Bless EA - always providing people with some sort of entertainment from hell - one way or another! :)

Personally,

I absolutely love digital distribution -

1- my broadband is fairly fast - and most games would be downloaded in a matter of hours.
2- Like EA is starting to do at the moment, most of the digital distributors are releasing the game ahead of the stores, or making most of it available for download, making it so you get your actual game on the launch date
3- I can make a backup of the install folders on an external hdd that will be fairly safe for years to come - while I already had to re-buy some of the game's original discs due to scratch, or plain loss of them - (some games rebought thru steam, so downloadable as often as I'd like in case of pc wipe).
4- stores can be out of an item, especially on release date.
5- Why would I sell a game exactly? most digital distributors now offers a cool off period - if there's something wrong with the game, or you can not run it etc, you could be entitled to a full refund, most stores don't do that anymore, because of piracy...
6- I don't have to go to the stores and be fighting with a bunch of uneducated kids to get what I need, nor do I have to face that underpaid sales person, that has no interest in gaming - and knows as little as his salary forces him to...
7- I don't have to keep a bunch of cd/dvd/boxes anywhere - saving space - nor do I have to look for a cd to be able to play most of my games.
8- the serial number is linked to my account - so if anyone gets that serial... somehow - I will simply either get a new one - or be declared "fine" by default, as my order got the serial :)
9- Most of the digital downloads keeps your game updated right away on their own -
10 - most of the downlod managers just looks shiny , and we like shiny things.

I don't see what the fuzz is all about with Dx10 -

It's been proven multiple times DX10 is nowhere near as good as it was promised, and drives the performances down on your machine (regardless of it's specs) - without seeing any TRUE improvements graphically -

Granted there are some improvements on lighting and shadows - but as far as texture and physics goes - it's a no go - Most games now have various free mods / patches giving you the game with equivalent (if not better) looks and feel under xp dx9, than you would have on vista dx10 (ex: crysis) - all that without a drop on your performances as big as vista +dx10 :) -

Also, you can not blame microsoft for releasing dx10 for vista only - would you expect a car manufacturer to release a new engine - and because it's better, you'd expect to be able to install that engine into your car ? Eventhough it's the same manufacturer - the car model is not the same - True enough, in some cases it might be possible - but why in god's name would the manufacturer do it? assuming that like winxp, the actual product will be unsupported / out of production in a little while - why would they invest time and money to make research developpment and all this stuffs - for something that will not bring them any cash? You have to remember, microsoft is not a charity - it's a business - and they want to make money - that's pretty much it -

Not too sure I understand the right number 8 - treated as criminals? huh? :S