Today has brought a firestorm of controversy, speculation and conjecture about the recent termination of GameSpot editorial director Jeff Gerstmann. Before we go further, we should remind readers that it’s all just that, and that none of the information presented below has been confirmed by an inside source to VGMWatch.

Yesterday, Penny Arcade brought high attention to the Gerstmann termination with their comic satirizing the context of the firing as it was reported to Penny Arcade by a trusted source. PA’s source contends that Gerstmann was fired because of his harsh review of Kane and Lynch: Dead Men, and cited GameSpot and parent company CNET’s continued concern over Gerstmann’s review “tone”. Gerstmann gave the game a 6.0 out of 10 and was particularly unflattering toward Kane and Lynch in his video review, which has since been removed from the site. Penny Arcade sees the problem thusly:

After Gerstmann’s savage flogging of Kane & Lynch, a game whose marketing investment on Gamespot alone reached into the hundreds of thousands, Eidos (we are told) pulled hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of future advertising from the site.

Penny Arcade’s full commentary is here.

Former VGMWatch editor Kyle Orland picked up the story over at Joystiq today, and did his usual ground work. After noticing all the circumstantial evidence - the removal of the heavy Kane and Lynch advertising, the dropping of the video interview - Orland contacted GameSpot for comment. After initially receiving a canned “no-comment” comment, Orland received a little elucidation from CNET spokesperson Sarah Cain. “We do not terminate employees based on external pressure from advertisers.” However, when asked specifically on the pulled video review, Cain later provided this gem:

This review [Kane and Lynch] has been updated to include differences between the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions and a clarification on the game’s multiplayer mode. […] At the bottom of the post of the [text] review we made a note that we have updated the review, and we made those decisions based on our own editorial standards. It was our decision to take down the [video] review.

When posed with the follow-up as to why they didn’t just edit the video review, too, Cain only repeated her first statement. Of all the circumstantial evidence present, VGMWatch feels that this statement is one of the most indicative that something may be afoot.

VGMWatch has contacted Jeff Gerstmann, but he has yet to provide comment. We’ll keep our readers updated as the story develops, as VGMWatch takes very seriously any suspicion of the game review process being tainted by the campaign for advertising revenue.