Finally removing Gamespot from bookmarks

Gamespot.com was one of the first websites I ever visited when I first got access to the internet on my Windows 95 PC. It must have been 1996-1997. I still remember how back then the type was styled so that each letter was sort of inside a circle (the bookmark icon today kind of references that). With each new PC, and each new OS, the Gamespot bookmark has always been the first one I would re-instate in my browser.

At the time I was actually oblivious to the whole Kane & Lynch episode in that site's history, and found Giantbomb organically about a year after it's founding. I still followed Gamespot closely though, and I really enjoyed the bits of editorial and video work, especially from the UK office where a very fresh faced Danny O'Dwyer along with Seb, Cam, and Jane Douglas did incredible work.

I checked on Gamespot.com today, for the first time in weeks. Of the 17 'stories' on the front of the site, a full 7 of them were about Fortnite. 5 were adds. 3 Were comic-book movie spots.... The two stories left? Madden gameplay footage, and No Man's Sky gameplay footage. And so went Gamespot's place in my bookmarks tab. Never to return.

What was once a pioneer in one of the most genuinely new frontiers of media is now a bot-site. Thank fuck Giantbomb is here to carry the torch, but still; feels bad man.

Gamespot has been aimed at the wider market for ages.

You also seem to have been on 'popular', so it is odd to blame Gamespot for what gets the most clicks.

Sad to hear that. I do enjoy Resident Kinevil with Mary Kish and Mike Mahardy but I only view that on their youtube channel.
As for Gamespot.com - well, I removed that bookmark and have not visited their site since Jeff got fired.

I still believe there are some great writers and presenters working there and I think their E3 coverage is generally fantastic, but I've not used that site in a long time. As it is, it's kind of the video game equivalent of a tabloid. A lot of the content, and certainly the majority of the most commonly featured content, is articles that don't have anything to do with games, surface level looks at the medium, and puff pieces.

I didn't abandon Gamespot as soon as Jeff was fired i gave it a chance, but it very quickly lost its personality, it felt like along with the staff they also lost integrity and the site became the place for articles steeped in industry politics and trend chasing.
I stopped visiting long before Mary Kish and O'Dwyer, but i did go back and watch every episode of The Point once i was exposed to him through GB and consider him part of "the crew".

One look at GS now, i feel like it's given me spyware.

I've not visited Gamespot, other than to read/watch reviews of specific games, for about 5 years.

They can't be blamed for following trends in the market, it's smart and savvy, so good for them. However, it doesn't appeal to me.

We're all getting old. This is the equivalent of the generation before us telling us that our taste in music is bad. Times change, we either keep up with it or we do without.

I'm off gamespot since the Kane and Lynch stuff, but I totally get that deleting a bookmark like that can be almost a bit emotional, after so many years. The funny thing is I really like when gamespot ppl are in GB stuff here and there, they are good people, but every couple of years when I go and look at their site, it's not doing anything for me.

Only 10 years late :P

Gamespot lost a lot of personality and public after the great exodus of '07. After that I rarely visit them, having some of my content and forum needs satiated by giantbomb and escapist... until the latter became a radioactive wasteland as well.

I don't use them too often these days, but it's not really surprising that those are the top-ranking articles during a period where not many big-budget games are releasing. GameSpot appeals to a very wide audience, so its most popular content will naturally be the bigger-name stuff, which during the summer slowdown is not a great deal (so Fortnite naturally wins out, though it probably would rank highly regardless).

I don't mean to defend Gamespot but I think even Jeff would vouch for this; the time between E3 and the next Madden tends to be slow for video game news. I think Giant Bomb only gets to avoid covering Fortnite, Game of Thrones, comics (you know, the bad comics that aren't Garfield) or whatever is because of their subscription service. GB isn't as desperate for clicks.

Remoing is fun to say. Super fun to say. God bless.

@biffmcblumpkin:

#hailremo

I mean, when your site is run primarily on ad revenue, you're gonna get tabloidish content.

I like some of the GameSpot features, but I prefer to watch them on YouTube because GameSpots video player is absolutely abysmal. I skim the front page to get a quick lance at some news stories because Giant Bomb doesn't really do news, but also never actually read them because most of the time a news article is quite literally headline deep, or an image gallery.

Overall when you browse the site it's hard not to see how much of it is clicks-based. One of todays articles is "Metal Gear Solid movie director talks details" or something like that (I'm paraphrasing) then the article is a link to the director tweeting about Metal Gear like 2 weeks ago and some links to the art being posted as part of the 31st celebration of the franchise. No actual story about the movie emerges at any point apart from stating that the movie exists. Thats how many of the articles go. A lot of the video series seem like someone is desperately trying to create any sort of content like their show where they play a game with graphics turned all the way down, or their newest series where they only have one life or something. Things like Resident Kinevil are few and far in between.

I've been trying to find a different site to get a nice look at news but the choices aren't great elsewhere. I really dislike Kotaku's weird blog layout, I have a personal dislike of Polygon, Waypoint is also kinda ehhh.. and IGN is well IGN. Rock Paper Shotgun is mainly PC oriented but seems pretty solid. So yah I dunno, hard to defend GameSpot really, but thats the times we live in I guess and they're trying to make do however they can.

The Adventure Begins

I, probably like alot of other people, used to love Gamespot, but it died to me when Jeff got fired. Haven't had any interest in visiting that site for the last decade.

Yeah, I gave up on Gamespot and IGN long ago. They’re diversifying and doing what they feel they need to do to best move forward.

Kotaku annoys me. Eurogamer kinda annoys me. I’d love to love Waypoint, but everything is politics (there are plenty of good places to get proper political news).

Frankly, I stopped following a lot of gaming news and analysis NOT because I don’t have an appetite for it, but because there’s no supply. I assume the demand is just not there.

Gamespot UK had a solid run with Danny O'dwyer and other folks. I guess it didn't get enough views so now the site is just Fortnite Listicles kinda like cnet. And for all the flak the GB forums get, you should read the comment section of gamespot the vile hate speech and other BS there is something else, from PC master race, too lol you own a Xboxone, the console wars are still a thing at 2018 gamespot comment section. I think it's funny that in this day and age you get rewarded for shitty content and non original top ten list! Man FUCK "the Average" Internet user. Enjoy your Automated Chinese news bots. And this comes from someone who automates software for a living.

To end in a positive note friend of the site Jean-Luc did a pretty great piece on the history of Yakuza.

For me, Gerstmann, Davis, Shoemaker, and Kasavin were Gamespot; I only bothered watching video reviews because of their insight, Kasavin especially, as his and my taste in games just matched beautifully. Ninja Gaiden, Jade Empire, Oblivion, Otogi, Dreamfall: TLJ. I bought those games because of that man's thoughtful descriptions, same for other games with the other dudes. When they all eventually left in 2007, I had zero reasons to remain, even though Kevin Vanord's style impressed me and I did tune in to his reviews for a while.

I still go to Gamespot during E3, though, as their stage demos nearly always reveal some special new nuggets. Edit: Oh, and it's not a personality thing. I like most of the current staff very much, it's just not the same vibe.

With Eurogamer, I had a great time with that site from like 2009-2015, but I have been getting deeply annoyed with the clumsy and biased political articles, plus some of their bizarrely written, harsh reviews (not even recommending Cuphead because it's hard is a travesty I tell you!), but hey ho, places change. I would have left a while back, but the community calls them out on their nonsense constantly, which keeps it pretty neutral, and some of their let's play content is pretty fantastic despite the constant puns.

I'll echo what the others have said in regards to GameSpot being dead to them when Jeff got fired. That's how I felt and that feeling got a lot more real when Ryan and Alex jumped ship too.

As for the current iteration of GameSpot, it's almost unrecognizable to me. They're still chasing the clicks any which way they can and I only occasionally see them when they pop up in my Facebook feed with click baity bullshit in the form of a "suggested post" or a friend liking a post.

I still go there out of force of habit. I'll scroll around for a bit, see all the useless Fortnite and Marvel/DC posts and then move on to another site.

It's sad because I loved that site as a kid growing up.

I don't hate or dislike anyone that works there, not at all, but to be honest, I don't really care to hear their opinions on there as much as past GameSpot crew. That said, I find GameSpot a fine place still to get gaming news so I still go there and it's the second bookmark I have just after Giant Bomb. I used to go on there as much as Giant Bomb (actually, way more than I use Giant Bomb as I took part in making many, many blogs and... other personal stuff that's embarrassing to mention now).

I had my doubts about GameSpot after Greg Kasavin left, but Jeff and others saved it. When Jeff got fired, I pretty much stopped going there. I slowly started to go back more and more and appreciated the work Kevin VanOrd and crew did there, but even that crew left, with Kevin, Chris Watters, Shaun Mcinnis, and although some had issue with them (and to some degree I did as well with some of their views on certain games), I also liked hearing what Tom McShea and Carolyn Petit had to say. There are more, like Danny, and Mary.

Now, I haven't really taken to any of the ones that are there now, though again, that's not to say I dislike them. Plus, it's kind of weird (and may or may not have to do with it), but I'm as old or older than some of them which I am not used to. My favorite places to go to hear staff opinion is Game Informer, Giant Bomb, and less so, but probably my third favorite would be GodisaGeek. I stopped going to Kinda Funny and IGN at the same time, and despite liking Gametrailers, I could never really get into EasyAllies. I do like DigitalFoundry.

On a side note, I don't really mention it because I know no one really cares, but I was super surprised when Danny became a face at GameSpot because he used to post on my old blogs I made and we'd have a few discussions through the old PM system they had. I remember one time he told me that being a redhead was a Scottish thing, not an Irish thing.

I gave them some attention when GB came back to CBS. They had some pretty good people the past few years, with John Davison, Kevin, Peter, Danny, Mary, Chris, Alexa.

But a bunch of people were soon gone, the scope got expanded to be more general, and I just didn't feel like investing in the new people that came on board (yeah, that sucks on my part but I already started cutting down on game coverage as is).

Honestly, though, during peak Jeff and Ryan years I was mainly following IGN. Their podcasts in the mid-2000's were full of awesome people, and each channel had one worth listening to (though Hilary, Erik, and co. interviewing Don King may have been the peak). It wasn't until after GB was established that I really started digging into their back catalog.

Hey man, things change. No shame (or slight) in recognizing that something you used to enjoy is not your type of thing anymore.

I still generally like their written reviews and E3 coverage. Beyond that, it feels like they’ve been in a transitionary stage for a couple of years, trying to strike a balance between monetization of content (read: clickbait) and being one of the more traditional games sites. I hope they figure it out, because I still like them quite a bit. But without a clear identity or a stronger cadre of regular content, I’m just not likely to head there as often.

@strathy: Out of curiosity, did you have the news tab on the Gamespot homepage set to Popular or Recent? It actually sounds like the former. As the most popular game in the world, articles about Fortnite would naturally be very, very popular with people looking for info about any recent changes, challenges and timed content. For example, 10 of the 16 articles on the first “page” of Popular articles on the homepage are about Fortnite, but just three of 16 of the most Recent.

I stopped visiting Gamespot when every single video that was linked on a page would autoplay. Thats an automatic shut down for me. It feels strangely mismanaged standing next to GB as its sister site.

@ronniebarzel: I didn't even notice that tab, so whatever it defaults to? If I go back now then 'recent' seems to be the default.