Back in the OS/2 days, Microsoft got caught using what were called “Microsoft Munchkins” (coined by John Dvorak). Essentially these were guys whose job was to smear OS/2.
Anyone who has had to deal with these kinds of users whether it be on Wikipedia or some forum tends to be able to spot these guys since they usually create accounts only to smear a particular product or service (or boost a product or service).
As many people know, I spend a lot of time online and thankfully, I haven’t seen anything that struck me as peculiar until very recently when suddenly, comments on articles regarding Impulse have detractors appearing out of nowhere. I.e. they create an account specifically to smear Impulse usually saying things that really sound like FUD.
Now, I might think Impulse is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but I would be the first to admit that the average person isn’t passionate about digital distribution or development platforms. Certainly not passionate enough to bother creating a new account just to smear something.
I’m inclined to chalk it up to just the usual Internet junk. Maybe people are more into this kind of thing than I thought.
So I thought I’d hand it over to you guys and see what you think.
Here are examples:
http://www.shacknews.com/laryn.x?story=62814
User called Gahenna creates an account on Shacknews just to smear Impulse Reactor.
“From my limited experience with Impulse, it's interface is garbage and slow, there's nothing worth purchasing (everything is D list or worse). It's not even close to the same league as Steam.”
Within 24 hours Gamautra puts up its Impulse::Reactor thing and sure enough, a user pops up who has never posted before anywhere as far as anyone can tell.
“While I appreciate the competition with Valve's service, Impulse seems to provide a much lower quality service”
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/27687/Stardocks_Wardell_Details_Impulse_Reactor_Specifics.php
And on the same day or so 1Up puts up their article:
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3178341
And a user called “Grizzt” (real name “dasd asd”) and writes:
“i tried there service before it wasnt quite up to par with steam or the other services i tried.”
Okay, maybe there’s just a dedicated fanboy out there. Or maybe it’s a different fan boy writing up the same points over and over. Thanks to the anonymity of the Internet, nobody knows. Heck, maybe Impulse just sucks in ways I never realized.
The writing style seems different to me. I’m no expert but it doesn’t seem like it’s the same person.
It’s probably just coincidence. But there’s a lot of news items on Stardock on various sites and it’s pretty unusual to see such…dedication.
What do you think?
steam is scared and so are its fans.
Well, I certainly don't think Valve would do anything like that. They've got better things to do. So I'm not worried that there's any sort of organized campaign.
Rather, I think that Valve has fans like Apple does who take it very very seriously.
For example, in that same Shack News article, there's a user called Trineas who refers to Impulse::Reactor as just a "copy of Steamworks". His profile points out that he has ONLY commented on Valve related stuff. But he doesn't work at Valve, he's the editor of HalfLife Portal, a fan site.
I guess my message to anyone who is passionate about a company whether it be Apple, Microsoft, Google, Valve whomever, my advice is to love the products for their excellence. Don't transfer that love to a general entity (i.e. a corporation). I was passionate for OS/2 but I tried not to become an IBM evangalist.
There are a few people that have had a bad experience with Impulse. Perhaps they are just spreading the 'gospel' from their own point of view.
Personally, I don't think it is such a very bad thing. It could even be good for business because of the exposure.
True, it is meant to be negative exposure. But even that can turn to a positive pretty fast if someone (that wouldn't have otherwise) tries it and likes it.
And from what I have seen, Impulse has many more friends than enemies.
Impulse stalkers...?*shakes head*
Certainly. But why now? What would they care about Impulse::Reactor? It's not even available to the public. It's not even for end users.
It makes slightly more sense when people 'campaign' on forums to get the opposing faction in a multiplayer game nerfed but its pretty sad for these people to try and do that with real products and services.
This is serious business. On the internet.
And incase anyone asks: Yes, I am VERY cereal.
Are you cereal!?!?! There is serious buisness going online?! My world has been shaken to its core. lol
Yes, well, I didn't catch that part. I just looked up Impulse::Reactor to see what it was.
And it seems to me that all the examples you sited were directed at Impulse (the end-user program) - not Impulse::Reactor. Perhaps the posters are as unfamiliar with Impulse::Reactor as I was. So maybe they are not so interested in Impulse::Reactor, as much as they want to simply smear anything Impulse related.
@Moose. Yea, that's my inclination too. It's just the suddenness. There's Impulse articles pretty regularly and have been for awhile now. This just started this month. Maybe there's just some unhappy people.
Though if it is Steamboys, you think they understand if there is competition that will also make Steam better. Which is something they can enjoy.
Personaly I think the reason Steam started a good while back with their crazy sales is due to Impluse having weekly sales. With the competition they started pushing more and more sales. *shrugs* I could be that I have Impluse-tinted glasses as I view the world around me.
Reminds me of Arma 2 Vs Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising. The totaly untested, first time FPS ever for codemasters had these insatiable fanbois tell us that DR was going to "destroy" Arma2 and 'redefine' the genre. What happen? Most of those fan boys quit the game within 2 months since it was terrible, the fan sites closed down with messages telling thier viewers that the game failed. They even offically stopped support of the game with terrible bugs left in.
Mean while Arma 2 is still getting support, including freestuff (long running BIS thing). A standalone expansion Operation Arrowhead is being put together right now for release soon. We always stated how good it would be to have 2 companys creating great military sim games, all the while knowing that DR would fail to even be what its marketing implied unfortunatly. The marketing was really good though. I hear they are trying to do console silly shooter game next - I wonder if its going to destroy Halo?
Fanbois are a prime source of comedy on the interwebs.
And maybe it's just coincidence.
There also seem to be more large earthquakes these days.
But, it could simply be - the odds stack up at certain points in time, and stack down at others.
First one quite possibly. Second one makes a valid point though - Impulse doesn't have as great a range of titles as steam (although some of the other points do defy logic), while Grizzt sounds like someone who's had a bad experience with Demigod and wasn't well informed as to the reasons behind this. To me they sound like different people though.
Would be interesting to do a study to look at what the impact of such "marketing" has for products. Just looking at the first Gahenna person, his flaming brought out the Stardock lovers from the woodwork.
Much of I time I almost feel the opposite about the nay sayers. When shopping on amazon for instance i look for that one 1 star giver and read their bad review to decide if im going to look further into the product.
Most of the time I worry what im reading, in this case stardock, is just crazy fans, people who benifit from its sucess, posting endlessly everywhere and have to dig for the real comments that are going to generate an opinion for me. Not saying there arnt evil inter-web marketing firms destroying companies credibility at every turn. But i wonder how much of an impact it really has.
What, the end users who are very happy? And what is their success?
There's no need to pay for astroturfing when there are dedicated fanboys who'll do the same thing fo free.
I personally feel Steam is still the better service all around, but I do love Impulse. I respect a lot of what Valve is doing, but I like Stardock even more. I try not to get fanboyish about it, especially when its so easy to get really tin-foil-hat about some stuff (OMGSTEAMWORKSTEHDEBIL!). Its counter-productive, pure and simple.
Do I think Valve is concerned about Impulse and other services? Yes. Steamworks is part of that. But I think their recent work (new client and going to OSX) is how they're addressing it. If anything, I would imagine they'd really want to shut some of their more zealous (but less rational) faithful. Its making them look bad!
Gahenna's comment on the library I can't really comment on - there's a lot of good stuff on Impulse, but a lot of stuff that I simply have never heard of. I would agree the interface could be improved, but at the same time I know its improved considerably since the beginning, and will continue to get better. Slow? Hrm... not for me.
I don't think Grizzt has tried Games For Windows client/service yet. Don't get me wrong - I like it, but its certainly skating on the bare minimum side of things! And when talking about Impulse::Reactor on one of my regular forums, one guy shared his experiences with another digital distributor and how it was confusing, convoluted, didn't let him know if the game was region locked (he's in England), etc. In short, nowhere nearly as good as Impulse.
Oh, Brad, thanks for the FAQ on Reactor. He was told about Reactor by folks who really didn't know what they were talking about but were very enthusiastic about it. They didn't say it cured cancer, thankfully (see? fanboys are counterproductive!).
Brad, I've encountered similar responses in my evangelizing of Impulse. Steam has some extremely zealous followers. They are similar in loyalty and maturity to what the world of console gaming might call "brand fanboys."
So, how do those of us who seek meaningful discourse deal with them? Present the facts and ignore the emotion. Our goal shouldn't be to convert these irrational users, but to counter their false claims with truth and reason. Observers who are not devoted to any given platform will likely separate anger from reality.
Also, since when does Derek Smart have anything positive to say about Stardock? Last time I checked, he was bashing you and Impulse.
I liked one comment out from there:
"Valve's Steam platform has a much larger platform with similar features implemented already, and an enormous user base. Most people don't want to clutter their computers with more digital distribution programs than they have to. Because of that, and because Steam already has nearly every publisher and developer under its wing, I'm not sure how many companies will attempt to implement games with both steamworks AND goo, as they are mutually exclusive. "
enough said
Got my Impulse account since day 1 of various beta releases and love it!
I used to have Steam account when it was just released but not any more...
Saying all that, it looks like I am going to sign up for Steam again - why? - if you are Mac user you know the answer!
Regarding OP - its just internet, so I wouldn't waste too much of my time on handful of forums posts quite frankly...
My guess is just idiot fanboys. For some reason, there are people who feel the need to belong to something, and that something can be extremely silly and trivial. Thus once they join their thing it becomes The One True Way(tm) and anything against it is evil.
Also, fanboys like this scare easily. They get worried that something might come and unseat the thing to which they belong. Thus they have to lash out and spread FUD to try and fight the good fight. After all, when you are on the side of right, anything is justified to defend it!
Heck this has been going on strongly with video cards lately. For those that aren't up on it, ATi launched their 5000 series of video cards a few months ago. First DX11 cards on the market and just over all wonderful performers. Generally I'm an nVidia guy but I got a 5870 and not sorry I did, works great. Ok well nVidia now has their DX11 part comming to market soon. As one would expect it looks to be a card of similar performance and features and so on.
Well the ATi fanboys are terrified. They spread FUD continously about how bad this new nVidia card will be, all the problems it will have, how stupid you'd be to buy one, etc, etc. Never mind it has no impact on them, it isn't going to come steal ATi cards in the middle of the night, they are just fearful that it might hurt their holy cause.
So no surprise you see it here too. Valve has plenty of fanboys. Heck they'd have to for Halflife 2 to do as well as it did (I really never got why that game was so popular). They are going to hate on anything they percieve as a threat.
In general, thoughtful analysis and discourse is hard to find in life. Online is no exception. Instead of being able to walk away from a conversation, though, most forums force us to scroll past blathering idiots. I really want an "ignore poster" feature on forums, whereby their posts don't even show up. I'd also like to view a forum thread only looking at certain people's posts. It's just a failing of the medium at present
/hopes this post doesn't fall into that category
On a more serious note, the posts are likely just fanboys. However, some of the issues they bring up are at least tangentially relevant to actual issues with Impulse. Impulse has less selection, especially of very large titles, this everyone knows. Impulse will, on occassion, run more slowly than Steam, although still loads in a trivial amount of time.
I think that you shouldn't care about things like these Frogboy. X person registers and begins to post some cr*p about Impulse...so what? It is unimportant....it must be a pissed of customer or hell knows. Either way, it's quite pathetic, that someone makes an account just to post some garbage on a specific site. Personally I never liked Steam for example, but I wouldn't register an account on X site EVER to post some bullsh*t about it. People are different...thankfully.
You seem ready to bow down to your valve overlords. Ready to accept a total throat grip on the digital market. Ready to accept what ever they say as a total monopoly.
Now if there is 20 then thats bad, but 2 - mmmaayybeee 3 is okay.
If it's the former, then, as Frogboy already said in the original post, there's not much to worry about. If it's the latter (which, as Frogboy has already said in comment #2, is very unlikely), it clearly speaks as to the lengths Vavle is willing to go to ensure Steam's survival...
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