We all remember the big hoopla that happened last November (that long ago?) over at Gamespot regarding the sudden termination of Jeff Gerstmann.
Many of the sources pointed to the review that Gerstmann did on Kane and Lynch: Dead Men being the "knife in the back" that resulted in his termination. After that, fingers were pointed to executive Josh Larson, VP of games at parent company CNET who replaced former Editor in Chief Greg Kasavi.
Internal communication informing employees informed Kotaku that "new management structure means that Josh Larson’s position as VP, Games is being eliminated and Josh will be leaving the company." CNET also announced last week that it would cut 10 percent of its work force, about 120 employees.
Anonymous GameSpot employees vocally expressed their opinion about Larson, having the "church-and-state separation between the sales teams and the editorial team" "cracked" under his tenure. Whether the VP, Jeff’s supervisor at the time, was the key decision maker in letting Gerstmann is not entirely confirmed; what we do know is that Larson will be leaving the company next week.
After Gerstmann left GameSpot, a handful of other editorial staff members left as well, including Alex Navarro, Frank Provo, Ryan Davis, Brad Shoemaker and Jason Ocampo. Have no fear, though, because new GameSpot Editor In Chief Ricardo Torres reminds us that "GameSpot continues to bring on new editorial talent and plans to continue its coverage with the same breadth and depth we have in our previous 11 years."
