Gamertell

Something seriously stinks at RottenTomatoes.

The game stats and reviews have been removed completely from the site with game information shuffled to the back pages. The only indication of games on the main site is an IGN partner link at the top and bottom of the pages in small print.

Here is the letter from the editor of RottenTomatoes, Matt Atchity, posted on the site that explains the change:

Dear RT Users,

Welcome to the new and improved Rotten Tomatoes. We’ve spent most of the last year redesigning and rebuilding RT, and I think you’re going to like what you see.

So what have we come up with? Quite a bit - we’ve updated the look and feel of the entire site partially to make it pretty but mostly to get you engaged in some of the site’s features and coming back on a daily basis. For example, you’ve probably already seen the new home page. This new layout has more of a focus on original editorial content and community features. We’ve redesigned the movie pages, making the reviews more sortable and adding customization to the Tomatometers. For more details of what’s changed, check out our launch guide.

You may have noticed that we’ve eliminated our games coverage. After much debate, we’ve decided that we need to focus on film, but you can still get game reviews and ratings at GameStats.

I’d like to take a moment to thank you for the feedback you’ve given us while we were running our Beta site. That input has been very valuable to us, and I encourage you to continue letting us know what you like and what you don’t like. And while I’m thanking people, I need to mention our development team; they’ve been pulling some very long hours to make some pretty major changes to how the site works. They should be very proud of the work they’ve done so far.

What you’re seeing to today is just the tip of the iceberg, because there are even more changes coming. In the next few months, we’re going to enhance your profile and journal pages, to give you better tools to express yourself and interact with your RT friends. We’re going to have a deeper, broader selection of video, with more exclusives and more variety. And we’re working on more functionality and customization tools around how you interact with critics and each other, to make RT better than ever.

But don’t just take my word for it. Poke around the site for a while. Look at the changes and tell us what you think. We want to hear from you and we want RT to be your movie home. Most importantly, keep coming back, because more great changes are on the way.

Matt Atchity
Editor in Chief
Rotten Tomatoes

Even though the letter clearly encourages readers to check the Rottentomatoes launch guide for details, it does not even mention game reviews.

And upset they were as former RT gamers rant and stated they will never return to RT. As RT member “Rhelm” posted:

“Just for the record, I also only registered to post my dismay with the new site. And I’m also about to check out MetaCritic. If it provides me a quickie user-friendly selection of legit movie reviews, as RT now no longer does, I won’t be back. Big mistake. Strange mistake.”

Even film critic Roger Ebert gave the site as a whole a thumbs down on his website RogerEbert.com posted January 31, 2008.

“It’s rotten. A nearly perfect site has been junked up, tamed down and made nearly unusable. Also, it looks anemic and ugly. What once took two or three clicks now takes five or six, perhaps an attempt to artificially inflate hits. I hope they listen to the user outcry and do what Salon.com did a few years ago: Bite the bullet, admit their error and revert to the old design,” he posted on his site. “I recently looked up a Sundance film, was able to see its Tomatometer (two favorable reviews, one not), then was completely unable to find a way to get to any of the three reviews. The typeface of the review summaries, when you do find them, is so small, it’s unreadable. This is amazing: Countless users complain about the ALL CAPS, and the editor responds that it’s fine on Firefox and only ALL CAPS on Internet Explorer. Are they seriously saying they unleashed this beta version without even looking at it on Explorer?”

Read [RT Letter from the Editor] Read [RogerEbert.com] Site [RottenTomatoes.com]