>> "Or is there a login and a username? Stupid again"

Lots of sites allow you to login with a username or an email address. I agree it can complicate things but is you need an email address to validate a user is real and a unique username for the service (e.g. it's social) allowing either for login will probably result in less forgotten logins.

How does an email address validate that a user is real?

Not real, I meant 'not a bot'. Ask for email, send a link that must be clicked etc.

That doesn't answer the question. There's no particular reason a bot can't have an email address.

Maybe I'm wrong, I was always under the impressions one of the main reasons to ask for an email address was to make things more difficult for bots. Rather than just setup a script to create accounts on your server they would also need a valid email address for every attempt.

Try Star Citizen, which needed an email, login name AND username. Insanity.

And they have to be all different IIRC.