Comments on: Appearances Are Everything?

By: Erik

Erik — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 03:38:34 +0000

This is all so pointless. Matt is going to continue publishing his OWN opinions on the games he reviews. Apparently Gerstmann’s never had a lover, for the dude in the relationship hardly ever listens to his girls demands beyond the first year or so together. I’m just kidding Jeff, but seriously, this isn’t important at all. I don’t think anything can increase Matt’s already strong love for Nintendo.

By: Nicholas Eckert

Nicholas Eckert — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 19:05:58 +0000

…yeah, this one’s a conflict of interest.

I know he doesn’t mean it – he’s in a lot bigger contract than his job by walking down the aisle, and it’s never just about games at that point. I’m sure they love each other and all, and I wish them the best in their lives together.

The problem is one of these two needs a new job.

One is a video game reviewer. The other is a video game Public Relations person. It looks bad on its face. He clearly has access he shouldn’t have; she certainly has opportunity to heavily influence a review she shouldn’t have.

First and foremost, this should have been disclosed a lot earlier by both individuals; in particular, the one in the media where journalistic integrity would come into play. From here, there needed to be a quiet, polite severance package, or, failing that, an editorial decision to keep him off Nintendo’s games. If it were a generic Nintendo employee, I would simply say disclosure is appropriate, but a PR person? No. That one can’t happen. No one wants to do that; I wouldn’t want to be the one to break it to him. The fact remains that it needs to be done.

This video gaming journalism’s got issues. One involves this blog’s humble owner. (To Mr. Gerstmann: **** CNet and we’re behind you.) We’ve got advertising directly tied to the reviews with no alternate plans forthcoming and no ombudsmen to be found. And, now, this. I understand the medium covered started in the late 70′s, but do we need to go through reinventing the wheel to clean this stupidity up?

By: TrackZero

TrackZero — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 18:46:47 +0000

I think this was a potential conflict of interest and IGN and Nintendo failed their employees by not making it part of public record. As you said, no one here actually thinks there was any shenanigans going on, but items like this shouldn’t have to be “found out” after the fact. In the event of potential other issues happening to either company down the road, finding this out during a later investigation would only muddy the waters and make both companies look far worse.

i.e. Public Disclosure or bust, it’s common sense.

By: LiK

LiK — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 01:32:57 +0000

i’ve heard that Matt from IGN was dating a Nintendo PR rep or something so i never bothered with his reviews. there’s some bias with him when it comes to Nintendo’s first party games, imo

By: Max

Max — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 18:39:06 +0000

Hey Jeff. Did you see this?
Not directly related but interesting that IGN is covering it so openly. (minus the disclaimer)

http://insider.ign.com/articles/842/842879p1.html

By: Anders

Anders — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 13:10:25 +0000

I can’t help wonder where they’d include this info, at the end of every piece he produces? Doesn’t seem reasonable to me.

That said, potential conflicts of interest should be handled by the one(s) in charge at IGN, if they feel this could make content he produces biased they should have him producing something else where it wouldn’t be an issue.

By: RANDOM47

RANDOM47 — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 07:49:41 +0000

hey i found jeff everyone, hes over here.

By: Shtinky

Shtinky — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 06:00:43 +0000

This is so meta.

By: Jacki Jinx

Jacki Jinx — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 05:46:20 +0000

Jeru, I heard the exact same thing, but about Godot. Do you think they’re twins?

By: Funkyhamster

Funkyhamster — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 03:41:08 +0000

I would never suspect Matt’s marriage of tainting his work, but I would want to know the facts… the fact that IGN avoided disclosing this makes me think that they didn’t want it to be publicly known, and if he isn’t letting it affect his work then why wouldn’t they want it disclosed?