Topic: Stardock Central revived and now in BETA

[MysterD]

NEW -- 6-11-2012:
Stardock Central revived and now in Beta - thanks, Xessive!

ORIGINAL POST:
This is worth banging your head on the keyboard about...
GameStop buys Impulse out (which is separate from Stardock).
And no, they did not buy out Stardock (thankfully).
GameStop also bought out, Spawn Labs as well.

[scottws]

Oh man.  This is terrible news.

[sirean_syan]

So... Steam wins?

[MysterD]

Oh man.  This is terrible news.

Yeah, GameStop is the LAST company I'd want owning Impulse...


EDIT:

So... Steam wins?

I so hope not!

I'm glad to see Gamersgate, D2D / PC IGN, Amazon Download Store, EA Download Store, and many others try to compete w/ Steam.

More competition, the better - I really been enjoying the madness of "crazy sales on a game barely out a month or 2" that I've been seeing w/ the competition of late.

[idolminds]

This is the biggest WTF moment Ive had all year.

[MysterD]

It gets worse...

But the most important effect of the deal, according to Wardell, may be a solid boost to the PC gaming market. "This is such a huge win for PC gamers," he said. PC gaming is a market that's long been declared dying, but Wardell says it's just moving away from traditional retail channels, and into digital distribution.

"As far as the PC, there's so many other ways to interact with digital entertainment than going to a brick-and-mortar store and buying a box. So having someone like GameStop get involved and become a major player in this space greatly increases the opportunities for developers like us and all of the other indies out there."

So, GameStop is now like Microsoft - since Steam is owning the digital PC market and making billions of dollars, now everybody else who abandoned us wants to come back to PC gaming and jump on the bandwagon?

WTF? Where the fuck where these two supporting PC gaming, when we really fuckin' needed them? 

Them two should've adopted this DD model long ago when Steam was starting to gain momentum...

[MysterD]

Impulse - FAQ On The Impulse Buy-Out.

Stardock Community FAQ

 

Statement to the Stardock community:

We at Stardock have always operated with the goal of transparency to our loyal (and awesome) fan base. As such, we understand that many of you will have questions regarding the recent news that Impulse, Inc. has been acquired by GameStop.

Below is an FAQ designed to address what we hope is the majority of your questions. Please understand that during the acquisition phase there will be questions we cannot address due to confidentiality agreements.

Above all else, we want to ensure you that service to Impulse will not be affected by this transition and that your accounts are still as valid today as the day you created them.

We cannot express with words the amount of appreciation we have to you, our loyal fans and customers and the support you have shown Stardock and Impulse over the past decade: from Stardock Central to TotalGaming.net to Impulse, Stardock has been on the bleeding edge of digital media innovation since its inception and has a rich history of bringing successful concepts to market first.

We at Stardock look forward to what the future brings for PC gaming, digital distribution and of course, continued innovation at Stardock, Inc.


FAQ

    Was Stardock acquired or just Impulse?

    GameStop has acquired Impulse, Inc.

    How does this affect my account?

    There will be no disruption in service to existing or newly created accounts. Impulse will continue to function as normal for existing and new customers. Your current purchases will continue to be available through Impulse, Inc.

    Who will handle customer support during the acquisition phase?

    For the foreseeable future, nothing will change for customers. Impulse, Inc. will continue to handle customer support.

    What happens to the staff?

    The staff will be staying with Impulse, Inc.

    Will there be layoffs?

    We do not anticipate any. All key employees that worked for Impulse, Inc. are continuing with Impulse. Shared resources will be reabsorbed into one of Stardock's other business units.

    Is Stardock hiring?

    Yes!

    What kinds of positions are you hiring for?

    Stardock is actively hiring software engineers of all types, project managers, senior developers and artists.

    Does this affect the development of the Elemental franchise or the Sins expansion?

    It doesn't. Impulse is a separate business unit from Stardock Entertainment.

[MysterD]

PCG -> Brad Wardell - Interview on selling Impulse to GameStop.

[Xessive]

GameStop Claims It’s Evolving into a Technology Company Following Impulse Acquisition

GameStop has been watching the declining fortunes of brick and mortar bookstores over the past several years, and I think it’s safe to say the company’s management knows they are headed down a similar path. The first nod towards acknowledging the problem came just two days ago with the acquisition of Stardock’s Impulse PC distribution platform, along with a second company named Spawn Lab’s which specializes in on-live style streaming. Yesterday GameStop’s CEO Paul Raines detailed his future plans for the new acquisitions, and actually claims that he sees the retailer evolving in into a full-fledged “Technology Company”.

Aside from the obvious branching out to compete with Steam and On-Live, The Dallas Morning News gathered additional details about the company’s plans which include expansion into mobile, and even a GameStop branded tablet. "If we feel like we could do a better job of making a tablet, we'll do that." Since both of these are considered tentative long term goals, it remains to be seen just how serious they are about this “evolution”, or if priorities will change between now and then.

Either way we find it somewhat amusing that GameStop might be forced to rely on PC Gamer’s to pay the bills as next generation consoles ramp up their own proprietary online marketplace capabilities, and they find themselves being slowly squeezed out. Does the acquisition of Impulse make these guys a viable competitor?

Okaaay.. Given GameStop's business practices I'm not very keen on them having anything more than a corner shop in an old mall. Still the point about them potentially having to rely entirely on PC would be a pretty ironic twist of fate.

[MysterD]

Good luck, GameStop - you're trying to compete w/ Steam now...

Regardless of what you think of both companies here and their services and products, I don't think they can compete w/ Steam - in terms of features and the DD-base Steam supposed to have (over 80% of PC-based DD services).

Honestly - can anybody compete w/ Steam? 

[idolminds]

Uh...yes.

[MysterD]

Uh...yes.

Who?

If anything - it's gonna take all of the other services to keep running crazy deals to take some wind out of Steam's sails/sales.

[idolminds]

The fact that other exist and generate profits shows you can compete with Steam. What you are asking is who can overtake Steam in userbase, and if I knew that I'd be rich as fuck by tomorrow.

[MysterD]

1Up -> Indie game dev Blind Mind Studios pulls their Star Ruler game from Impulse b/c of Gamestop buying-out Impulse.

"Due to a rather large list of things we detest about GameStop, Star Ruler will no longer be available for purchase on Impulse after the takeover," a statement on the game's official website reads. "We are ending sales through Impulse due to GameStop's long, negative behavior toward the PC platform and independent games. We would never have signed onto distribution through GameStop, and being forced into this situation has only made it worse for us. We feel GameStop cannot serve as the leader of a true competitor in the digital distribution market."

It notes that Impulse customers should have no difficulty in continuing to get automatic updates, but that official patches on its website would be compatible with it if they do not. The game is DRM-less, so owners should be able to save a backup copy without any problems in case Impulse decides to remove it from the service altogether.

The statement emphasizes that it has had no issues with Impulse and Star Ruler would have remained on the service if it had not been sold. But Blind Mind had four major issues it outlined that led to this decision: "GameStop's business practices stand opposed to our goals; We feel they would not respect our customers; GameStop consistently focuses only on large budget titles and safe bets, shying away from the independent market; We supported [Stardock CEO] Brad Wardell's direction of Impulse, and his absence ruins our faith in the service's future."

As of today, the game is still available for purchase on Impulse for $24.99, roughly the same price it carries on Steam, GamersGate, and Direct2Drive.

It might seem like Blind Mind is prematurely jumping to conclusions by assuming GameStop won't support Impulse as Stardock did. Addressing that, a follow-up was posted on the company's forums which reads, "Additionally, do note that though we cannot divulge the specifics, when we wrote that we had to make a decision rather quickly that that was meant in the most literal sense possible. We could not 'wait and see'. We made this decision based on historical appraisal; they even have had their own digital distribution service for quite some time. With it not being a success, and also not representing many indie titles at all, that bred zero confidence in our outlook for Impulse being managed by them."

[Xessive]

Wow, I respect Blind Mind Studios for that move.

I might just grab Star Ruler to show support.

[MysterD]

Industrygamers -> CEO of Gamersgate Theo Bergquist speaks on Gamestop acquiring Impulse.

While GameStop is wise to enter the digital space—its specific acquisitions, namely Impulse, do raise some flags. Looking at Impulse objectively, the Stardock subsidiary appears to be Steam’s lesser talented stepchild. Impulse was fast off the blocks and looked initially to be a legitimate competitor to Steam in digital content delivery. Stardock’s strong catalogue of strategy games and its initial interface gave the impression that this service would pick up and challenge Steam. Unfortunately, not much has happened at Impulse lately-- their catalogue hasn’t grown at the pace it should have, and the platform is not as edgy is should be to even consider giving Steam a match in the ”client-based-strategy” race. There were even rumours at one point that they were going to close down after Stardock’s debacle with Elemental soon anyway.

Knowing this, it made sense for Stardock to sell its digital business and focus on what really made the company successful – developing games. I also doubt GameStop paid much at all and perhaps offered an earn-out for Impulse. While almost definitely purchased at a bargain, the question is whether or not Impulse was the right company to acquire to be the foundation of GameStop’s digital business. With a negligible following, it is clear GameStop purchased Impulse for its’ technology. The intelligence of this acquisition rests on how easily and quickly GameStop will be able to integrate Impulse into its existing operations. Unless Impulse has a few unreleased features and concepts ready to launch immediately so GameStop can get a flying start, I really don’t see a great fit. In its current incarnation, Impulse is nothing more than a few games and an outdated digital distribution platform.

[idolminds]

There were even rumours at one point that they were going to close down after Stardock’s debacle with Elemental soon anyway.

This is false or made by complete idiots. From everything Stardock has said, Impulse was very profitable. If anything happened after Elemental, its that Stardocks games division would shut down but that would have had no effect on Impulse.

[MysterD]

PC World -> Brad Wardell interview.

He's clearly delusional.

"If Impulse isn't best of breed technology, then what is, Steam?" says Wardell. "Steam is the most popular, to be sure, but technologically? Let me put it this way. The technology difference between Impulse and Steam is such that any objective developer who looked at the two would overwhelmingly...let's just say the gulf is significant enough that it's not really a 'depends on your point of view' thing."

But what I really want to know is whether Wardell thinks GameStop has a chance against a company like Valve with Steam's roughly eight-year head start. That's the million dollar question. So I ask it.

"I think GameStop's going to beat Steam, and I'll tell you why," says Wardell, putting down his sandwich. "One of the things that we do in our surveys is ask, why do you buy from Steam versus Impulse versus whatever. Over 80 percent who respond say 'price'."

"Now I can't speak for GameStop, but I know what I would do. Next time you buy something from GameStop for your Xbox 360, I'd give you some token you could use on Impulse toward a deal or sale on some other title. Pretty soon everything on Impulse is cheaper."

And if GameStop actually does manage to somehow dislodge Steam as the digitally distributed PC games leader? What's to stop them from becoming even more computer-intrusive or edging up prices?

"I don't want there to be only one," says Wardell. "But frankly I'd be surprised if Steam is still... I mean, you look at the technology Impulse adds and the resources GameStop has--well beyond Valve's--and it's really GameStop's fight to lose."

I like Brad Wardell and all, but the dude is clearly delusional.
Where's your upcoming Big Picture Mode?
Where's your in-program screenshot-picture taking feature in Impulse?
Any plans for in-game video recording?
Can your program match-make w/ friends?
Can your program show me what games my Friends are playing or have recently bought?
Prove it - Brad, Impulse, and GameStop.

[Quemaqua]

Wow.  I'm going to have to agree.  I love the guy for a lot of what he's done over the years, but that does seem pretty delusional.  I do see Impulse as a much more stable platform than Steam with a lot more potential for growth, but that hasn't been realized.  For me, 90% of Steam is useless fluff (I absolutely couldn't give two fucks about anything D posted), and the fundamental parts that need to work consistently for me often haven't, even recently, and the service has been around for seemingly forever now.  Impulse doesn't do as much, but it does 100% of what I want it to, and all of that stuff has worked without a hitch in the time I've used it.  Still, his extrapolation of what's likely to happen does seem pretty far-fetched.

That said, it was an interesting interview and interesting to get more facts about what actually went down.  I'm curious to see what will happen.  I have very little faith in Gamestop as a whole, but... well, shit.  Can't fight it.  Just going to be interested to see what they do with it all.  And D, Brad doesn't have to prove anything.  He sold Impulse and thereby has nothing to do with it anymore.  What makes me happy is that he sold it for what I see as the best possible reason: to keep his company small.  I really do love Stardock's games and am much happier to see them focus on that than spending a bunch of time building a platform to compete with Steam.

[MysterD]

Impulse is a fine working program and all, but the program doesn't nearly do anything the likes that Steam does currently - so, let's not even go into some of the stuff Steam has planned for the service [some mentioned in my above rant]. For Brad to say his tech is better is quite laughable. Impulse basically just lacks the amount of features Steam has - that is really all, honestly. They both do a lot of the same basic stuff I want out of a service - download games and allow for a compressed Archiving format for back-up [to another HDD, disc, or whatever]. Steam makes a lot of the other things just much easier [as mentioned in my above rant].

Even the EA Download Manager program is more functional now than Impulse. And you know what? I never thought I'd really say that in a million years - giving EA's program a nod over Impulse. When that EADM came out - that program was bloody garbage. It's been streamlined and simplified very well, in the last few months alone. For EADM, I no longer need to save installers or anything. I don't need to have open extra space for backing up a game. You want to back-up a full game on disc or to another HDD w/ EADM? Take the entire folder of where the game got installed to and just copy it somewhere else myself - b/c within that game's folder is the SETUP installer, which is what you need to run to basically install the game. Streamlined to perfection. I wish Steam or Impulse worked like that.

[Xessive]

I don't know about giving EADM the edge over Impulse.. Impulse is way more functional in that you can technically do a lot more with it.

Anyway, Impulse for me isn't really about games, it's my Stardock software hub, so I hope that won't affected unless they set up another iteration of the old Stardock Central (which eventually evolved into Impulse). That's the main reason I find it odd that Stardock sold off Impulse.

[idolminds]

A lot of the things you listed as missing features from Impulse are things that don't make sense unless the client is required to run along with the game, which Impulse does not. Matchmaking and friends lists? Reactor. Screenshots and video? Xfire. I mean, doesn't seem worth bloating up the store client needlessly.

I don't think I'd go as far as to say Brad is delusional, but he does seem...overly optimistic. Steam is all about vendor lock-in at this point and getting people to switch out of that is going to take a lot. But as others have said, Gamestop sees the future just as well as the rest of us. Digital distribution is huge and growing and if Gamestop wants to stay relevant they need to get on board sooner rather than later. If consoles in the future focus on DD then Gamestop is SOL, and the PC space would be the only place they could operate. I share Brads optimism here, though. I doubt Gamestop bought Impulse just to fuck it up and make a worthless DD store. They have the knowhow and money to make it big.

I'm not exactly happy with it being Gamestop the one buying the DD service I like most, but they haven't screwed it up yet so lets see what actually happens.


PS, Brad is right about one thing. The Steam client is balls.
PPS, fucking stop posting so I can get this reply though. Yeesh.

[MysterD]

I don't know about giving EADM the edge over Impulse.. Impulse is way more functional in that you can technically do a lot more with it.

Anyway, Impulse for me isn't really about games, it's my Stardock software hub, so I hope that won't affected unless they set up another iteration of the old Stardock Central (which eventually evolved into Impulse). That's the main reason I find it odd that Stardock sold off Impulse.

For me, it's all about the games here. I was never really big on Stardock's software. Though, thanks for pointing Fences out to me - I dig that.

Impulse - makes me have to "Archive games" to back them up to disc - so, I'd "Archive it" to another drive. Then, burn it to DVD's or CD's. To reinstall Impulse games, you have to run Impulse and then point to the file.

EADM - look at where your game got installed to. Burn that game folder itself to wherever. The end. It deletes a whole step for me. To reinstall EADM games - just run the SETUP file in the game folder.

[idolminds]

Anyway, Impulse for me isn't really about games, it's my Stardock software hub, so I hope that won't affected unless they set up another iteration of the old Stardock Central (which eventually evolved into Impulse). That's the main reason I find it odd that Stardock sold off Impulse.

Stardock is making standalone installers and such for their productivity and desktop software, so they won't require Impulse to install and update.

[MysterD]

A lot of the things you listed as missing features from Impulse are things that don't make sense unless the client is required to run along with the game, which Impulse does not. Matchmaking and friends lists? Reactor. Screenshots and video? Xfire. I mean, doesn't seem worth bloating up the store client needlessly.

I don't think I'd go as far as to say Brad is delusional, but he does seem...overly optimistic. Steam is all about vendor lock-in at this point and getting people to switch out of that is going to take a lot. But as others have said, Gamestop sees the future just as well as the rest of us. Digital distribution is huge and growing and if Gamestop wants to stay relevant they need to get on board sooner rather than later. If consoles in the future focus on DD then Gamestop is SOL, and the PC space would be the only place they could operate. I share Brads optimism here, though. I doubt Gamestop bought Impulse just to fuck it up and make a worthless DD store. They have the knowhow and money to make it big.

I'm not exactly happy with it being Gamestop the one buying the DD service I like most, but they haven't screwed it up yet so lets see what actually happens.


PS, Brad is right about one thing. The Steam client is balls.
PPS, fucking stop posting so I can get this reply though. Yeesh.

For Steam-required games or Steam-purchased games
I don't want to run another program called XFire and Reactor. Steam nowadays does all that I want from XFire, anyways. Since Steam now allows for screenshots, which is what I care most about - why the hell should I run XFire also? Having Steam program running is enough.

For Non-Steam games
I usually just run XFire - namely for screenshot-taking and/or in case I want to get a game going w/ somebody.

Also - you can add Non-Steam games to Steam, if you want. So, you want some of Steam's functionality - i.e. take screen-shots in-game - add a Non-Steam game to Steam. I did this for Two Worlds 2 and DA2 Demo, before XFire finally added them to their list.

[Quemaqua]

Are you actually making the argument that because Impulse doesn't take screenshots it's inferior?  Are you really?

Anyway... the thing you need to keep in mind as far as what Brad said is that "features" do not equal "tech", so try not to confuse the two.  If he had meant features he would have said so.  Given my experience with really spotty service on Steam and incredibly reliable service via Impulse, it doesn't seem like a stretch.  But I'm not a programmer, what the fuck do I know?  And even if I was I still know nothing about the architecture of all the backend stuff for either Steam or Impulse.  And I'm pretty sure you don't either, so very likely neither of us are qualified to comment.  The point is is that Steam can have all the features it wants and still be substandard as far as how it operates, and that is plainly the case from my experience with it.  Some of the features are nice, yeah, but as I mentioned, 90% of it is useless fluff to me.  I don't give a fuck what anyone else is playing nor do I feel like looking at 12,000 screenshots of their shitty, half-naked DA2 mage turning herself into a bear.

[Xessive]

There's one major thing that bothers me about Impulse: regional restrictions. I have no idea why but Impulse restricts things up-the-wazoo!

I thought maybe it was something from the publishers since it's only big publisher releases that are restricted (Ubisoft, EA, Activision, etc.) but the same titles are available via Steam and the publishers' websites without any trouble. It is disappointing that Impulse restricts access to only US and Canada when the competition provides worldwide access so readily.

On the bright side anything I purchased on Impulse while I was in Canada is available for re-download at any time; I'm just unable to get any add-ons/DLC for them.

[idolminds]

Jumping the Shark podcast has Wardell on talking about the sale of Impulse to Gamestop. Should be an interesting listen.

[Quemaqua]

Explains a lot and is a very good interview.

[scottws]

Summary for those at work?

[idolminds]

He talks about hesitating when first talking to Gamestop, but after flying down there and meeting the people involved and seeing what they have planned it all sounded like a good fit for Impulse. Apparently Gamestop has been building up for this thing for over a year now so its going to be a big push when this goes through.

He expanded on his comments about Impulse having better tech than Steam, which a lot of people took the wrong way (see Ds posts). He wasn't talking client features, but benhind the scenes stuff. How an dev can (eventually, guess its still being worked on) upload their own games and updates, instead of submitting them and waiting (which is what happens currently on Steam).

He touched on why Impulse is great in the US, but bad in other parts of the world because of region restrictions. That boils down to requiring separate agreements for each region and they don't have the staff to handle all of that (he said their entire sales staff on Impulse was 3 people).

Long story short, Impulse was making lots of money but was also starting to require a lot more staff to actually take it to the next level. Stardock is 50 people and they make all sorts of desktop/enterprise apps, and games, and run Impulse. When devs were deciding between Steamworks, GFWL, and Reactor, Valve and MS have people they can send out to show it off and sell it. Stardock would have to take someone off their regular work and send them out which was slowing down the development of their other software. He also made a joke at "And who are these StarDuck guys?" but once its Gamestop then everyone knows they are a big player and will take it more seriously. So instead of having Impulse take over the entire companys focus, they sold it off to Gamestop. All the current Impulse staff are going with and moving to Texas to keep working on Impulse and Stardock will still be developing Reactor for now and helping out a bit. But with this split Gamestop can pour in the resources and staff to let it really take off and Stardock can get back to making the software they want.

[Xessive]

Y'know, that podcast actually calmed me down a bit about the whole region crap. Hearing Brad's comments on it, he made some valid points and a convincing explanation for why things are the way they are. I mean, it sucks that Impulse has to let me down but at least I now understand. I'll find other ways to support Stardock. I'm already an avid follower of the ObjectDesktop suite.

[Quemaqua]

Well, with Gamestop behind Impulse, you're far more likely to see those region restrictions change up now.

[Xessive]

Well, with Gamestop behind Impulse, you're far more likely to see those region restrictions change up now.

I guess some good will come of that. I'm still gonna be cautious about where I make my online purchases.

[scottws]

I just don't trust Gamestop.  They've already shown themselves to be a thoroughly evil corporation.

[idolminds]

The latest update to Impulse has a little Gamestop branding to the splash screen when it loads, and now impulsedriven.com has a little Gamestop brand in the upper corner. Don't notice anything more than that yet.

[MysterD]

The latest update to Impulse has a little Gamestop branding to the splash screen when it loads, and now impulsedriven.com has a little Gamestop brand in the upper corner. Don't notice anything more than that yet.

*bangs head on keyboard*

[Pugnate]

You have sex on weird places dude.

[Xessive]

You have sex on weird places dude.

Oh, that's nasssty.

[MysterD]

Oh, that's nasssty.

Yes , it is.