• 31Jul 08

  I'm Outie

  Wow, I see why Jeff Gerstmann rebelled against Gamespot. I'm being censored for comments and I've even had a review deleted because I was "trolling..." except that I wasn't. I was giving my opinion, which is always thought-out, in complete sentences, and belongs to me (and thus is valid, no matter what GS wants to say about it).

  I commented on a news story about my disdain for the ridiculous, unclever puns Gamespot seems incapable of avoiding in their headlines. ESPN does it, too ("Duncan Spurs Team to Victory," for example). Neither ESPN nor Gamespot would ever use such a horrendous pun in the body of an article, so why is it ok to put in a headline? A writer would seem like an amateur at best to write like that. But somehow it's ok as a headline?

  Well, I suppose I'm taking crazy pills because other Gamespot users disagree with me on that. I've received thumbs-down ratings for my comments against the puns. And then GS removed one of them. So I guess I'm wrong. Maybe people do like the corny titles of these articles. That won't make them seem less cringe-inducing to me. But at least I know that they do have an audience. I suppose that audience thinks they're clever? Or neato? Or something?

  Oh well. So what's the point of having a Gamespot account anyway?

  If users have to walk such a fine line and the staff only want pro-GS comments, then why don't they just write the comments themselves?

  I'll leave the back-patting to someone else. I'm out.

  • Posted Jul 31, 2008 6:23 am GMT
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• 17Jun 07

  Censorship

  So I had a review for Sonic Heroes removed by the Gamespot Gestapo. Apparently, I was "trolling," and since that was the only description I was given (I also had to search to discover which item of mine had been removed), I had to look up what "trolling" is.

  This is the definition given by their site:

  "Trolling (Inciting flames) - Messages intended solely to annoy and/or offend other users by going against the clear nature of a board, topic or chat room are not allowed."

  Now, I did not write that review with the intention of annoying or offending anyone. But with no avenue through which to appeal the ceisure of my material, I decided to blog about it.

  I can only come up with one possible reason for my review to have removed: my saying that I didn't understand the fairly decent ratings others gave Sonic Heroes must have been deemed as "inciting flames." Is it really offensive to say that I don't understand how others gave a decent rating to a game I found to be terrible?

  What flame does that incite?

  Perhaps Gamespot could give us a better description of why original content is being thrown away like so much trash. And maybe they could even say what it is they are deleting.

  I find it similar to when I was the Editor-in-Chief of the school newsletter in college. It was supposed to be an objective publication, but I was censored every article I wrote. I was able to write what I wanted...as long as it was right down the middle of what the higher-ups wanted me to say.

  After that, I always thought, if they want it that way so badly, why don't they just write it themselves?

  • Posted Jun 17, 2007 12:40 pm GMT
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