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
Whoa! I log out for a few hours and this thread turns into a Visa commercial!
i disagree that competition is ALWAYS good. it is GENERALLY good.
y'know when it's NOT good? when it's VHS vs. betamax. when it's HD-DVD vs. BLU-RAY. you expressed confusion over the issue of standards but in certain very clear cases, the sentiment is clear. in some cases, choice is less about benefit to the consumer and more a pissing match between industry players and actually an IRRITATION to consumers. i'm not sure that this is or will be the case between impulse and steam... but i can see that it might be already. i purchased the first two dawn of war games in a gold pack in stores. i bought dark crusade at the impulse sale (awesome, thanks!). but the impulse version comes with no code key. now i'm not sure but i'm pretty sure that i'll be screwed if i decide to purchase soulstorm off steam and want to be able to use DC armies in the soulstorm multiplayer (requires codekeys of prev products in order to make those armies accessible in multiplayer).
when there is not an industry standard that everyone will play by, and companies seek to exert their OWN standards, then that puts the consumer in the middle and it's NOT good for us.
and usually, in this case, the company that gets their the fastest with the greatest wins. itunes vs. the also rans, kindle vs. the also comes, steam vs. impulse and heck, even vs. m$.
jin
Also, check the registrations under the blue question mark in the upper right page in Impulse. Should have the code DC there.
Steam is bad for everyone outside US and UK. Regarding the Euro prices.
Source: http://www.steamrepowered.eu/
Birger
@cobra - you stole all my thunder against DRM! karma
On a side note, there is a colossal behemoth that just entered the DDL water. I think it will sneak up on Steam rather quickly and give it a super bitch slap a few times before Steam notices what happened. That beast is known as Amazon. They just started doing the DDL for games last week and have an impressive catalog already.
fix the beta lag 350 needs a better net code
What you are talking about is refered to as "first mover advantage" in economics, and it absolutely does not apply to this market (or at least, reaching that conclusion is impossible today).
Unfortunately, standards are a good example of how a market can fail to produce the best outcome for the customers. Often, the best will prevail, but not always, where the biggest may do so with a worse standard (think MS). But does that apply to this discussion? Of course not, and I don't think anyone who really thinks about it would claim otherwise. Standardizing the supply of digital goods serves no purpose except one: being able to download all updates and sort all DRM through one client instead of two or three. The negative impacts of a monopoly outweighs that discomfort or annoyance for the customers. Whether they are aware of it or not.
Perhaps it is time for meta-clients?
I am curious about the soulstorm problem (cross-client interoperability limiting customer choice), please let us know when you have found out if it works or not.
I think its sad that I now feel like I have to look into a game's DRM before I consider buying it. At least w/stardock games I don't feel that way, no research needed beyond - will I like this game? I used to prefer getting games in a store, but I've been burned by unexpected DRM a few times and now I'm actually wary of even that, for pc games at least. No pun intended, but I cannot 'impulse buy' anymore in a brick and mortar store, not until I've gone home, got on the internet then researched its drm or lack thereof, then gone back to the store to finally buy it. I still do it, but it is no longer the most convenient or pleasant method for buying a game, and has instead become a pain. Impulse has actually become more pleasant than a store, and its not impulse's doing at all, its what impulse has not done.
I still get my console games in the brick and mortar store w/out hassle, however.
I wouldn't want to use impulse or steam to chat. I can see how the chat feature is cool because you can talk to the devs themselves and such, but I would never use it as a chat feature for my friends, no matter how nice it got. I don't want to have 50 different chat programs taht depend on what game I happen to be playing, not useful.
maybe someone already said this, but xfire (www.xfire.com) does this and it works w/most games from most publishers including both stardock and non-stardock games, and its free and not a monster behemoth system hog. Plus it has free video capture, voice chat, auto-downloads patches, right now they're adding a web browser you can use from w/in games, and new stuff is bein' added every once in a while. xfire seems to suck at getting people to know about it though, even after all this time (and its been around forever), at least judging from people I know in RL. It came w/a few big games like CIVIV, and that helped, but still, many seem to be in the dark about it.
Well, not really. Steam and Impulse sell a mix of indie/casual games and commercial releases. So far, all Amazon has is the sort of casual games that you can find (literally) on dozens of websites. See http://www.bigfishgames.com/ as an example.
It does have decent pricing on the games it carries, but the catalog isn't that substantial at this point. Also, it's not clear to me that it has the kind of "download-anytime-anywhere-as many times as you want" policy that Steam and Impulse do.
I remember reading in the FAQ that they encourage you to make a physical backup copy of your download, which is something of an unfriendly concept. What I mean by that is it's completely unnecessary when dealing with Steam or Impulse games to ever back up your game file downloads (execpt for mods and savegames).
This is a limitation on all of these types of services at this point. None of them that I'm aware of encourage you to mix-and-match base games and expansions from physical media and other digital distribution outlets, because they don't do a good job of talking to each other right now (although, presumably, if you bought a physical copy of Dawn of War II, it would be compatible with a future digital purchase of the inevitable expansion packs). This is probably because, as several commenters here have stated, a) publishers are reluctant to allow digital distros access to keys or key-generating mechanisms, and b ) the dd channels themselves, being proprietary software of various companiers or websites owned by various companies have compatibility issues or a need to maintain "trade-secret"-type information as confidential.
Maybe this could be remedied if all digital distro channels used a single kind of DRM, but I don't know.
Um, no. Steam's DRM can still be broken to play single player games and games on private servers. I would not call that "effective."
Yes, you need specialized memory protection. Otherwise, you're stuck in an eternal cat and mouse game with the hackers.
The databases behind them are not (in fact, what often seems like a unified website is really a set of servers in many locations worldwide), and "a particular" is code for "not centralized." I'd much rather go to a couple of distribution platforms than hundreds of websites.
I'm not sure what you're trying to claim here - websites certainly don't solve those issues (and are often even worse), and they're issues that Steam and Impulse and pretty much any distribution system can have.
That's also what got Microsoft in trouble with both the US courts and the EU.
That's also why browsers stagnated with no innovations for so long with IE6, until Firefox came out and shook them up.
That's why we have laws about monopolies.
. . . and that doesn't solve much. The DRM is still ineffective, and not everybody is using it.
. . . and often the DRM goes beyond simple copy protection and adds extra controversial restrictions. Look at the controversies behind SecuROM and EA Games. They kept trying to add crazy restrictions, and it kept backfiring.
I'm still looking for the problem DRM supposedly fixes.
Sure it is casual right now and they have not really promoted it. I guess I should have been more clear. Nonetheless tt is still in "beta" mode methinks and you can bet there are secret talks going on with publishers and developers at the moment. Hell I half expect to see Amazon announce a buyout or at least become a major investor in GOG in the not so distant future - that is pure speculation at the moment but I think it has lots of merit.
Anyway when it decides to tame the beast so to speak, I'm somewhat confident Steam with be the one getting rode hard and put away wet. Which should bode well for Impulse.
Apologies for my earlier comment that Stardock's next product was in an oversaturated market. It was my understanding it was a fantasy RPG, not a fantasy TBS/RTS or whatever it was. Regardless, all it means is, replace "oversaturated" with "shrinking/almost nonexistant". And I still have misgivings about Demigod, based on what I've read. I see it as being a minor success at best, and besides, those bastards never fixed Supreme Commander playing "UNDER ATTACK!" music when you stop building something or start reclaiming it. That... is a sore spot...
The overall point of my post still remains though: Valve's main business is games, and games in the most dominant genre at that. They also got first to the market (properly) with Steam. They will not be bought out, no publisher has that much money to blow, and I doubt Valve would accept any offer anyways. They are too big, too profitable, for it to happen. It would be like Nintendo buying Microsoft.
The same isn't true of Stardock. Stardock's main business is skinning software (for most people Vista is pretty enough - myself I don't use Aero since it's pretty at the expense of being able to read window titles). They've more recently expanded into a publisher/distributor role, but thus far not a very successful one. It would take one or perhaps two major letdowns for Stardock to be in serious jeopardy. Demigod could be one of them IMHO, and their other title (note: singular) could potentially be another.
So my point is, in terms of stability: Steam is 100%, Stardock is 80-90% or so. Relatively speaking, they're a risk. For that reason I would preferentially buy games on Steam even if the price was 10-20% higher.
One more time, Stardock:+Minor publisher/distributor+++Galciv franchise++++SoaSE franchise++Demigod++"Fantasy TBS" (I really thought they said RPG)+++++Well-liked by customers for DRM and support policies++Good support for indie developers+Skinning software--All games in minor, shrinking genres (regardless of what I or anyone here would want)-Impulse still half-baked, looks like something out of a "The year 2000 will look like this!" article published in 80s-Doesn't like DRM, so will have hard time attracting developers---Game catalog extremely weak
Valve:+++++Massively successful game developer (HL, CS, L4D, TF, Portal)++++Massively successful game distributor (Great catalog, distributor "we won't distribute Steam", developer "u fail @ life")++All games in dominant genre++"Valve" is accepted to mean "Game will be polished to a ridiculous degree"+++Good post-release support for new features+Games highly moddable, if you buy a Source game you've also bought a dozen awesome Source mods---Bad/mediocre customer service--Seen by many as a "Big bad wolf", the next crazy evil Microsoft-ish corporation, perhaps legitimately+Some support for indie developers++Good friends system+++++++Games frequently feature zombies
Caydr:
It's pretty clear that you know little to nothing about Stardock and it appears you don't know that much about Valve either.
Stardock still supports software that we released before Valve even existed.
Hence 5+ versus 3+. I'd really say I have a pretty strong understanding of both Valve and Stardock. Stardock makes excellent games, but in genres that are relatively minor. Valve makes excellent games in genres which are dominant. Nothing negative on either of you, I wish more people played strategy, it's my personal favourite genre.
On a less positive note, impression of your support is somewhat reduced by your having ignored a fairly significant interface bug for almost 3 years: https://forums.galciv2.com/313273
According to the all-knowing Wikipedia, your first significant software release was WindowBlinds, in 1998, and Valve was founded in 1996. Anything for OS/2 doesn't count. If people still use OS/2, they should die in a fire.
Caydr: I could spend a few minutes picking apart the errors in your posts but anyone who says that people who use OS/2 should die in a fire is not welcome to participate in this particular discussion.
I will simply say that you clearly know little to nothing about Stardock or Valve.
Caydr's funny comment about Stardock's publishing caught my eye:
I mean, how much more successful can a new publisher get than having the first title it published win tons of game of the year awards and sell over a half million copies?
The second title they're publishing, Demigod, is one I'm in the beta for and based on the latest beta I've played (2D) it is in a good position to be up at the top too.
2D????!!!
I guess my HDD failure 'hid' an update from me! (In other words... because my HDD failed, I went and installed Demigod, and didn't notice there was a new patch out! ) (edit edit: Darnit, and FEAR 2 just came out today!)
EDit:
++"Fantasy TBS" (I really thought they said RPG)
Elemental: War of Magic is a fantasy TBS; they also have a (semi-unnanounced...) RPG that we think is in the works. Basically there are some news articles floating around, and some comments by Brad, which strongly suggest / outright state something along those lines is in the works, but we just don't have any concrete information past 'new project' 'RPG' and 'Brad wants to do something like Baldur's Gate'.
Then your definition of "effective" is meaningless. Like I said "effective != perfect"
That shows a profound ignorance about what those court cases were actually about.
Microsoft was being accused of using their Windows monopoly (legally acquired. The Windows monopoly was not in dispute) to leverage a monopoly in the browser market.
Steam doesn't have a monopoly on anything. Getting a monopoly is not illegal; getting it through illicit or unfair means is illegal. And there's nothing illicit about packaging Steam with games.
Yeah, right. If Amazon can take out Steam, Impulse will be little threat.
Furthermore, if Steam does get bundled with newer games, Amazon will not be able to fight them. That's because those games will require Steam; they will be using Steam as their form of DRM. Which means that those publishers will want to use Steam for their DRM. And they won't want to use whatever Amazon's DRM is on top of that.
Amazon may be able to compete with Greenhouse and Impulse, but if Valve is getting major publishers to use Steam for their DRM, then Amazon will never be able to get publishers on their service. At least, not without also having the service install Steam, which only expands Steam's marketshare.
Competition is good for any industry. It forces a necessity for invention, which is in turn good for the consumer......................and did I mention I liked pie?!
not around for vhs vs. beta?! young whippersnappers... why in my day, i had to walk 5 miles in the snow for my pornography... had to go behind a velvet curtain we did...
yeah, it drove down prices but it still created consumer confusion and probably half of the consumers ended up being big losers by betting on the wrong horse. whether that ends up being a net benefit to consumers is dubious.
and especially as it pertains to electronics, the price was going down regardless. it's not just about sony v. hddvd. it's sony v. aiwa, sony v. everychineseelectronicsmegaturdmanufacturer who make cheap bluray players.
thanks for the tip about the code in the question mark... i'll take a look when i get home and see if it is indeed there. if so, that's a bow to industry standards that i really really dig.
We shall see... That is what I like about the business and tech world. Strange shit happens all the time. I wonder what would happen if Amazon flat-out said it would not sell games that required Steam membership, from its members, to be able to use the product. I wonder what vendor has more juice in the industry's eye?
I would not like the idea of steam being the only source. I do think I like impulse better the steam.
Steam has its ups and downs. I just got FEAR 2 last night. It uses steam for its DRM. I can say this about steam, if there is going to be DRM on a game I would rather it be steam over the other drms. At least does not screw up my computer.
The good news: creating a DD platform is easy compared to designing and producing a console. So if Valve screwed up, you'd see a half-dozen players fill the void. Impulse, Amazon, Micrsoft, Activision-Blizzard. (Blizz is like Valve in that their games are amazingly popular and played online. They could easily follow Valve's DD strategy of expanding outward from your base.)The bad news: You still have lots of money invested in the Steam platform.Anyway, I would love to see Steamworks data for third-party games. You'd see when the game was registered, what store it came from (assuming they match serials with store shipments), how often they play the game, and what games they end up buying from the Steam store (especially interesting if it's their first time using Steam). They'd get fine-grain comparisons of retail sales to digital sales, probably organized by region. It'd be cool to make a map showing what regions buy the most games through Steam.
I like the idea that Steam has competition, but that doesn't stop me from getting pissed when games are released on other platforms and not on Steam. Because, at this point in the game I wouldn't switch having already spent 200+ dollars on Steam and having all my friends using Steam it just wouldn't be worth it. Besides that I also have a blind faith in Valve Stardock too actually but yea.
Steam has become the PC's platform holder Microsoft has the 360, Sony has the PS3, and the PC has Valve.
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