Gamespot is the single most largest and most populated review site on the internet. Their news stories more often than not clad up with comments within minutes of their release. They got insider information on many games that many other sites lack, and hundreds of active bloggers.
Gamespot was at first owned by Vince Broady and Peter Deemer, but was purchased by ZD Net, previusly owned by Ziff Davis inc. ZD Net later got bought out by CNET Networks and in 2008 CBS interactive bought CNET Networks and now stands as the owner of Gamespot. On November 28, 2007, Jeff Gerstmann, Editorial Director of the site, was fired. Immediately after his termination, rumors circulated proclaiming his dismissal was a result of external pressure from Eidos Interactive, the publisher of Kane and Lynch: Dead Men, which had purchased a considerable amount of ad space on GameSpot's web site. Among regular ads, you could reskin the whole site with a Cane and Lynch theme. Gerstmann had previously given Kane and Lynch a Fair or undesirable rating along with a videolog. Both Gamespot and parent company CNET stated that his dismissal was unrelated to the review, but due to corporate and legal constraints cannot reveal the reason. Interesting notes is that the days following the Gerstmann skandal, Gamespot shut down all blogger aktivity, and forum talk regarding the issue. The popular feature most popular blog was shut down for a whole week, and a considerable amount of people closed their accounts. A month after Gerstmann's termination, freelance reviewer Frank Provo left GameSpot after eight years stating that "I believe CNET management let Jeff go for all the wrong reasons. I believe CNET intends to soften the site's tone and push for higher scores to make advertisers happy." GameSpot staffers Alex Navarro, Jason Ocampo, Ryan Davis, Brad Shoemaker, and Vinny Caravella also left as a result of Gerstmann's termination. Davis, Shoemaker and Caravella all subsequently joined Gerstmann on his subsequent project, Giant Bomb, while Navarro became the community manager at Harmonix. Ocampo joined the IGN PC Team.
Make no misstake, Gamespot got the big corporation, serious buisness image going on. Wether this makes them seem more proffesional and capable or more incentive to bribery and greed, it's in the eye of the beholder. In any case they hold a high standing in the gaming community, getting more hits than any other review site out there.