One of the things I routinely see on-line when they hear about something new about Impulse is someone commenting “I wish they’d all just consolidate under Steam.” In fact, as Impulse has become increasingly successful, the cry has gotten louder.
So strong is Steam’s fan base at this point that one of the most common comments about Impulse on third-party forums is the desire by some that it didn’t exist and that everything was just on Steam.
I admire Valve on two levels. First, I admire their excellence in what they make. I like companies that strive for the highest quality possible in what they produce. Second, I admire Valve’s business practices. They are incredibly effective, competent, and adaptive. In short, Valve is a fantastic company.
I’m a professional zealot. My tendency to get behind the best technology has led me to be, at various times, an OS/2 zealot, an OpenDoc zealot, and yes, even a Valve zealot (Source engine).
But I’ve also been around long enough to know that you don’t want one player calling all the shots. The companies we love today may not be so loved later on.
People routinely give me a hard time because I like Electronic Arts a lot. How is that possible? Because to me, when I think of Electronic Arts I think of Archon, MULE, Seven Cities of Gold, Starflight, and Summer Games.
When I was an OS/2 zealot, the up and coming star was Microsoft. Its fans helped ensure that Windows, not OS/2, became the standard OS. For many people today, it’s hard to imagine Microsoft as the fanboy favorite – the company that could do no wrong – the company that would never do anything “evil”.
Now, we live in an industry absolutely dominated by Microsoft and Electronic Arts. Its fanboys got their way. Is there anything wrong with that? You tell me.
Today, the pattern repeats itself. Steam is doing phenomenally well. It has fans that actively wish that competition would just go away in the name of “standards” (whatever that means).
And yet, even though Impulse is just an up-and-comer, the competition has already helped consumers. Before the “Impulse Weekend Buys” it was relatively rare to see regular organized major sales on Steam. Now we get them every weekend.
I would like to think that we’ve had some impact on people’s awareness that you don’t need nasty DRM to be successful.
I think Impulse’s focus on trying to encourage one price, worldwide in local currency right out of the gate has made some impact too.
I think Impulse's very fast download speeds have helped encourage competing services to keep increasing their bandwidth capacity.
At the very least, Impulse’s growing success, I think, is something most people can agree has been very beneficial to consumers.
Steam’s most successful venture yet, Steamworks, has helped Steam get an increasingly firmer hold on the market. In my opinion, Steamworks is 90% copy protection, 10% game-related features. I know that publishers are looking at Steamworks as a replacement to SecuROM for protecting games.
The problem is that Steamworks requires the user to have a Steam account and Steam installed to use it – even if you buy it at retail or through a third party like Direct2Drive. I think that’s the basic strategy for Steamworks -- give developers a bunch of “free” features that they used to have to pay for (copy protection, DRM, GameSpy type stuff) with the only catch is that the user has to become a Steam user and have Steam installed. As a result, something like Dawn of War 2, for instance, won’t be on Impulse.
Even with the case of Steamworks, competition has helped here too though, since Stardock is producing Impulse Reactor to compete with Steamworks. Impulse Reactor doesn’t require Impulse (the client) to even be installed to work.
Steamworks, obviously, has a head start and publishers have been following THQ’s lead by setting up with Steamworks even when it means they’re distributing a third party store with their game. After all, right now, Steam has the numbers.
Based on the #s I hear from publishers, Impulse, which has only been out for 6 months, has already become #2 in terms of actual units sold on a given title. But Steam still has a massive lead. Obviously, if we can’t even carry certain big name titles because they've hooked in Steamworks, the competitive trend will reverse.
And while some people might very much like seeing there be only one option, especially if that option comes from such a cool company like Valve, they may not be considering the long term ramifications.
For example, last weekend, Steam and Impulse both had sales on Titan Quest. Steam had it for $7.99, Impulse had it for $3.99. Neither I assume knew the other was going to have a sale on it. But that sort of competition is good for consumers.
Competition is good for consumers. It’s also good for companies. I’m a Steam user. I enjoy watching it evolve and improve over time. But I am also thankful that there are still alternatives to it. Because as much as people love Valve today, I still remember how much everyone loved EA and Microsoft in their day too. Competition keeps companies dynamic and consumer friendly.
Update:
Reading through the comments I see some people turning it into an Impulse vs. Steam discussion (i.e. Impulse rulez! No, Steam rockz!).
This isn't mean as a Steam vs. Impulse discussion. What it is supposed to be is to make people aware of the long history in which fans have rooted for the up-and-comer (whether it be EA in its day or Microsoft later and Google today) and how perceptions change when said companies dominate.
There are plenty of people out there that with that everything would just "standardize" on iPods and iTunes. And even as an iPod and iTunes user, I am glad there's Amazon.com selling MP3s.
For the record, I use Steam every day. I like it a lot. The question isn't which is better (right now, if I had to choose one client, I'd use Steam because of its superior community features and game library -- how many CEOs would say that publicly about the "competition"?). The objective is to remind users that competition is always a good thing even when you love a particular vendor (whether it be Valve, Stardock, whoever).
It's never a good idea to explicitly wish for a single source. Some people in the comments area have said "Of course no one wants a monopoly". But I can assure them that yes, there are lots of people and companies who would like just that because a single source is seen to streamline things.
We expect Impulse to exceed 1 million users before Demigod even ships. So suffice to say, it is doing well. It's nowhere near Steam's user base but then again, Impulse has only been out 6 months.
The point is, Impulse's existence and success shouldn't be seen as an "inconvenience" to consumers but rather as a way to ensure that consumers continue to have choices.
Steam and Impulse at a glance:
www.steampowered.com
www.impulsedriven.com
Related articles:
Stardock mentioned by name by the Michigan governor in the state of the State address
Impulse Phase 3 preview
Stardock prepares to open up second game studio
Stardock's Sins of a Solar Empire top selling PC strategy game of 2008
If your not part of the solution then your part of the problem. There are already a dozen different direct download methods, steam being the most used/popular. The reason it is popular is not because its forced on people, its because valve does respect its customers and has a HUGE list of games (something that impulse will never match, like it or not). Now you equating them being some huge evil corporation, or the possibility to become one without the white knight that is impulse to keep them in check is laughable. If that did come to pass guess what would happen? Sales would go down, pirating would go up. That would then create a hole for another honest company to take up. But until that does indeed happen impulse is redundent to the extreme.
If you were serious with the gamers bill of rights then why is it i have to have impulse at all? Why cant i just download updates from any website mirror i choose like many games instead of being forced to install impulse then download the updates after validating my credentials? Dont you believe me that i bought the game legitamitely? These practices are the exact same thing that steam does. Whats the difference? The games that developers want to be activated when they're 1st installed as a minimal form of DRM to prove that they bought the game legitamitely can be. The developers that would rather be as uninstrusive as possible to their customers can be as well.
My argument has nothing to do with which service is better, only which is better for developers and gamers alike. Dont act like impulse is the holy ghost/savior that will keep steam legitamit through all its success. Games are going to get pirated no matter what, moreso if gamers dont like a particular business practice, thats what keeps steam in check, thats why other services FAILED and thats exactly why we dont need two white knights.
I'm a big fan of impulse and I also use Steam, but recently something Valve did made me pretty much stop using it; the 1$ = 1€ fiasco. Not only did this make most games 25% more expensive (sometimes much more!) if you live in a European country (even if it's not a member of the EU like mine), but they also added VAT to some countries that don't actually have VAT for international orders!
A game that costs 49.99$ becomes $64.50 for me, which used to be much higher until the exchange rate of the Euro dropped again compared to NOK.
So yes, monopoly is a bad thing, and if only Impulse had the game catalogue Steam does, I'd likely never use it again (I'm an unsociable person so I don't need the Steam overlay ), not to mention it would likely force Valve to rethink the silly exchange rate that they said they implemented to make it "easier for the customer" to know what the price of a game was. What a load of bull.
I'm not so sure anyone is trying to take the moral high ground here. It's more a function of economic reality. 'Evil' or not, monopolies, and oligopolies for that matter will strip purchasing power from the end consumer.
Said the paid employee trying to push his companies content delievery system. Maybe if said monopoly/oligopoly did well prices would lower and the purchasing power of said consumer would go up. You just cant say for sure.
Do you mean something like Impulse Anywhere as described in the Impulse Phase 3 preview thread https://forums.elementalgame.com/339314 ?
Impulse has already this feature. Sadly, the problem is not on the side of Stardock but on the publishers that don't allow Stardock to have all informations for identifying retail versions as valid for download. You can check here https://forums.galciv2.com/339184 , reply #1
I don't work for Stardock and this is not MY product. You can find information on monopolies from whatever source you like. I am not presenting anything new here.
Are you aware that some publishers force Impulse do have a regional pricing for Europe for their titles with that kind of exchange rate?
Replace employee with glorified fanboi, its all the same.
Umm... I don’t think he is a "paid employee" of SD but more an owner of development studio that works with SD. Food for thought...
Additionally you are coming across as very hostile, at least as I read your comments. What is the issue you have? Verification of a product once you install it? I HATE the current DRM practices and actively do everything I can to fight them to the degree of organizing protests and reviews bombings -etc...
With that said, I don’t see anything different about the way Impulse does things than the older "pre-Internet" generation of game checking systems. I remember back in the day, one had to log on to support sites to download patches and other cumbersome stuff had to be dealth with at times but Impluse has streamlined all that jazz and only affects your updates. So what am I missing here?
Additionally, why is this thread turing into a Steam vs Impulse thing?
Well as for the thread 'turning into' a steam vs impulse thing, go ahead and read the title of the thread.
As far as coming off hostile, i'm just trying to offer my opinion as objectivly as i can. If that threatens you then um sorry? I'm not talking about resorting to 'review bombing' or any juivenile tactics, my gripe is why should there be two of essentially the same thing. Why should i get behind impulse when steam does the same job in every way if not more (Frogboy even said impulse has a lot to catching up to do with steam). I just dont see how his original 'keep them honest' and 'better for the consumer' idea's hold true when steam is that legitimate direct download client service that he's trying to allude to by saying that one day they might not be, because valve might get bought out, or get too big and become some feared monopoly. I personally find it much more likely that Stardock is bought out then Valve (regardless of privately owned or not, one company is worth more than the other from a financial stand point.)
Edit: Also, Privately Owned means it doesn't get bought out as long as Frogboy says no.
Yes thats all conjecture, your absolutely right, just like Frogboy saying what if Valve gets bought out.
Maybe for games. But Stardock has also a non gaming side about windows customization and uses also Impulse (and that before Stardock Central) for it. And I think that Stardock Central was available before Steam.
What should have done Stardock as download service for their non gaming stuff AND their gaming stuff?
Now that deffinitely makes sense. Thank you for bringing that to my attention. In this thread i got lost in the games part of the direct download service. Maybe thats an area that Stardock can focus on more to make it not just competitive with steam but offer services above and beyond them. Now were getting somewhere constructive.
@dj-LiTh -OK. Maybe I'm reading more into your comments than I should - it has been a long day...
Anyway, his basic argument is still valid in my opinion. It has been proven time and time again that once a player in an industry has a monopoly position it will abuse the people it supposedly is there to serve. The reason for such practices are not relevant as far as I'm concerned. The fact it always happens in a capitalist system is all that matters. Having competition, and viable competition is what keeps the scales balanced to some degree.
Also I agree with your notion that the buyout of SD is far more likely than Steam but you never know. I have been a customer of SD since Brad first started the company and I knew of him from his college days posting on UseNet and to me at least, his practices and ideas have not changed since then. He and his staff as well as partners are very active within the community and are easily reachable. Additionally SD does more then only games and that was its core business and still is - maybe, but I digress...
On the other hand, one cant claim that for those owners, executives and developers at Steam and other behemoth sized companies like EA and AB. Hell on nearly every other forum "sponsored" by that ilk, if one even comes close to criticizing a developer or manager or policy one is pretty much banned and the bigger they are the faster such things happen. Yet here you are taking pot shots at a president of a partner company, directly interacting with him and there is no great ban stick coming your way, no loss of access to the titles you purchased -etc...
What I'm getting at to borrow a turn of phrase, is that I think power corrupts and absolute power absolutely corrupts; for lack of better wording. Food for thought...
Well, if you take a look in the impulse store, you will see that there are non gaming stuff in the Desktop, Tools or Office areas. Some are published by Stardock, but not all.
BTW, have you looked at the Impulse Phase 3 preview thread (link in the OP post) ? Especially the Impulse builder part ?
Absolutely true, and thats what makes Stardock such a great company. If this was on the EA forum i probably would have been banned for disagreeing with anyone of authority. I can agree with the phrase as it fits well, but i'm still inclined to think that valve, or lets say if Stardock was in that position of Direct download dominence that (hopefully) they would use their power wisely, but you never know, which was also my point in that you cant automatically assume that a monopoloy of a direct download service would be a bad thing to customers (i can think of several benefits from it). In the end i guess we agree to disagree, but atleast we can agree on that Stardock is a wonderful company and many companies would be smart to follow suit (i also hold valve in high regards as well).
I definitely have. I'm liking the clientless route that they may take, as for the non gaming stuff, i was aware of it, but i neglected it in comparing it to steam. This is a plus for me that impulse has over steam and i would personally like more applications to go onto impulse (sounds kinda like the Iphone apps store in a way, of stardock authorizing quality apps to be sold). This to me is a win win situation for indy developers and consumers alike.
Monopolies and oligopolies now CARE about the customer? REALLY? Wow! In my little own world, monopolies/oligopolies don't do that.
Yes, but that's not something Stardock has decided to implement globally and excuse it with "making it easier for the customer to understand the price", which is a load of bollocks, and to top it off add VAT for countries who don't pay it.
I don't really want to pay $20+ for Steam to "save" me the 30 seconds it takes to check xe.com for the pricing in my local curreny (which I'd have to do anyway as Norway doesn't use Euro), nor do I want to pay a VAT my country doesn't have.
What are the supposed economic benefits to the consumer of a monopoly? I'm askling because we did have monopolies and oligopolies in the late 19th century here in America. It lead to the Sherman Antitrust Act. In other words, Congress specifically recognized the harm inherent to consumers under such systems. I'm curious as to what economic theory has lead you to draw the opposite conclusion.
Just ask apple
Ask Apple what? Is this intended to be a meaningful response to my question? I asked you to list the economic benefits that accrue to the consumer under a monopoly-type situation. What has Apple done that is supposed to clarify that?
I'd definitely disagree with them. While it *can* be a tad inconvenient having to choose between two platforms, I'm all for competition, which I believe promotes innovation and low prices.
. . . and Steam is games-only, while Impulse has some really great application software . I just stumbled accross GoodSync, which did a fantastic job of serving some needs I had in ways that few other programs could.
I use both and I like both . While it may be a bit more convenient to have one platform, I think competition is good and it keeps prices down and innovation up. I'm more than happy to give up a little convenience if it means great products.
Monopolies can have SOME benefits. But they only apply when the monopolistic company is transparent. Any profit-maximizing monopolistic company (supplier) is always bad for the customer and the producers because monopolistic companies operate by choking the supply to the market in order to increase prices and thus profits.
Either way, monopolies don't work (black markets / contenders always emerge), and it certainly could never function in this online age where the monopolistic company has no control over upstarts.
If you want all your games in one client, well, tough. It's not going to happen. Those of us who enjoy a free market will continue to do so, and those of you who do not wish to enjoy a free market will do so too.
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