One of the biggest challenges Impulse has had to overcome is getting content up fast enough for users.
When Impulse launched midway last year, the goal was to be able to release 5 titles a week.
The goal now is to be able to release 5 titles per day.
Even that goal isn’t sufficient though but it’s a major first step.
The big advantage a digital distribution platform like Steam and Impulse have over websites is that they take care of the installing and maintaining of the games. Simply put, with Impulse, you purchase a game and it’s attached to your account. Get a new computer and you can just download Impulse, logon, and have it download and install your games while you’re doing something else.
But doing the above requires a lot of additional work than simply putting up a setup.exe up on a secure URL. The extra work, however, is worth it in the long run as users begin to be able to use Impulse to simply take care of their software library for them.
Check out this week’s progress:
http://www.impulsedriven.com/explore/sort;releasedate/order;desc
X-COM finally made it up! w00t. Make sure if you buy X-COM to vote it 5 stars in Impulse as it’s only at 4 stars right now (boo on whoever voted it less than 5 stars).
http://www.impulsedriven.com/products/ESD-SDE-W006
Wallpaper of that? Please? If such a box were ever to reach my country (quite difficult being a digitalonly thing), I'd love to buy it.
Err... Oh my, how off topic of me! Hmmmm I blame the non 5 Stars of X-COM to somone angry at the "Territory: North America (US and Canada)". There is still hope that when Dragon Age 2 is released in Impulse, we won't have such limitations.
Glad to hear it. I would really prefer to have most of my digital content on Impulse due to the fast dl speeds but most of the time I have to buy from Steam just because they have the game and Impulse does not and I live in NA.
I can't imagine what the catalogue looks like outside of NA.
I want to take a moment to give some kudos to Dash, who has recently been lending his help to games packaging for Impulse. The recent surge in content is in part thanks to him helping spread the load out. We have others joining the team in the new year that will really help us churn through the content we're signing to Impulse every day. I don't think anyone is going to be disappointed with what Impulse does in the coming year.
MMOs, shooters, strategy games. We're on track to content parity with others in the space very soon. I'm very excited about what 2010 has in store. You'll like what we have planned
X-Com is a good sign. A very good sign.
Does X-COM work in Window 7? I've tried playing this before on a computer with Windows XP, and there was a graphical glitch that made the game unplayable. If I'm able to play this on my computer with Windows 7, I will gladly buy X-COM.
Also, I'm very glad that more games will be released on Impulse. I personally prefer buying games at store, but I like the cheaper prices at Impulse and supporting Stardock.
X-COM UFO DEFENCE (aka UFO Enemy Unknown) is in my absolute top five.
What I wish to see on Impulse in the future (beside more games at lower prices ) is some feature to put settings and savegames online, pretty much like Valve's Steamcloud.
More games on Impulse WOO! Bring it on... it will be a merry efing christmas!, but not for my wallet...
And keep a focus on having as many world wide releases as possible please I know its not Stardock`s desicion but the game publishers, but Stardock can put pressure on them.
The Stardock report 2009 made me hope that you will make games available worldwide, from some point in the future. Does that mean there is a chance that older games like Dragon Age will be made available worldwide?
Making games available worldwide is ultimately up to the publisher, but as we grow we'll continue to go back to our partners to try and open up territories for their titles.
I know it is a publisher thing. It was the second part i was after .
Thank you very much, Zoomba.
If Impulse really starts putting out some great titlews to download and install easily, I see Impulse as my new Gamestop and I look forward to a disk free desktop. Once I build my new PC next year I will be purchasing some of the games I currently have from Impulse such as Call of Duty Modern Warfare. I hope all the other Call of Duty titles make it on Impulse soon as well.
what I don't understand is why certain publishers don't want there games sold all over the world. Can't that only increase sales? Especially if they are already selling their games internationally on other sites and stores (such as Steam).
They probably do. But getting the agreements with all those seperate companies a worldwide publisher does business with in doing worldwide releases does take more effort. For the NA arm, it's usually a matter of saying 'Yes.'
I will add that you can use Gamespys Comrade to install D2D games now and all that jazz, so they're taking baby steps in the right direction. (Too bad there isn't a legit piece of software in the universe I'd rather use any less than Comrade, but hell...at least its progress.)
Major congrats though! I would prefer to use Impulse more than Steam, but reality would prefer I didn't yet.
Ture same here, but there is one thing I hope Impulse won't sink to steam level is the pushieness of sales. For those who use steam understands this. For those who don't I'll explain, everytime you log on to steam, there is a screen that pops up telling you about the latest games, not that isn't nice, but I only log on to steam to just play games, not buy and there isn't an option for me turn it off, so not only does it lag after I log on, I get an annoying popup without a method of turning it off.
What the hell, when did these forums start reverse sorting??
edit: And can I change that as an option anywhere?
edit edit: And 10 minutes and 2 refreshes later, all is back to normal
On steam, you can turn off those popups in the option.
I've heard about X-COM, though I never looked much into it. It doesn't look too pricey, so I might pick them up this weekend if Impulse Weekend buys has anything good.
By the way, whats this voting stuff? Does not voting pull the score down?
It's really a contractual thing really.
What people don't realize is that many of these companies are really a bunch of different companies.
Plus, Impulse is currently only available in English and some publishers require translation of the client to be made available in say Germany or France.
Very cool! I love you guys! Brad, you have an excellent business model. I buy Impulse even if Steam has a game for cheaper, I hate Steam's user experience so much. I especially like your policies towards DRM and the gamer's bill of rights. i actually bought GC2 due to reading about the bill of rights.
I've played an open-source clone of X-COM, but never actually the true classic game. I'll have to get it as a reward for doing well on my finals, now that it's on Impulse. Keep adding more games!
And do you plan to do the translation anyday ? I hope I could do it myself ... where are those damn files ...
X-Com is as addicting as it ever was. Forgot how annoying save schemes were back in the day (really, having to abort mission just to load a save? pfft), but it's not enough to detract from the magic. I haven't tried the UFO replacement on GoG, but as I play it really strikes me how few of the innovations have made it into the modern age.
- spaceborne interception
- managing a small defense budget
- expanding and placing bases anywhere, however, in any way you want
- terrain destruction (ALL of it)
- Alien gameplay mechanics (mind control, rapid infection and cocooning, etc)
- Trooper RPG elements (yes I keep my captains in reserve, they're my best leaders)
- Scads of tactical tools (basically the Fallout 3 arsenal parallels X-com, but for a full squad/platoon)
- Developing the story through research (how does the floaty thing work, what was extracted in interrogations, etc)
All that lost because of Interceptor and the fascination with 3-d graphics.
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