Eidos acknowledges game "caused pain"

The chummy relationship between game-review sites and videogame publishers, the sites' primary advertisers, is drawing fresh scrutiny after the firing of GameSpot editorial director Jeff Gerstmann. Eidos, the publisher of Kane & Lynch, a videogame Gerstmann savaged in a review, is being singled out by the Internet lynch mob. Eidos had dropped a hefty sum — reportedly hundreds of thousands of dollars — to "skin," or redesign, the GameSpot site with promos for the title. Eidos has yet to make a public statement about the incident. But perhaps its marketers knew what was coming. At a preview event for the game, Eidos handed out Kane & Lynch T-shirts emblazoned with the words "I've seen the pain you've caused." After the jump, closeups of the shirt, soon to be a collector's item among Gerstmann supporters.