in ten years, i'm going to have games on 30 different freaken download distribution companies...

Here's some fun things to consider:

Dawn of War II is a GFWL-enabled title (and is therefore eligible for the new store), but it uses Steamworks. Thus, it forces Steam on buyers regardless of where they purchase the game. Will Microsoft refuse to sell the game because it forces customers to install a competing platform?

Red Faction: Guerrilla uses Stardock's GOO as well as GFWL. It will be sold in the new store. Will the version sold in Microsoft's store contain GOO, as all other versions of the game have before it?

What is Stardock's take on this? Can this possibly be a good thing? More pressure against Steam to perhaps create more opportunities for other services? A push for platform-independent services, such as GOO and Impulse Reactor, to deal with the growing number of digital distributors?

Dawn of War 2's good..but that damn "must be registered/online with Windows live to play EVEN IN SINGLE PLAYER made it one of the most dissapointing thing in the last year.

True that...but when I got to install Stema to play it, and then got to register with windows live to just play the damn thing...WTH?

I mean- i'm an adult now, my mom ain't watching over my shoulder now....but some faceless corporation can and does?  sure software protection...they should go back to a CD-Key; it worked well back then; not to mention..let's say I don't ahve internet, but I want to paly DoW 2 single player...I'm double screwed.

I don't have internet; can't install Steam, nor can I get Windows Live, nor cna i return the product because the box's open and most store either can't accept it back or will trade it for the same game.

Given the GFWL "experience" thus far, I'd rather have a rabid badger shampoo my crotch than buy a game off of the service.

And they will all demand to be startup applications. Seriously though, I've been complaining about this for a bit, and guess what, all of them are going to have exclusives which makes having each of them necessary. They're already bundling clients and other unnecesary files with discs so that isn't going to help either. And privacy, heh, forget that, with all this companies mining your information and selling it to the highest bidder.

(aka, not saying Stardock does this but EA and company I am sure)

I hate GFWL and steam, so no thanks. I stick with Impulse for the moment. (Least intrusive right now.)

The advantage MS has is certainty that if you buy a game from them in 10 years time they should still be standing. You can't say that with as much confidence about any of the others out there.

people, if you bought the game, and for whatever god forsaken reasons the drm measures are hindering you from playing our game, get a crack from the internet.  problem solved.  If you don't have internet, go bug someone else that does, it is a simple google/bing search.  

Agreed. Cracks are not a solution for overzealous DRM and/or the potential problem that digital distributors might have down the road. Please, no one get on here and tell me how Steam is too big to fail, hmmm where have I heard that before, or that Brad is too smart for that. I don't think anyone sees failure coming out of any of these particular companies now, except maybe for the handful of stores like EA's that require you to pay for access to your games later. The thing is, industries are dynamic. No one knows what is going to happen 10 years from now, rewind 10, 15 years and there are some major players in the gaming industry that are just gone now.