If there is no company, then there is no product. :/

Emulator for X360? Riiiiiiiiiight.

are you really that dull? without company there is no product

and yeah, try emulating xbox like tulac said

Seriously, without any companies, there wouldn't be any games (There's still freeware, but that quality changes a lot) nor any other companies to do any games!

If you want more games, you support the companies, capiche?

EDIT: Oh yeah. Emulating 360/PS3 version? Yeah, right!

just like Grand Theft Auto series, those games have always come to PC first then consoles, but GTA 4? nooooo were releasing it for PS3 first.:doh:

and now we PC'ers have to wait another year before we can play GTA.:notrust:

Personally, I don't mind having the releases later than the console versions, as it can mean extra content or bug fixes. It also has the added benefit of allowing you access to many more peoples opinions, something that seems more important to me given the occasional failings of the professional game reviewers.

I don't mind either. In some cases, the later PC versions are far superior to the consoles' and they fix things according to player feedback.

Why, thank you! I'm really ashamed, as a 'professional' game reviewer, I always get the flak that I'm a hired goon of the games industry. I really try to fight against that popular opinion, but some happenings like the Kane&Litch fiasco, are not helping. People lost their trust in game reviews.

Kane and Lynch was a classic example, even if no wrong-doing has ever been proved, to my knowledge. People are generally just suprised at some game scores, and the first question now tends to be, has the lure of more advertising cash or exclusives on new titles swaying the reviewers?

I have a particular issue though, with games like Oblivion and Bioshock, that are massively hyped as having particular features, but no review calls them on it. In Oblivion in particular, they hyped Radient AI, but the end product was rather poor compared to the gameplay videos they previewed. In Bioshock, it was claimed that it was a genre hybrid, but ended up being a shooter. Games journalists are supposed to find out this sort of stuff, but there are some that seem to enjoy being industry best buddies...

Anyway, I have rambled, did mean to say I wasn't picking on particular people though... turned into a rant!

You know, it's not that simple. In most cases, the ad revenue and other 'lures' are for the executives of that particular magazine or webzine or whatever. Most of the time, the reviewers themselves don't even know about these deals. After the favorable review popped up on the site along with the massive ad campaign for Kane&Litch, people started to ask questions. Then the reviewer came forth, that the execs pressured him into writing a praising review despite of the popular opinion on the game, he got fired and almost a lawsuit up his ass. Most reviewers don't get a single $ for the praising review, they just fear to lose their job if the don't comply.

I myself had a similar experience. When I got Turok for review not so long ago, my boss told me the publisher told us if we can't write a favorable review we shouldn't publish any. I wrote the review and tried to concentrate on the good side of the game and leave out the worst parts, but it was painfully hard for me. After submitting the article, I told my boss, that this the was the first and last time I got pressured into writing a 'favorable' review, and he should fire me if he doesn't like it. I value objectivity above all else, and people should know if a game is sh*t. He told me that it's okay, and he won't accept any more games with strings attached.

Sadly, there are reviewers who lost their objectivity, either for money or the fear of losing their jobs. Even if I will lose my job over this, I won't be the b**ch of the games industry. Sometimes I'm really ashamed to be a reviewer, seeing all those 9.5 reviews of awful games. I use to have disputes with my boss over ratings too, he always finds my scores too low, or "you always concentrate on the bad side of the game". Well, if it's bad, why should I lie about it? Gamers deserve to know these things...

While I like to have games, keep coming out - piracty for me, is not a way to destroy companies/get new games - but to replace/find games which are impossible to find, nowdays in major retailers. But IMHO, piracy isn't a killer of the PC gaming. Hell, in the firs tmonth, crysis was more pirated than bought - and after another month or two, it sold million copies. I am not trying to make piracy look good, but thinking that the already established company will die due to piracy, is idiotical. I have seen plenty of people suggesting alternatives to stop the piracy - and believe me, those ways actually make more sense.

Also, do not blame the reviewers. They can also be under the hype, just like any other normal person. As he said - boss and advertisments are the main parts. Remember - if you give a game, too low of a review, the company which produced it will stop giving out information to you, will not give you interviews, et cetera.

@gufu1992:

In terms of abandoned games e.g. that which this site has available, then it's not piracy in the same sense, as they are not preventing the company from making a profit, as the games are old and out of print. This site is very responsible in that sense.

With other games, in particular current generation titles, it causes negative reactions, including higher prices, and DRM. This causes legitimate buyers to be inconvenienced and out-of-pocket, and doesn't solve the piracy problem, which has led in recent years to a kind of feedback loop, where now games like Spore have limited installs but despite this rental agreement, dont have reduced cost.

As for hype, reviewers should be doing their best to cut through it, thats their job after all!

@Playbahnosh:

Thanks for the insider info, it's always great to hear from people who can give examples of how things are seen from the journalism industry point-of-view. Thankfully for most people, you can "shop-around" for reviews, unlike in my youth when I just had one monthly game magazine subscription!