in the eyes of organizations. You have people that populate them with crap names and there is absolutely nothing to prove those you signed it actually signed it. A real petition usually has the person's information and a signature to further validate it as genuine...sure someone can just forge signatures but that is far more difficult than say going through a phone book and typing names in an internet page to pad a list. This will never be taken seriously and thus pointless. The only valid means is canceling one's registration to the GameSpot site...that is something they can see as real and valid.

[greenenvy]

the petition has nearly reached its goal, we are at about 800+ signatures and counting right now......

http://www.petitiononline.c...

the petition author is planning to launch the petition right onto the head editor of metacritic's desk & also joshn larson himself once the goal is reached.....

we can make a difference this time, we can get who's responsible FIRED!!!!

look at the neogaf community, they are standing in solidarity & removing all links to gamespot!

hundreds are flooding in now, all da time......its time we stand in solidarity too!
:-D

[tk]

Don't whine because your favorite platform will not get easy 10/10 reviews. I would like to read a review and trust it - not wonder if a backhander caused it to be good because it is for a specific platform, or downmarked because it is not on that platform.

The 10/10 scores for mediocre games, and 7.5 for stellar ones may please little minds because "their" platform is "winning". But in fact - we loose - because we can get duped in missing a great title, or buying a crap title because some obese little twit took a backhander to make a certain game look bad or good in reviews.

As this situation proved, the review industry is running scared are the moment - because man of these scandals will break, and companies are trying to get out of the way of it. It is overdue - and some will get hurt in the shakeup that is to come. Some companies will go under, and some who payed the backhander will loose a lot of credibility. Serves them right. I am paying good money that I worked for - and the little kids that infest forums with fanboyism who don't earn money - and thus don't have a clue that this is fraud should just sit in the corner while the adults sort this out.

The petition is childish, but it will have an impact. It is a sign to the reviewers and publishers that the market they serve - SERVE - is not about to take crap from their little games.

[Ikanago]

...had it not been so horribly written. Not only does it sound like a kid wrote the petition...a kid probably DID!

Also, once you start screaming about bringing down the heads in charge of the company, you go from presenting a credible argument to becoming a whining child who no one will likely listen to. The petition should have kept to the issue at hand; namely the alleged firing of an employee based on an unsatisfactorily low review score on the part of the sponsors.

I didn't sign.

[FirstknighT]

886 signatures??? You need atleast 100k for them to even consider this. Just drop it and move on. Go play Uncharted for the ps3, it's a great game...atleast until the end.

[greenenvy]

for everyone following this story closely, there will be updates. to say the least there's already 2000+ ppl on both petitions and its going to be hard to ignore.....
the petition author has already submitted the first petition results to the editor chief, & the wonderful sack of **** josh larson also got his own copy......
"Executive CNET Marketing <[email protected]>,
Executive PR Relations Gamespot <[email protected]&g t;
ccBrad Stone NY Times Correspondent <[email protected]>,
WaltAllThings <[email protected]>,
Reuters <[email protected]>,
Salehoo <[email protected]>
bcc [email protected],
[email protected]
date Dec 2, 2007 3:11 PM
subject : To Metacritic's Associate & Principal Editors in Charge of Content:
CC'D: Josh Larson
Reuters

Leslie Vanevery

Gloria Lee

Brad Stone- New York Times
---------- Forwarded message
From: Jim Lowry <[email protected]& gt;
Date: Dec 2, 2007 2:53 PM
Subject: To Metacritic's Associate & Principal Editors in Charge of Content:
To: Metacritic Section Chief in Charge of Games- Marc Doyle < [email protected]>, Metacritic's Chief Editor Marc Doyle <mdoyle@************.com> ;
To Marc Doyle,

Associate Chief Editor in charge of Reviews & Content for Metacritic.com

In regards to our petition for the removal of Gamespot.com from the Metacritic directory and to have its links de-listed from the website.

Video Game reviews and Journalism are serious business, very serious business. In our industry some may regard that as the entertainment industry's biggest fulcrum. Its like the center of gravity for the entertainment & media industry.

Which is why when one of them is in any way tainted, they all become tainted. What happened to Jeff Gerstmann was a wakeup call to the whole industry. We are the gamers, we play the video games and we buy them. We are what keep these companies in business, we are what keep places LIKE GameSpot.com running to begin with!!!!

And we are having a stand today, we are saying NO MORE to any type of biased shady reviews or corruption in entertainment!!!!!
If people need to sell their products, this is NOT the way to get our attention or go about doing it!!!!

They need to step back, and realize for once that "WE" are who keep them in business and it is OUR money & support which keeps them afloat.

If we don't like what we see, we WILL NOT buy it, it doesn't matter worth a damn anymore what review it gets. We use our OWN opinions, we do NOT "rely" on websites like Gamespot to spoonfeed them to us!!!!

And that is why we take this stand today, and we take it with utmost seriousness. We WILL NOT buy anymore of the sponsor's products until GameSpot.com is reviewed for its policies, and de-listed from Metacritic!!!

The petition is as follows and so are the demands.

"With no transparency into the situation, no one knows if this is something that had possibly been brewing for a while now, but sources point to a recent change in GameSpot management as the real catalyst. Stephen Colvin, former President and CEO of Dennis Publishing -- the group responsible for publications like Maxim, Blender and Stuff -- became CNET's Executive Vice President at the end of October. One of Colvin's jobs would be to oversee the growth of CNET websites, including GameSpot.
On Valleywag, an alleged GameSpot insider has come forward to deliver an anonymous response to musings on the Internet the last few days. One of his comments supports our belief the recent changes in management could be trickling down to GameSpot editorial:

"I was in the meeting where Josh Larson [Executive Editor replacement for now Electronic Arts employee Greg Kasavin] was trying to explain this firing and the guy had absolutely no response to any of the criticisms we were sending his way. He kept dodging the question, saying that there were "multiple instances of tone" in the reviews that he hadn't been happy about, but that wasn't Jeff's problem since we all vet every review. He also implied that "AAA" titles deserved more attention when they were being reviewed, which sounded to all of us that he was implying that they should get higher scores, especially since those titles are usually more highly advertised on our site."

http://www.1up.com/do/newsS...

Indeed is right, we here the games community will no longer tolerate this. Whether it is Sony, or Activision, or Microsoft buying off reviews and padding scores with their gifts of advertising it doesn't matter anymore. Whether it is Nintendo who is doing it, it doesn't matter anymore.

The only thing that matters is our entire Games Journalism community suffers as a result, and we aren't going to tolerate it anymore!

We will no longer tolerate websites like GameSpot who are being told to score games low or score games high! The second reviews and content is controlled, is the second we all lose.

Never again will we stand by, esteemed editors of Metacritic, while the games industry suffers as a result of slimy business practices.

So we the game playing, and game buying public make the following demands and respectfully ask that you meet those demands.

Number 1: Review the content of Metacritic's present metascores and detailed listings, when it comes to the website Gamespot.com

Number 2: Decide on appropriate action, and take it by removing GameSpot from the metascore system

Number 3: Remove GameSpot from the recommended sites list until it is absolutely crystal clear, their content can be trusted. And tell all your partners to do the same.

And finally but certainly not the least, send these comments on to CNET so they know that we want someone fired.

Number 4: We want the head vice president in charge of GameSpot to step down immediately or fire their directors. Or else, we will tell all advertisers who are still working with them that they need to take their business elsewhere!

Our request is that you comply with all of the following demands we have made, by the date 12/20/2007 or just after. You have one month to do this.

We want GameSpot entirely removed and gone from Metacritic, we the games community. Gaming journalism belongs to the gamers, not to the publishers!

If the demands are not met in accordance with this written petition, we will tell every single person across the net and further to boycott GameSpot and its sponsors until such time that the site may close down.

We will further send a message to GameSpot's owners, by delivering this to every single gamer we can and having them cancel all services or subscriptions associatied with GameSpot and GameSpot's sponsors.

We will do so until the sponsors give up, or GameSpot shuts down. The integrity of our video game industry is at stake.

Please do the right thing, remove GameSpot.com from Metacritic after careful analysis and tell everyone to do so & deal with this situation immediately . " http://www.petitiononline.c...

http://www.petitiononline.c...

http://www.petitiononline.c...

http://www.petitiononline.c...

All 900+ of us will cease buying any of GameSpot's sponsors products, and cause them to lose advertising. This includes the additional 1400+ people in the second petition . That's 2000 total people who will cancel all GameSpot subscriptions alltogether and effect your bottomline. http://www.petitiononline.c...
http://www.petitiononline.c...

http://www.petitiononline.c... has all of their official email addresses and names, which can only be released by consent. Per the author's request.

Until the editorial section is reviewed and the content, and the website is pulled off Metacritic. If it DOES NOT give us anything but tainted reviews, all 2000+ of us want it GONE .

Expect the signature count to continue to rise. We are asking for your immediate attention to this matter, or some of us may choose to start posting your public addresses on hundreds of mailing lists so everyone- and I do mean everyone- can get a fair word in to CNET.com

Please respond when appropriate and come to agreement with our petition demands, as per your Terms of Service listed on Metacritic.com.
Signed,
The Game Buying Public"
all updates will be posted in here.....
in the end I doubt they're gonna ignore 2000+ people......but there's nothin' to lose right? maybe they will throw it out there, & collect 100K signatures but as for whats next......wait for their response....if they don't take the consideration, then they're probably gonna post their addresses in public on all the safelists so everybody can finally take a stroke at CNET.....here we go!

[theoneandonly]

"The 10/10 scores for mediocre games, and 7.5 for stellar ones may please little minds because "their" platform is "winning". But in fact - we loose - because we can get duped in missing a great title, or buying a crap title because some obese little twit took a backhander to make a certain game look bad or good in reviews.

As this situation proved, the review industry is running scared are the moment - because man of these scandals will break, and companies are trying to get out of the way of it. It is overdue - and some will get hurt in the shakeup that is to come. Some companies will go under, and some who payed the backhander will loose a lot of credibility. Serves them right. I am paying good money that I worked for - and the little kids that infest forums with fanboyism who don't earn money - and thus don't have a clue that this is fraud should just sit in the corner while the adults sort this out. "

Obviously the petition was submitted and endorsed to make a point, to make a powerful statement just like TK stated.

Secondly, the official story has already been confirmed relating to the incident in "inflating" or "deflating" scores. It was Valleyweg who confirmed in full detail, not 1up.
http://www.1up.com/do/newsS...

Thirdly, even if you don't completely agree with something don't insult it kids. I imagine most of you complaining are younger than 19, and I don't see any of you out there doing something similar instead you simply complain.

What TK stated was very much correct, and I advise you to consider his statements carefully. He appears to be one of the only adults here.

The cause is very simple in this regard, they are building the momentum to make a powerful statement. Whether that ultimately leads to the end of Gamespot or not, is anyone's guess.

But the point is it is about game reviews in general, and the payoffs we have come to see in this industry. Payoffs and behaviors that we can't afford to see; anywhere, if this industry is to thrive.

Will that effect other larger sources such as, the 1up and EGM categories for different reasons? Perhaps, but the point remains...

It starts with Gamespot and what everyone is in agreement about, is that it needs to be ended.

[Ahhhh]

Omg...

If you don't like their reviews.. don't listen to em. Simple as that.

[Relientk77]

it has over 1000 signatures

[fopums]

I just stopped going to their site after the R&C review, I dont care what happens to gamespot, if they didnt want thier necks in a rope they should have taken steps to prevent this a long time ago.

[CaliGamer]

to everyone that signed. Some petitions are silly, but this one is deals with a very worthy issue of corporate influence and conflict of interest. If gamers, who are the main consumers of video game scores don't stand up and demand fair and balanced content from these so called professional sources.
The people who are saying that there is something wrong with this are missing the big picture, crap like this and the subsequent silence of the public is what got George W. Bush elected and look where the country is now.