Gerstmann reportedly lost his job over a less than glowing review he bestowed upon the Eidos title, Kane & Lynch. Eidos allegedly withdrew its lucrative advertising from GameSpot, resulting in GameSpot’s CNet ownership deciding to jettison Gerstmann, although CNet vehemently denied those claims.

The fact that CNet acknowledged Eidos expressing its displeasure about the review notwithstanding, Kennedy feels GameSpot wrecked its credibility with gamers, as well as with its staff:

It was clear (GameSpot staffers) largely lost faith in their management and place of employ. At worst, they worked for an organization that caved to advertiser pressure, at best, they worked for an organization that simply didn’t care for honest criticism anymore.

The inherent problem in all of this is the extremely high editorial standard GameSpot was built upon. The editors at GameSpot — these are a bunch of guys who worked there because they believed so much in the site’s integrity. You take that away and, well, I don’t know how that can work.

Gerstmann has not discussed the circumstances of his dismissal; nor will we likely see CNet or GameSpot get into specifics due to employment laws. However, it looks like Gerstmann will be back with a vengeance. Said Kennedy:

As for Jeff, word on the street is that he’s teaming with GameSpot founder Vince Broady (who recently left Yahoo) to build a new game site to "take on GameSpot." Now that would be interesting, would it?

We would give that a 9/10, easy.

A Kotaku tipster said Gerstmann offended Eidos with the “tone” of a video review he did of the game. CNet allegedly fired him on the spot.

However, a Joystiq post said a CNet spokesperson provided a general comment that the company does not terminate people “based on external pressure from advertisers.” The company would not comment on Gerstmann’s specific circumstances.

Considering the opening minute of Gerstmann’s video, where he derides the characters and gameplay of Kane & Lynch, one would expect the game publisher to be less than thrilled with their huge ad campaign being undercut by the 21st Century version of the boy who points out the emperor is really in a state of undress.

But as the Rock, Paper, Shotgun blog noted, “there must be more to it” than what the flying rumors suggest. Unfortunately, Gerstmann isn’t talking yet.

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GameSpot’s GameCenter service will offer a broad range of features for online PC gamers. The subscription-based service will cost $9.95 per month, or $79.95 for an annual subscription. GameSpot will let gamers test the new service free for 21 days, according to a news release.

The company has offered a special for existing GameSpot Complete members. Those who upgrade memberships by August 17th can pay $20 to add GameCenter to their annual agreement. Monthly members can pay an additional $2 per month for GameCenter.

GameSpot has listed a variety of services available from GameCenter:

•  preconfigured and custom servers, ranked or unranked, for games like Battlefield 2, Unreal Tournament 2004, Counter-Strike: Source, and others;
•  online tournaments and events;
•  multigame user rankings and leaderboards;
•  VoIP, message boards, and personal profiles.

The company plans to add support for Call of Duty and other games, as well as expanding the server configuration and admin options available.

David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business. Email him here.

This will start in the first quarter of 2005.

As video games become increasingly popular among a broader consumer audience, this arrangement will enable Yahoo! Games to further expand its content offering into video games, which will complement its already strong offering in casual games. In turn, GameSpot will gain greater exposure before Yahoo’s expansive audience.

“Yahoo! Games is the number one casual games site on the Internet, and now we want to become the destination of choice for video gamers,” said Geoff Graber, general manager of Yahoo! Games. “GameSpot content is a key part of our strategy to raise the company to a new level in online games.”

“Our partnership with Yahoo! Games marks another major step in establishing GameSpot as the leading content source for the rapidly expanding games market, and exposes our brand to millions of new users,” said Vince Broady, senior vice president of CNET Networks’ games and entertainment. “Our internal site growth, combined with our ever expanding network of content partners — which include leading portals, retailers, and wireless carriers — has made us the standard for games information worldwide.”

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CNET CEO and Chairman Shelby Bonnie discussed GameSpot at the DMA/AIM net.marketing conference earlier today.

Games are currently announced 1-2 years in advance and the site’s editorial properties track every single interaction a user has with each game, whether through playing the game, reading reviews, downloading trials, or watching movies.

GameSpot has developed a marketing service called GameSpot Tracks to determine exactly how people are interacting with games on the site. The new business model isn’t monetized yet but the company does allow partners to analyze it and look at what they’ve done.

Retailers are also currently teaching their sales forces how to handle objections on GameSpot Tracks to accurately predict what the most popular games will be 6-9 months from now.

GameSpot’s ability to measure consumer demand with maximum efficiency is nothing less than impressive. Conference attendees were shown screenshots of the extensive interface, which allows marketers to measure themselves against certain competitors. It also shows the ratio between interactions with printed material versus actual downloads of the game.

GameSpot keeps close tabs on what users are doing and then transforms the data into usable information for marketers. There has been speculation that online media will begin to move towards this sort of data mining direction.

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