That comment you quoted was in the context of hardcore games. I doubt the next Elder Scrolls planned on being a Metro-style app.
However, that's a fair comment regarding apps in general, and I agree with that. But developers aren't being forced to use the store, so if they don't want to meet market demands (if there is any - Metro with a mouse has had mixed reviews), that's their choice. MS has never been in a position to dictate this sort of choice before, so it's impossible for that type of restriction to have occurred before.
A developer can't write a program that integrates with the preferred UI on the latest version of Windows without conforming to an approval process.
This is indeed a huge change for 3rd party developers on the Microsoft platform.