Well they better do something that differentiates them from the rest of the digital download crowd otherwise it won't be much of a safety net. [e digicons]:'([/e]
I think that was the plan. However, Impulse has no chance now of ever being an effective safety net.
Most casual gamers will choose Steam. If your game isn't on Steam, it doesn't exist to many new-school PC gamers. It would have taken big-market, Impulse-exclusive games to get them to use Impulse, and that would take a short-term loss.
Most of the current Impulse fan base, you've seen how upset they've been on here. Even the folks who were willing to give Gamestop a chance are upset. So not only did Gamestop fail to work towards getting new customers, they've hemorraged much of their existing fanbase.
Gamestop has only themselves to blame- they had a real opportunity, and could have made something out of Impulse, but they blew the opportunity.
Origin has more potential then Impulse right now.
Considering they already more than tripled the dedicated staff on Impulse I don't think they've screwed the pooch yet. They just need a major upgrade to get people interested again.
Only if you consider allowing the Origin software to take a copy of every file on your hard-drive and let EA do whatever they want to with it.
People allow Steam to do that. Origin has exclusives, and ones mainstream people want, so it has a chance. That's the only way you're going to get market share from Steam. They'd have to allow indy, third-party titles on their platform to really stand a chance, they'd have to want to compete with Steam instead of just trying to maximize the profits on their own games. I doubt EA will do that, but if they did, and if they got another big name publisher to sign on with them and exclude them from Steam, they'd have a real chance.
WoW /Starcraft are why Battlenet is succesful, not because of anything Battlenet has. It's the games that matter, as long as your service is competent.
The main difference here (and I'll give this to STEAM), is that STEAM has explicit verbage stating that they can not, outside of the game content you have installed, view or legally keep copies of files on your computer etc.
Origin explicitly states that they will be looking over your installed programs, your files are fair game and your browsing history will be reported. Kind of sucks if you ask me. I've got personal and professional projects which require non-disclosure agreements on my machine, the Origin software would breach those contracts. They're not big projects or anything, just simple stuff but still I can't do it legally. *shrugs* Kind of a bummer.
I agree with this 100%
They aren't really 'exclusive' though. Excluded from Steam, yes, but most of them are also up on Impulse and other distributors at this point.
The Old Republic will be exclusive it sounds like, but at this point...not really.
You have to use Origin to install the games, so it's an exclusive to me
So it's an exclusive except that it isn't exclusive. Gotcha.
Do you have to have Origin installed to run them? Or can you uninstall Origin afterward you install the game?
You have to have it installed as it is a web based browser. You click through a web interface to launch Battlefield 3 for example.
Something to consider as well: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/battlefield-3/news/6330914/ea-origin-eula-sparks-privacy-concerns
And http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/battlefield-3/news/6331203/ea-changes-origin-eula
As I stated in another post it is a great first step to making things better in relation to the EULA.
now that steam has been hacked too.. i'm waiting to see when impulse gets hit....
Impulse has the best anti-hacking feature out there. It's too unpopular to hack.
I doubt even anonymous could log on to Impulse.
The millions of users who use it monthly disagree.
Hah, so it has been hacked?
This is exactly why I like to have hard copies of all my games (if possible) and why I prefer to buy games that do not require an 'internet authentication' to finish the install or to play. You never know when or who is going to attack the service that lets you finish installing or allows you to play your game. Imagine if they hacked in and removed people's purchase history.
You must mean.
The millions of users who use it monthly for the first time only to be forced to download steam and or origin to play their impulse purchased game give up on impulse and just switch to steam and origin since they have to use them anyway disagree.
I can't speak to Gamestop's numbers. I'm saying Impulse, when we had it, had millions of people using it monthly.
Steam has a monster sized base these days -- typically 5 million people using it at the same time. Impulse, at the time, had about 5% of that but 5% of 5 million at once is not a trivial number either.
I remember for years people would say "Stardock should give up on Impulse, it has no chance against Steam." as if it's either total market dominance or nothing at all.
It's like saying you shouldn't bother to earn a living unless you're going to be a billionaire.
I was an extreme fan of Impulse in it's original incarnation.
Frogboy, can you pass this on to the rest of the Devs? It's something I think should be looked at as it's considered a multiplayer exploit.
https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/413478
I was one of those millions.. I was also one of those who quit using it when they changed the TOS and started pushing steam games.
Impulse had a chance.. but were talking about gamestop impulse now.. not what it was under previous management or could have been.
I can't speak to Gamestop's numbers either, though seeing their top sales list, and the games that were on there recently, I suspect it's gone down a good bit.
Fact is: Gamestop has done a really great job at alienating its core fanbase: which is Stardock fans. There's a reason Stardock Central is so highly anticipated on here, despite being a simple no-frills client. There were reasons we chose Impulse as a client, it was a good service. I no longer feel that it's a good service. I gave them a chance, and they didn't convince me.
The question is whether Gamestop is gaining a new fanbase. When I entered a Gamestop a couple weeks ago, they had a smalll section where they were selling download codes at retail. I don't know if that's working or not.
I will make this bold prediction: I don't expect Gamestop to be around in 2022.
I don't expect Gamestop to still have retail stores in 2022, but unless every single publisher transitions to direct to consumer sales only, I doubt they'll be gone.
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