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
yah, will let everyone know if there is indeed a codekey in the impulse question mark dealy...
well, i did say that i'm not certain that this is the issue between steam, impulse, d2d, etc... but as i said, i can see it becoming that.
time will tell, as you said, how things shake out... but speaking in terms of subjective quality in the hear and now, steam has little to complain about and a lot to like. seamless and "do no harm" drm (unlike MANY others) and the now nearly ubiquitous (except for fing itunes), "if you buy it once, it will always be available to you". you can say that the first on the field can impose bad standards but steam seems to be implemented in a way that is "gamer friendly".
again, that's not to say that impulse is not. it is. but like with the hddvd vs. bluray battle, if you bet on the wrong horse, you can be in for a world of pain. AND i simply don't think you can minimize consumer convenience.
again, i understand that in principle, competition is good... but it has its thorny backside too... especially when the leader in the field is conducting itself at worst as a benevolent dictator.
Imagine how it would be like if there was no competition. The free market is the last defence against ruthless companies. Ironic, isn't it.
Well small companies (like Stardock - no offence) typically do more for the economy (hire locally, spend locally, etc), while mega corps.... don't really seem to like hiring locally... people<profits.
Not a very hard formula, and one EA crubmled under.
Holy CRAP I leave for few days after reading this DANG! Brad really knows how to start good posts! Its good to hear that Impulse is on the verge of 1 million users. But I still use both but yes its always good to have options. Keep up the great work!
I have used both Steam and impulse, I prefer impulse because it seems to me that its better structured. Also I have yet to see impulse take 30 min downloading updates when its just installed.
"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."
The real reason I am writing this is in response to the fanboys comment, I thought it was funny that when people talk about Stardock it is mentioned as a fanboy favorite.
Things I dislike about steam:
They take a very long time to update their stuff when patches come out. And if there are not many customers on a game they won't update it at all. I'm not sure what the quota is for bothering to update a game for them. Go ahead and look on their site. Some games are Way behind on the latest updates and it is the final update as far as they are concerned but the game's publisher or official site has more updates that sadly will not work with steam.
Terrible customer service. (All I ever got was a form letter in response to my emails.)
They have falsified information in order to get customers to buy from their site. A prime example is the Space Froce rouge universe ...thing. (i'm not sure why anyone would want to buy that anyway.) They advertised it as mulitplayer. People actually bought it so they could play against their friends. Go read the posts on steam about it. Eventually steam customers who got tricked complained to Joe Woods or John Woods or whatever or whoever made space force and they sent a notice to valve telling them to knock it off and it is not multiplayer. Only after that did valve stop lying to their "customers". Valve never gave anyone money back or even a coupon for buying a game advertised falsley on steam.
No mods whatsoever, unless it's half life or some other valve orignial will work while your connected to the steam network. If you install a mod and run the game without singing in offline first then steam will remove it automatically. "Excuse me! I want to mod the game I bought from you. Not only did you disable the mod now I have to go and download it again." What's going to happen if some little brother of an employee of steam decides to not be well behaved on bring a family member day and uses that security thing to do stuff to people's computers who are connected to the steam network. If they can delete stuff off of your computer that they didn't install without your permission then what else can they do they are not telling their "customers?"
When I buy a game I don't want to have to install a third party software and then sign up so I can play it. Why even sell it in stores then? To me that's silly. (Putting it mildly, very midly.) There are some games I watned to buy, in the past, in a store and then I saw I would have to get a steam account and be connected to the internet so steam would make sure it wasn't pirated. Ummm... I'm buying it from the store. I did not buy any of those games and I will never buy anything like that.
I actually used to have steam on my computer. To make sure it was gone I formatted the hd and reinstalled the os.
They claim you can downlaod it as many times as you want. Well you can but the activation limits still apply, they don't mention that though. Steam technical forums are used to getting posts about how people can no longer install their games. There are those mad enough to post the form letter response from steam on the forums telling them according to such and such a section of the user license agreement for the game they can no longer install it on their computer. And please buy another copy from steam. What the crap!!! That hasn't happend to me, I've just read the horror stories. Impulse does have stuff like that but they tell you on the game page. None of this sucking the customer in with misinformation.
I use direct 2 drive over steam in a heart beat if Impusle, and gamersgate doesn't have what I'm looking for. Direct 2 drive has terrible custoemr service as well but they don't scan my computer for mods and don't monitor my computer for stuff they don't think should be there. GamersGate is better than direct 2 drive because they ask that if you run out of activations for a game to email them and they will reset the activation limit for you. Of course they monitor how many times you install it and if you exceed the number of activations in the first month then they may choose to inform you they will not reset the activations for you because they are worried you were giving stuff to your friends for free or whatever. They actually tell you something like that on their faq page. They insist that if you run out of activations to tell them and they will reset the limit for you. They make that point at least three seperate times. Steam could do something lke that if they wanted to. They most certainly do not though.
My order is Impulse, Gamersgate, D2D. No more steam nazzies. When I email stardock or an impulse email address I always get a person typing back to me, the same with Gamersgate. D2D you have to annoy them in order to get a personable response. Steam is.... it must be run by one guy who wrote a bunch of cold responses and has the system put the name of the game and whatever in the dumb form letters.
D2D and gamersgate are cross compatible with their games and any expanion packs. If not they tell you so and if a patch is up and comming for it. So is Impusle and gamersgate, for the most part. Born of blood from impulse will not let murder of crows be installed on it. Steam is most certianly not. If you have a cd or dvd version of a game and want the expanion pack do not get if from steam if you decide to buy it by a download. D2D and gamersgate do not have a problem becasue they will usually come out with a patch for their stuff like that so it will work for someone who bought the base game cd. And also the other way around. You can download the base game and get the expanions pack at a store on a cd or dvd.
I personally think whoever wants steam to be the only download game store must have been given an extensive waterboarding lesson by steam, I'm not talking about fun at the beach. Or they were paid to sign their brain over, or they are just false identies of some steam person who is running scared and spamming the intenet because they know they will lose a lot of customers against impulse, that is if steam keeps doing business as usuall. And that's if those tales of people wanting steam to be the only oen are true. I havn't read anything like that yet. If they are only posted on known pirating sites then that would be why I haven't seen any yet. This is the only time I've heard of this nonesense. I can't find one original post saying they want steam to be the only download service on any website. But I'm definelty not the all knowing posting guru.
Stardock and impulse are made for mods.
+1
...snip....
D2D and gamersgate are cross compatible with their games and any expanion packs. If not they tell you so and if a patch is up and comming for it. So is Impusle and gamersgate, for the most part. Born of blood from impulse will not let murder of crows be installed on it
This is totally not really "on topic", but have you tried modifying modifying the registry so that Impulse ends up putting Born of Blood in its own directory (instead of on top of vanilla SotS)? I've got mine set up like that and figured I'd be able to install A Murder of Crows by making sure that the install was where AMoC was expecting it (don't have AMoC yet, some day probably though).
[Edit]
To actually add some on topic content; I've never liked Steam very much though I haven't had a terrible problem with it either (possibly due to the low number of Steam games I have). However, the Steam requirement for DoW2 has really left a negative impression on me for Steam/DoW2. I don't have a problem with requiring patches through a distribution channel of some sort (like Impulse), but I don't like having to install Steam just to play the base game.
At least it isn't as bad as the system used by Jutland (I checked out the demo). That thing requires checking in with their servers every 7 days or it stops working until you can check in! WTF?!
"Leashware" is what I call such applications and I'll never purchase any such titles and I would publically advocate people using cracked versions of those titles as well as hammering them and the publisher with scathing reviews wherever possible.
thanks kitkun,
i am happy to report that under that impulse question mark dealy is an option to get your registration code (for all your games) emailed to you. and Dawn of War: Dark Crusade does indeed have a registration key that you will be able to enter into soulstorm to unlock the DC armies whether you buy it from retail or from steam!
awesome foresight on impulse's part and a big thumbs up from me!
jin
Brad, I don't see any way to post suggestions for Impulse within Impulse itself, nor do I see a Forum subject for Impulse. Players could suggest games they would like to see.
I notice that you now have Puzzle Quest: Galactrix featured on Impulse, soon to be released for download.
But there is a prior game in the series called Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords. I would like to have this game, but I don't find it listed on Impulse. Is it possible you might add this game in the future?
Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords is available on Steam, but I would rather buy it on Impulse.
Good news, glad it worked!
Valve musta seen Brad's dig about special offers. Left4Dead half price on Steam this weekend... awesome deal.
Your post is chock full of blatant falsehoods (eg. Steam stopping you from modding non Valve games), but it's really far too much to go through point by point.
Come one, DatonKallandor, you cannot say that and simply don't give any evidence about any of those "blatant falsehoods". I'd like to know being a total ignorant about Steam stuff. Except that those guys can ban you and never tell you why according to their User Agreement, which I find offensive as a customer to say the least.
In any case, it seems that future gaming is based on having an internet connection or you are rollaly screwed. I understand that it's the best way to prevent some piracy but I still find annoying that I will need to connect online with Steamworks before I can get it offline (which will always prevent any off line instalation/activation) or that to get updates through Impulse for your Single Player games in a non online computer seems to be quite a nightmare (in theory at least as fortunately for me, I haven't had the need to go through it... YET).
You're royally screwed only if you purchased their software. If the legitimate consumer wants to see change within the PC-DRM issue, stop buying software. Until that happens, expect the abuse only to get worse.
Well maybe there is hope in the war against DRM. The EFF has formally asked the FTC to outlaw DRM!
DRM does not prevent piracy. At this point, DRM seems intended to accomplish a very different purpose: giving some industry leaders unprecedented power to influence the pace and nature of innovation and upsetting the traditional balance between the interests of copyright owners and the interests of the public. The best way to fix the problem is to get rid of DRM on consumer products and reform the [Digital Millenium Copyright Act], but the steps we're suggesting will help protect technology users and future technology innovation in the meantime.
DRM does not prevent piracy.
At this point, DRM seems intended to accomplish a very different purpose: giving some industry leaders unprecedented power to influence the pace and nature of innovation and upsetting the traditional balance between the interests of copyright owners and the interests of the public.
The best way to fix the problem is to get rid of DRM on consumer products and reform the [Digital Millenium Copyright Act], but the steps we're suggesting will help protect technology users and future technology innovation in the meantime.
Would you like to know more? If so the press release here. A report on it is on GP here.
Stardock isn't even #2. They're definitely volumewise behind D2D and Gamersgate.
Valve is the dominant player- but it cannot act too monopolistic- as demand for computer software is elastic enough that for enough games alternative services can thrive.
No matter what you can say on this DRM vs. consumer rights issues, the cold fact is is that consumers broke the rules first. We had a nice set of rules: rights holders print some media, consumers who purchase that media within the legal provisions of Fair Use. Fair Use would be ripping your legally purchased and owned CD to your hard drive. Fair Use would be ripping your legally purchased and owned CD to your iPod. Fair Use is not giving the ripped files to someone else, nor is it taking ripped files for something you don't already own.
Consumers broke that rule. The "traditional balance" was upset by consumers. DRM and the anti-circumvention provisions of the DCMA are an attempt to reestablish that balance.
I doubt it. Not according to publishers we've talked to.
Oh? I can see your point, I was thinking more total volume of sales, as the other two have a lot more selection on the games side, and I think Gamersgate has a stronger Euro presence.
I'm glad if I'm wrong.
I automatically hate steam for the same reason I hate Ipods/Itunes, Google, Microsoft, Adobe, and every other company or service that has such a huge lead over every other option. It isn't because they suck, it is because I don't trust them. If they have that big of a market lead I can't trust them to do what is right for the user. I automatically assume they are going to say, "Screw the consumer we have 90% market share, and 90% of those people aren't smart enough to know we are screwing them. Those other 10% will still have to use our stuff anyways because it is the only way they can be compatible with the 'standard'." That is why I support Impulse, Zune, Creative, Yahoo, etc. even if they aren't better, even though in most cases they are just as good or better, and usually cheaper if they cost money at all.
Anyways that is just my view on things.
Then let the police do their job and arrest the bad guys. Dont punish everyone for the crimes of a few. Your logic is very flawed to say the least. Moreover the "copyrights" exist at the leisure of the society. However special interest has been getting those rights extended to unbelievable durations and application, to the point they no longer really serve the original purpose and intent. Dont forget that minor but very important point.
I think should look at the purpose of copyright. The idea behind copyright is not to pay the author. This is a common misunderstanding. There are plenty of people in society doing usefull work that did not get legal protection to get paid. The reason why copyright was that if there was a commercial incentive to produce cultural works, more works would be produced.
If we look at computer games, we can see that copyright does what it is supposed to do. Teams of highly capable designers work on a project for many years, something that would not be possible if there is not the promise that the costs can be won back by means of selling the game. Free games, where the author did not depend on sales for his income, exist, they can be fun too, but both the quantity and quality of those games have obvious limitations. So yes, copyright on games has the effect that more and better games are being written.
If we look at music I come to a completely different conclusion. There is no scarcity of music at all, a song can be produced by everyone owning a musical instrument and some basic knowledge of composing. Making music is cheap, and can be made by a small amount of people. Music is eveywhere, on the radio, on the street, at home, on the internet, ... There is no scarcity of music and many of it is available for free. Taking a quick look at sites like The Mod Archive there are countless talended composers who compose just for the love of it. In other words, copyright apparently isn't needed to produce good quality of music. But there is more: The music industry is harmfull. The industry as it exists is designed to work with so called "Super Stars" who work as some kind of "brand" that gets sold everywhere. Those composers typically get extremely rich, while artists in the industry that are not a "brand" typically have a hard time to make a living.
People are not blind for this. Pirating a game hurts the developers ability to continue to write games and thus many people have moral problems to pirate games (unfortunately many do not), but pirating a song from Madonna, especially if it is one from the eighties, doesn't hurt her ability in any to make new music. Everyone knows that paying for music mainly helps the record labels, and not the availability of more music.
Copyright doesn't work if there is no moral support for it. If there is support for it, you can punish individual pirates, as Spartan said: Send the police and arrest the bad guys. If there is no support for it, you cannot enforce it. As the music industry is discovering, there is a total lack of moral support for copyright on music, sending the police would mean a significant part of the population would need to be copyright policeman, the costs of this are unaffordable.
As I can see it, copyright on music is a lost cause and the only sane thing is to accept this. Abolish it and restrict copyright to areas where it does what it is supposed to do and try to get moral support for it, then educate people that pirating is "not done" and enforce it. There will flow a lot of water to sea before people with interrests in copyrights reach this conclusion, but it is unavoidable.
steam sucks, it doesn't even let me select an install directory, It just installs all games into a sub folder of itself.
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