Been a long time since I've been here, but in the wake of Jeff Gerstmann's firing and Alex Navarro's leaving, I thought I'd put in my two cents. I'm not going to pretend I knew it 100% that GameSpot was losing its credibility, but from my last blog post, I knew I had to be on to something rotten. Turns out I was right.

For those who never saw it, there was a blog post made by a freelance journalist basically saying quite plainly that from what he heard happened behind closed doors, he believed CNet told GameSpot's editors that they can either start being softer on games (especially games they have active advertisement partnerships with), or they can walk. All that has happened since then only reinforces this.

Alex Navarro is famous around these parts for being brutally honest, and he knew it. That was the sole reason he put in his two weeks, I firmly believe; he knew he too would be more honest than CNet and their advertisers would allow, and he'd be fired for it just like Gerstmann was. That's what he meant when he said he felt he no longer belonged at GameSpot. He didn't want to know every review he wrote from that day on would have to have cushions tied to either side before it was allowed viewable by us.

And due to that revelation put forth by this freelance writer, it also showed us that CNet's explanation of what happened to Jeff was more than just damage control, they were offering outright lies to us. What does this mean? It means that anyone who chose to remain at GameSpot agreed they would not be hard on games, even if they deserved it. What does this mean? It means the collective credibility of GameSpot from this day forward MUST be put into question. No matter what review you read for any game, you'll have to ask yourself from now on "Were they being as hard on this game as they wanted to? Am I going to buy a copy and be disappointed when I get home?"

Anyone sad to see Alex go doesn't understand why he left.

Alex Navarro, I salute you, because you had to integrity to stand up and show them you refuse to be held back from stating your true opinion about these games we love to play so much and these investments that can't be taken too lightly as to be trivialized by a greedy company wanting to roll in some extra advertiser dollars at the expense of disappointed core gamers.

To that end, you may never read this, but if you did by some stroke of luck, once again I believe you did the right thing. You were good to GameSpot as long as you were here, but it did not return the favor.

And readers, personally I don't like turning to a site as questionable as GameSpot has become when I have to decide whether I want to spend $60 on a new game. GameSpot is falling apart at the seams. Every editor that has agreed to abide by CNet's new terms of content softening has also agreed to lie to us if it means not hurting the feelings of the advertisers. This sends a terrible message.