Try uninstalling 9.2 and then installing 9.3 :P 9.2 breaks itself somewhere along the line, making it impossible to entirely uninstall it. Scouring the registry for entries doesn't help either. Im sure there is a workaround, but so far it's easier to just reimage your Windows box :/

Just 2 cents: Depending on the application, you can get away with quite a few alternatives. Tatouk isn't too bad, it's been in used for nearly a decade in one of our GIS applications. I've investigated SharpMap, which (if you're looking for a barebones mapping app in C#) is great for simple mapping applications/components. A few of our new applications have been using the Google API, which has gone over well for their purposes. I personally don't feel you can suggest a software which is "better" without qualifying what one is desiring to do. Arc does literally everything; though I'd likely guess most developers don't really need this. My issues with ArcGIS would likely be that it's proprietary; during my investigation of SharpMap, when I needed full colour Geotiff and raster support, I built it myself. There was quite a bit of user supplied documentation, and the freedom to open up what I needed should I run into my own road block. It may be rather infantile compared to Arc, but as a developer I much rather open source alternatives. Still, can't fault ESRI for dominating the professional market; no one else was really doing anything with GIS for a good portion of time.

Sadly; some of us are stuck using ArcEngine 9.2 for gov't projects; we don't have the benefit of the recent developments and actually intelligible documentation. Oddly, I work a mere stones throw from the ESRI offices in Ottawa; I should raid their offices for free documentation.

About the only reviews I've given credit to in the last few years have been satirical reviews from people like Spoony or some of the other YouTube vloggers. However, even these can be hard to detect as fake (such as the e-cigarette reviewers who genuinely seem legit - Actors, they make all the difference).

You'd be surprised how often it happens for novels as well. "The Losers' Club" by Richard Perez is a fairly well known example of review poisoning. Hundreds of reviews, "Best of Lists" on Amazon, etc; all fabricated by the author and his friends. Review Journalism is often questionable, regardless of the medium being reviewed; it's just more visible with video games at the moment. 10 years ago it was PC Mag.

It's generally easy to pick out the fake reviews posted by either one of these companies or by over zealous users. However, how can the FTC differentiate the two? It's not like they can just walk up and demand a list of IP's whenever a product gets strangely glowing reviews. Sometimes people really do absolutely love utter crap (Dan Brown anyone?). It sounds like they just told Reverb to fess up when doing these reviews, but thats hardly a solution.

If I had mod points, I'd mod you up for mentioning Yelp being sued. I was totally unaware of that.

I'm guessing you've never seen a review written by rabid fans; even before release...

These fake reviews are common for businesses as well. Take a look at restaurants on Yelp sometime; many "boost" their review status by posting fakes. How is the FTC actually able to deduce which are from a firm and which are legit anyway?

Valve has explicitly stated that if Steam/they were to tank, they would provide a means you could play your games without steam. Second, most developers don't do much support of their games via Steam, thats mostly left up to Valve.

Should a developer go down, you arn't going to loose the game or no longer have the ability to re-download it; people will simply be no longer to purchase it.