Video game hub IGN.com today announced they are prepared to terminate the employment of any of their regular reviewers, if it will please advertisers and convince them to launch a major campaign on the site.

“We don’t want anyone thinking we value our staff more than publishers,” said Jeremy Fulsom, VP of Client Relations for IGN, “We are fully committed to putting a positive spin on any game the industry stoops to release, no matter how lame.  Why, just this morning I fired two staff members who failed to smile when I said ‘Halo 3′ to them in the hall.  We’re that serious here.”

Insiders say the move comes after shareholders heard about how rival Gamespot fired an editor for giving a poor rating to the game “Kane & Lynch”.  In emails leaked to PTTBT, company executives expressed frustration that their site “sucks up to game publishers so well that there’s nobody to make an example out of”, and demanded a company-wide plan to “give our writers just enough rope to hang themselves on a regular basis”.

“The industry is scrambling to catch up with this new trend,” said Marshall Newell of Yatsugi Partners, “Nobody wants to be the only publication that adheres to journalistic principles in the face of the almighty buck.  The almighty buck can kick your ass like that genius monster at the end of Bioshock.  What a game.   If I ever have a kid, I’m going to name him Ken Levine.  By the way, my site has lots of banner space!”

Still, any newcomers have their work cut out for them.  Late Friday, a Gamespot spokesman announced that fired editor Jeff Gerstmann has had a hex put on him by an Egyptian shaman, and they expect his fingers will turn to sand over the weekend.  In a brief statement delivered while shining the shoes of the CEO of Eidos Games, a spokesman for the gaming site told reporters: “We were going to let it go, but after we found out Jeff doesn’t like the best show on television, well, we had to damn his soul to eternal hellfire.  NBC would’ve pulled their ads.”

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