Here's a good article that goes into some detail on the Gamestop / Impulse / Stardock team up.
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/03/31/stardocks-brad-wardell-talks-about-selling-impulse-to-gamestop/
Everything I've ever bought from digital river has asked me if I want to purchase extended download capability. Anyway, I doubt that will happen with impulse... but all it will take is some jackass executive thinking he's got an amazing idea for it to happen.
I doubt it would ever happen simply because Steam doesn't do it, and they need to compete with Steam. Providing obviously worse service then your bigger and better known competitor would seem like something that even the stupidest executive would realize is a bad idea. I may not trust the ethics of anyone in business, but I do trust their self interest.
Same reason why Sony doesn't charge for its PS3 online MP...I highly doubt the integrity of Impulse will improve with Gamestop, but I'd be even more surprised if it ends up worse than Steam...
Thats my personal problem right here. I think publicly traded corporations are the bane of mankind. I hate all that they stand for.
I specificly (sp?) invested in Impulse because they are (were) not owned by a billion idiots that know nothing about stuff and are just here for the money.
Until i see how it turns out all my spendings in Impulse are on hold. Back to GG and Steam for now.
The only reason I ever installed Impulse was for Elemental. I'd looked at getting some more games through Impulse but....this decision has basically guaranteed I'll never, ever spend another dime through Impulse. DD was nice in a way because it felt like it cut through all the entrenched, utter bullshit brick and mortar store problems.
Now, Gamestop has an opportunity to try and poison the digital market just like they did the regular sales market, by trying to shove every single pre-order, extra DLC thing they could down the consumer's throat.
At times I've been less than happy with Steam....but I believe on the scale of good to evil, Steam has always stood above the brick and mortar stores. With Gamestop getting into the DD biz, it feels like it's only a matter of time before they take all the benefits of online distribution, and ruin them.
So yeah, Impulse. I hardly knew ye.
I like Impulse, because unlike Steam and Gamersgate, they don't use the stupid formula 1Euro = 1USD.
I hope Gamestop will let us play our games we bought.
WTF? They do this why?
1Euro = 1USD is not true for majority of games + prices are set by publishers
for example: Portal2
45$ in US
34€ in Czech Republic (EU)
Also remember that when we were paying $ prices, prices in store didnt contain VAT which had to be paid and which in most EU countries is around 20%
20%? Dang man...
http://www.steamprices.com/eu2/topripoffs
All in all, still going to buy everything from Steam now.
Will there now be an option to download Elemental and SoaSE updates outside of Impulse?
I'd much rather not deal with anything Gamestop.
- Othello
I think EAs store still uses DR and doesn't offer that option anymore.
Barring something very unexpected, no.
I don't get it. Why all the hightened "concern" over Gamestop?? Why make real decisions based on imaginary problems?
I've got no issues buying on Impulse. I've never had any problems buying software with Impulse and, as importantly, maintaining my software for me so, why would that suddenly change now just because there are new owners?
I think when you all see that Impulse will continue, that customers will be having a good time here on the forums, and that there is genuine interest from the Impulse team with customers that all these negatives that have been asserted will vaporize. IMO.
So, we'll see how it all shakes out
I perceive the concern is Gamestop bringing their obnoxious and aggressive business practices to Impulse.
What practices? They haven't even made one Impulse related decision yet, other than their intention to buy it. Furthermore, Impulse will be run day to day by the same staff that are here now. I think the perceived concern you express is largely imaginary, not real. IMO
The sort of practices already mentioned in topics around here, and discussed in many other places. The sort of practices you can experience firsthand when you walk into a Gamestop.
Sorry, 1Tiberius1, I've been in Gamestop stores a number of times and haven't had any problems. I gave a Gamestop gift card one year as a birthday gift to a very good friend. She loved it, she was happy with it. It was on her birthday wishlist, honest.
So... I guess we wait and see.
I doubt a major company would acquire another and keep everything status quo. Especially considering it's an attempt to keep their bottom line black as the industry is moving away from physical media to digital formats.
I was going to ask how I can trust Gamestop to respect my rights as a consumer in the same way that I trust Stardock to respect them, but after a while the question kind of answered itself.
I like Stardock.
I like to give Stardock money.
I tolerated Impulse to give Stardock more money.
I bought things I didn't really need to because I wanted to give Stardock more money.
I don't like GameStop.
I don't like that GameStop contributed so much to the Demigod launch disaster.
I don't like the idea of GameStop controlling my access to my "installation disks".
I'm unhappy with the situation.
The developer of Light of Altair changed my Impulse key to Steam key . I now own this game on Steam .
If I were to not look into the companies history, I feel like I'd be blindly making a decision based on an imaginary based trust. And after having already gotten screwed out of a couple hundred dollars worth of online music purchases, I'd have to be pretty dense not to have exercised future caution.
It is fact that last year the company was forced to pay out over 2 million dollars in refunds and fines for a hidden fee scam. It is a fact that numerous cases, spanning many years, have been brought against them for selling used product as new. With yet another one being filed last month. Six store managers sued them for working without pay. Employees sued them for the non-reimbursement of expenses. Last December another employee suit was brought against them for hidden fees associated with paychecks, as well as a violation of state law labor standards. They are currently being sued for violating state law as to the collection and storage of customer data. They've gotten sued for misleading advertising. They got sued for charging a bogus tax on service plans. And then there is the phone spam. And their terms of usage and privacy policy. And their deals of exclusivity. And their constant and obnoxious attempts to up-sell everything from customer clubs, service contracts, DLC, pre-orders, limited editions... In your face salesmanship, and knife in your back muggery. No thanks!
I've made my determination based on facts. Nothing imagined there. I can't see the future. So I use the past to project probable outcomes. Gamestop has a more than adequate history of cheating their customers and employees, to give me legitimate concerns. I think having them manage my digital games library would be a bad bet.
In addition to those personal reasons; I have other greater social reasons for not wishing to assist gamestoppers in its monopolistic rise over retail.
One thing that keeps coming to mind...
Impulse was the only option for some of us, who for various reasons, distrust ESD. Stardock was perceived by some as a trustworthy company. So Impulse provided us a way into the ESD market. The digital game market is growing but slowly. If more people had trust in it, developers might more quickly reap the rewards of gamers gone digital. Now that Impulse is no longer owned by Stardock, wouldn't it stand to reason that the ESD market will grow slower than if Impulse had stayed in Stardocks hands... or gone to a company with a better record than Gamestop? There no longer is an outlet for the ESD timids.
If someone had told me that Impulse was to be sold, then asked me what retailer I thought would be the worst to sell it to... Gamestop would have been my answer. In another post Brad said there'd be people complaining no matter who it was sold to. Not true in my case. I can think of no company worse than Gamestop. I can think of other bad ones and not many good ones. But I can think of none worse.
So now that the one ESD I had enough trust in to make purchase, and plan other purchases has been sold out; I have no more trust to place in the ESD market. I've been robbed twice and sold out once. I'm back to the can hold it in my hands, non-net validated hard copy only... for all my electronic media. I may be a minority. But since the ESD markets still don't dominate over retail, maybe its not such a minority. I think electronic books is the only market which ESD incontestably dominates atm?? Thats pretty much a one use product.
Anyway, people who have fat game libraries on steam will likely accept gamestoppers Impulse. If they like gamestoppers then they will still keep their steam accounts. But do you really think that people who don't accept steam will accept gamestop? I won't use steam. But I'd sure as hell use steam over gamestoppers impulse. People who only trusted Stardocks Impulse will now be out of the ESD market. If a company had been selected that had a history more Stardockian like, those people might still be in the market. I think this move stands to slow down the ESD transition rate (though it'll still rise, just a tad slower). I can't guess how large a population the ESD timids are, but it must be significant if ESD isn't already dominating over a shelf space restricted retail. The benefits of competition will still be felt though.
One other aspect of this is that I don't know if I'll be buying another Stardock Games title. I didn't mind that E:WOM had memory, AI, and content challenges when it was released. Impulse gave me access to the dev patches. EWOMs post sale support was extraordinary! But after EWOMs release, and reading Brad talk about GalCiv2 becoming what it is due to post sale patches, and reading gamers say PATCH the game before you judge it, I don't know that I am willing to purchase a Stardock title if I don't have access to patches. That goes for any game nowadays. But somewhat more so from Stardock than others. Stardocks got exceptional update support, but that does me no good if I can't access it. I hope that Stardock allows patching outside of Impulse. I can still get Civ3 patches on fan sites and at the Firaxis official site. I like that!
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