Kevin VanOrd is leaving Gamespot

Hi, as the title says, Kevin is leaving Gamespot to follow a writing career in games, please join me wishing him well for the future

Good luck sir. You are one of the best in the business.

http://www.gamespot.com/profile/Kevin-V/blog/the-fondest-of-farewells/26073004/

That's a blow to the editorial side of game reviews, dude was probably the best at Gamespot. Glad to see him move on to something he's clearly passionate about.

Dude also seems mighty exhausted in recent times due to the nature of his field.

Here's hoping the next adventure lets him keep exhibiting his excellent editorial writing. (E: Oh, he's going to Trion. Interesting transition, but one I bet plenty of games journalists would gladly make.)

All the best, Mr. VanOrd.

Sad to see him leave Gamespot but I'm happy for him on his new path and wish him the best of luck.

Wow! Good luck to him. Real changing of the guard going on over there, I'm interested to see where Gamespot ends up in a couple of years. They have some smart people doing fun things, so I hope they do well.

"I'm leaving this place to do the exact same thing but with less structure and financial security. Fuck it. I'm Kevin van Ord, motherfucker."

All the best, Kevin. Hope it works out.

Good luck to him! I don't follow gamespot closely, but i read more than a few of his reviews and while not always agreeing I always respected his views, which where clearly expressed and as such quite a useful tool

I wish him the best on his future endeavors.

My guess is he's going to USGamer...

It says right in the OP what he is going to be doing.

Good luck to Kevin. He was gamespot's best reviewer for years. I always enjoyed reading them. I hope he does well at Trion Worlds.

Danny was talking about getting Kevin to review a shitty game today on his stream Irish Coffee. What a shock.

Best of luck Kevin! One of the pillars of GS as of late.

Kevin's been great, and he was always fun on camera. Good luck to him.

Damn, that's some bittersweet news. Along with Greg and Jeff, KVO was my go to reviewer at GS waaay back in the day. He's always been a writer with the unique talent of being descriptive, insightful, and concise at the same time. And his perspective was something I always appreciated hearing. He'll be missed.

And I hope this new adventure is a productive one. Admittedly, to me Trion Worlds doesn't seem like the most fertile ground for a writer specifically, but maybe he'll be able to bring some story to these games where that aspect has always seemed secondary. At the very least, I'm excited to see what comes from it!

Sad to see him go, though according to his blog post he'll still be able to write stuff elsewhere. Who knows, maybe Austin can turn the tables on him!

Though it feels weird that the last game he reviewed was that god awful Godzilla game for the PS4. And I would've really wanted him to have been on a Danswers episode.

Who is left? After they let go most of their editorial staff it seemed like Kevin was reviewing every main release with the smaller stuff thrown out to freelancers. Except Alexa I can't really think of one other person who actually specializes in written reviews on that site.

I always enjoyed Kevin and it'll be sad to see him go. I feel like he was the last GS guy from the "golden era" or when Jeff still worked there or whatever. I can't wait to see where he ends up and I hope he gets to create something great.

Also, there's a lot of talk on the Bombcast about eating hats, but Kevin was BALLER enough to ACTUALLY EAT A HAT

https://www.facebook.com/GameSpot/videos/530062882809/

It's a damn shame. He has become one of the most interesting reviewers in the industry for me. Wish him the best in his future endeavors.

Godspeed and good luck Mr. Vanord! I wish you nothing but the best.

god speed Kevin VanOrd.

Sounds like a good deal. When i checked out a review on GameSpot i had the tendency to see if Kevin wrote it. If not, i'd take it with a grain of salt and look elsewhere. Unfortunately, in a time of Youtube, Twitch and even digital refunds, game reviews are fairly meaningless and the written review seems to, largely, be a waste of time and effort. So all in all, i'm glad to see him move up to a creative writing position. I don't play MMOs but hopefully we can hear from him on how the other side lives.

Good luck and take care.

Keith VanOrd.

Whoa. Is he the last of the old guard over there?

Best of luck to him.

I like VanOrd, but I continue to really dislike how games critics leave coverage of video games to join the games business itself.

He was definitely the most senior reviewer on their site www.reviewtrax.com list him as the author of 520 reviews that's 17% of all gamespot reviews, note reviews of a cross platform game are counted as several unique entries. Still that a large percentage.

VanOrd is a cool dude, wish nothing but the best for the guy.

Good thing they fired all those writers just so a few months later they have to hire freelancers to fill the massive gap. Good job they aren't losing the few people they kept on staff. Oh, wait...

Damn, I'll definitely miss his reviews and presence at GameSpot.

All the best to you, Kevin!

Oh man that's crazy. He's OG gamespot. Wish you all the best dude!

I don't even really care about reviews, but I always enjoy reading his stuff. I'm sure he'll do well for himself in whatever he has planned.

Geez. Aside from Danny and Mary (whom neither of are writers first), who's even left at GS?

Good Luck to you Mr. VanOrd :D

They were hiring new staff not too long ago.

He was the last Gamespot reviewer I had any sort of respect for. I wish him the best in what he's doing.

Well, that sucks for GS. I really like his reviews. I wish him luck in his next adventure.

That's a shame. He was probably my favorite written form reviewer and you always knew you could trust his shit. Best of luck to him though

Huh, looks like he's going to try on words. Get it? Try on wor(l)ds?Trion Worlds??

Good luck to him!!

I wonder what games he'll be writing for over at Trion Worlds.

Makes sense. Unless he was interested in an executive position, which it seems he isn't, he had pretty much hit the ceiling at Gamespot. Good luck with whatever you plan next KVO, you were one of the best in the biz.

damn, who will i go to for RPG reviews nowadays? oh well good luck to him.

That sucks! Yeah, he just as anyone else had differing opinions than my own on things, but he was the one I wanted to know the opinion of most on things there. That really sucks. That's too bad. I'm not sure how much I'll care to go to GameSpot for a while now, kind of like when a bunch of people left when Greg left, and then Jeff; I was off that place for quite some time. I don't hate or dislike anyone that works there, but I don't really care to hear their opinion that much is all.

that sucks but good for him i still wish he was on something here like upf. that was my hope since gb joined cbsi

Always liked the guys reviews. Probably one of the best there is. I wish him all the best.

Damn!

What is going on with all the departures from Gamespot? When I became a daily reader of Gamespot back in 2009 it was because of people like Kevin Van Ord, Tom McShea, Carolyn Petit, Shawn McInnis, Maxwell McGee, Brendan SinClair, and Tom Magrino. They were the reason I kept coming back to that site and now they're all gone! I love lots of the new people Gamespot has brought in on video production, but it sucks to see these people leave. They were the ones that made me think more about games and the whole industry around them. I hope Kevin lots of luck and success in his new job, but I'm going to miss his reviews and his voice.

Not just sure if Trion is exactly the best place to get hired by at the moment. They kinda messed up ArcheAge´s launch here in the west. Here is an a pretty well written article about the matter: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-lessons-mmos-can-learn-archeages-mistakes/

Also wondering what is Trion´s financial state at the moment. They have 4 mmo´s out at the moment. Those are:

Rift
Defiance
ArcheAge
Trove

Out of those 4 Rift probably still generates a decent amount of cash but Defiance is probably not generating a lot of profits for the company. Trove seems to be popular on steam atm with over 50k+ concurrent players. Kinda doubting that ArcheAge is doing that good atm.

Couldnt find a financial report for Trion but it seems that in 2013 there was a pretty big round of layoffs at Trion: http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/05/17/trion-hit-by-massive-layoffs

Dang. I wish him all the best; he was the one reviewer at Gamespot I still read, and one of the few reviewers overall I have valued enough to keep up with. With his side-ventures into games development, this move makes a lot of sense. I hope we get to see some interesting things from him real soon!

Before watching him on the lobby, i'd only heard about Kevin VanOrds name from this video!

All the best Kev (blat blat blat)

Good luck to him. I really have always liked his reviews even when Gamespot is a site I long ago stopped visiting.

Aw that's too bad. What even is Gamespot at this point?

I don't really know where Gamespot is going or what it's intending to become. It's beginning to feel GB jr, or maybe AAA GB (if so Danny and Mary should be called up to the Pro Team). I do like their personalities, but the site has a massive identity crisis now.

All the best to Kevin VanOrd

I do too, but from a practical perspective what is a person in their shoes to do when getting into their 30's with their industry in the shape it is ? The reviewing grind becomes pretty difficult if you have adult outside of work responsibilities (home ownership, commuting, family etc). There just aren't hours in the week if you are putting in 40 a week at the office. Jeff is increasingly becoming what seems to be the sole senior statesmen of Game Journalism.

The entire business model of game criticism is imploding, their career prospects are hardly what I'd call reliable. Firings/mass layoffs tend to sudden and unceremonious. Outlets go out with a bang and today's new outlets seem to be infotainment sole proprietor youtube channels. There are virtually no long timers to look to, for assurance that you do this for the long haul. I doubt the pay or benefits are great either. I don't know if K VO was encouraged to move on or saw the writing on the wall when thinking about the future or just wanted a change, but I can't imagine GS dumping a huge number of writers last year didn't help spur this decision. Especially for a guy whose strength is writing not video.

For me at least it's kinda for me to blame him or anyone in his shoes, with the industry the way it is I don't see an answer to this.