Prez wrote on Oct 11, 2012, 17:28:

hb3d wrote on Oct 11, 2012, 16:09:
How is what Microsoft is doing here any different than what Valve already does with Steam? You are simply trading one walled-garden for another.

Nope, not the same. There are other game services and retail is still viable to avoid what restrictions Steam imposes if I so choose. Now tell me where I can find another OS that will play all of the modern, older, and classic games aside from Windows. You can't. Having your own set of rules for your service is not censorship. Speeding towards forcing that everything that can possibly be used on your PC with your restrictive certification process and marketplace makes it clear that's where Microsoft is headed. An indie who wants to release a game that Steam won't allow will always be able to do it a hundred different ways. With the direction MS is going in, how long before they can't without getting MS's okay to do it? I don't want Microsoft restricting what I can and can't use on my heretofore open platform. Clearly they are heading in that direction with the Windows 8 abomination. Valve restrictirons largely around quality. Microsoft is heading down the path of being sole arbiters of what is "appropriate". There isn't even a comparison to be made here between Steam and Microsoft's attempts at locking down the PC and removing one of its greatest aspects - freedom. Hopefully Linux will step up and fill the gap because if Windows 8 is the "future" then you can count me out.