Over the past few days, the Internets erupted with rage when rumours hit that longtime Gamespot editorial director Jeff Gerstmann was given the heave-ho because of the “tone” of his critical takedown of Eidos’ Kane & Lynch: Dead Men. Not only had Eidos covered said site with K&L ads, but they reportedly threatened to withdraw future advertising. With all of the major players withholding comments so far (except for a spokesperson from Gamespot-owner CNET stating: "we do not terminate employees based on external pressure from advertisers") the dirty details consist largely of unverified allegations.

But the fact is that the reviewer who described Kane & Lynch as “an ugly, ugly game,” as well as decrying its "impossible to like" characters, gameplay flaws and "lazy" curse-filled dialogue, was indeed fired after ten years of employment.

So far, Destructoid has renamed their site “Cashwhore" in honour of GameSpot, 1Up reviewers staged a protest, Gamespot's message forums have been inundated with thousands of angry posts and people are talking membership cancellations and boycotts.

Now journalism’s relationship between editorial and advertising has long been a sketchy one, but credibility requires a church-and-state separation--even if, no especially if, the outlet gets almost all their ad revenue from the very companies they're covering.

Gerstmann’s review (and the game itself) hardly matters in the grand scheme, but it does shine a much-needed light on game reviews and corporate pressure. Now, one of the worst things about modern pop cultural criticism is the need to apply an arbitrary number to every write-up but it does help suss out critical consensus and makes it difficult for one or two outlets to sway those final numbers too much.

Interestingly, Metacritic (also owned by CNET) ranks K&L at 68, not much better than Gerstmann's 6.0 review. So if these allegations prove true, it was hardly worth it for either Eidos or GameSpot, both of whom are facing a massive backlash.

But there may be a positive side to this story. It might scare big publishers from exerting inordinate editorial pressure while GameSpot (and other sites) might realize that integrity is worth more in the long run than a dropped ad campaign. Just look at how gaming blog Kotaku made its rep by standing up to Sony.

So, fingers cross'd, this controversy could actually help game criticism become more credible.