Carrie Gouskos

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Carrie Gouskos on the Gamespot set

Carrie Gouskos (born November 27, 1979) is the Features Editor for the popular gaming website GameSpot where she oversees feature content such as GameSpot's Flashback series, entries into the Greatest Games of All Time, and the return of the TenSpot, GameSpot's Top Ten list. She also makes appearances on the weekly videocast On the Spot and the weekly podcast The HotSpot.

She maintains an active blog on GameSpot's message forums, and is frequently rumored to be joining the cast of GameSpot's cult hit show Time Trotters in its second season. Prior to taking a full-time position with GameSpot in 2005, Gouskos wrote for several different gaming publications under the name Carrie Venetia.

She is also the great-great-great niece of Olympian Miltiades Gouskos.

Impact On GameSpot

On August 24th, 2005, G4 began airing four episodes of Cinematech which were co-produced by the staff at GameSpot. One of the episodes aired that first evening, written by Gouskos and hosted by both her and GameSpot Community Manager Bethany Massimilla, was a light-hearted parody of militant feminisism where the two founded the "Digital Women's Liberation Front" to honor tough, independently minded, and liberated videogame females. (Among the inductees: Samus Aran from Metroid, Jade from Ubisoft's Beyond Good & Evil, and Ms. Pac-Man.)[1] This four-episode collaboration with G4 was an extremely important deal for GameSpot, marking its first return to the television airwaves since the short-lived GameSpot TV, so selecting one of their newest employees to cohost the high profile episode was considered by many to be unprecedented. The decision paid off: in an online poll hosted by GameSpot after the episodes aired, the Gouskos/Massimilla episode was voted as the second-favorite episode by fans, coming in narrowly behind an episode hosted by GameSpot veterans Jeff Gerstmann and Ryan Davis.

On March 28th, 2006, Gouskos was hand-picked to co-host one of GameSpot's very first Live Video Reviews alongside Senior Editor Jeff Gerstmann. Unlike one of GameSpot's normal video reviews, this highly publicized new feature aired in the form of a live video stream where Gouskos was responsible for not only delivering a complete review of Kingdom Hearts 2 live on stage, but also for fielding questions about the game from viewers. [2] This is an uncommonly high distinction for someone who had worked for the website for less than one year, but Gouskos' performance was so exemplary that it was later lauded by GameSpot Site Director Greg Kasavin who credited it as helping to cement the Live Video Review as a continuing new feature of the website.

During the 2006 Electronic Entertainment Expo which ran from May 9 through May 12, Gouskos was selected to co-anchor GameSpot's live coverage of the event alongside Rich Gallup. This prestigious position, previously held by veteran TV personality, producer, and former GameSpot editor Lauren Gonzalez, made Gouskos responsible for conducting a dozens of live on-stage and on-air interviews with high profile developers from throughout the gaming industry, all while simultaneously taking questions streaming in from an online chat channel. Some of these interviews included conversations with Obsidian Entertainment CEO Feargus Urquhart about Neverwinter Nights 2, Warhammer: Mark of Chaos Senior Producer Chris Wren, and Rod Ferguson, one of the producers for Gears of War. Over the course of approximately fifteen total hours of live broadcast, Gouskos' comprehensive understanding of the gaming industry, insightful questions, and easy charisma were repeatedly cited by GameSpot staff members and viewers alike as making the show such a valuable resource for E3 coverage.

External Links

• Carrie Gouskos at GameSpot

• GameSpot Features Page

• Carrie Gouskos at MySpace

• The Digital Women's Liberation Front on CinemaTech

• Carrie Gouskos' Live Review of Kingdom Hearts 2