... that is coming with Windows 8. I've noticed that some around here talk that, for example, EA ditching Steam is a really bad thing for the gamers.

I wonder if a developer totally ditches Steam / Origin / GOG / GG / whatever, and just allows you to purchase stuff with your email address, without you to be forced into making any additonal accounts, or giving third parties your billing info, would you prefer that over the other services like Steam / GG / GOG / Origin / and similar?

Or would you be still crying, "If it doesn't come on Steam, I'm not buying!"? (assumign you already have everything needed, like you are on WL and your friends are on WL)

(The social services like friends' lists, joining / inviting players to play together would still be there, all you'd have to do is log in with a Windows Live account on your Windows 8 installation, this assuming you already have a Windows Live account (of course).)

If it shares points etc with XBL I'll most likely use it since I /always/ have points floating spare on there from DLC/arcade purchases

I buy games from a lot of different stores like GOG, Steam, GamersGate, D2D (RIP), and Amazon but I won't be buying from the Windows store and I doubt any major publisher will be dumb enough to ditch other stores to sell exclusively on it.

That right there is one reason why I don't buy things from MS that require points. Actually, I generally don't buy anything from them at all as I'm still pissed off about their points scam and refusal to issue me a refund for defrauding me of my money.

The points system is just an end run around normal consumer protections laws. I assume that isn't the case in the UK, but in the US pretty much the only power I have is the credit card issuer charge back.

Dunno about that in particular, but the store will support more than 200 (countries and provinces) worldwide locations, and 70 different local currencies.

Protection laws here are stronger so yeah if we request a refund they have to give one but I generally just let the points float till the next thing I want comes out

I live in Mexico. I have a Mexican IP address.

I have a US Credit Card.

They think I'm trying to rip them off. I'm not.

I reported the scam to the state Attorney General and they didn't do anything about it. MS even had the balls to claim that they couldn't provide a refund. Which is just utter bollocks, they can provide one even if it requires manually changing things in their database and issuing a check.

That will hopefully change now that we finally have a head for our new consumer protection agency, but it amazes me how willing people in the US are to bend over for corporate greed and corruption.

Many were possibly expecting Steam to become the de-facto standard on Windows game delivery, but now it seems we're possibly getting a forced new standard, at least in the long run.

Whether that is good or bad, I don't know. Too early to tell. If the system is not any more draconian than e.g. Steam, I expect to buy games from it the same way like I buy from other DRM distributors, ie. not until I am actually going to play the said game, so no change there. (That's why I haven't bought any for many years, too many old games to play already now, just started Halo 2 on XBox.)

In the long run I would probably favor Windows Store to Steam, GamersGate, Origin etc. simply because I would probably expect the other systems slowly shrink to oblivion on its side.

Who on earth would think Microsoft would start delivering Steam de-facto with Windows? That makes no sense whatsoever.

Yey, many +++++ for that. Buy games only when you'd play them!

Guess we'll find out more in a month or two, rumors are that a beta off Windows 8 will be releaesed in late Feb (the Dev Preview is missing so many things).

Having a local backup option is out of the question?

Why wouldn't you buy anything from the Windows Store?

The interesting part is that apparently Windows Store will be the only possible way to deliver Metro apps and games, even if they are freeware. So at least for them, either you use Windows Store, or can forget about publishing it to Windows devices (AFAIK). Sure, "normal" PC games and apps can still be delivered by other methods, but maybe in the long run "normal" Windows games will become obsolete the same way like DOS games became when the publishers finally ditched it in favor of Win32/DirectX.

It's not really different what Apple is doing with their exclusive app store. All the companies publishing games and apps for IPads and IPhones don't seem to care about ditching other (non-existent) stores, as long as they get big sales.

EA is a different story because they are already trying to push their own delivery system, they will not abandon it without a fight. And maybe Half-life 3 will be Steam exclusive as well, at least at first.

It's a rebranded Games for Windows Live. It'll be a useless and obnoxious platform, just like that is.