Impulse has done a great deal for us, yes.  We have thought this over; there are many angles for which we do not wish a partnership with GameStop.  To quote myself:

There are of course many other reasons behind our decision, but most and chiefly:  We have no confidence in GameStop's ability to run and operate Impulse nor have confidence that they will not alter and/or revise some of the more 'lofty' sections of Impulse, up to and including the Gamer's Bill of Rights.

I'm encouraged by the money Gamestop can put behind impulse to be a true competitor to Steam.  If i owned Steam i would be a little frightened by this.  I think gamers will benefit from this deal and the user base will grow despite what people are saying in posts. 

Gamestop can offer something to developers that Steam can't...  multiple retail channels.  Don't be surprised if PC games start showing up in Gamestop stores again.  And that next Total War game may be an Impulse exclusive.  Gamestop doesn't want to be the Blockbusters to Steam's Netflix.  I think they are about to prove it.

I don't have a doom and gloom view.  I simply have a negative view and experience with GameStop, and want nothing to do with them.

I dont think people are really upset about Stardock selling Impulse. Yes most of us ONLY bought from Impulse because its connection to Stardock.

What people are upset about Brad is you sold Impulse to Satan.

Best not to be melodramatic, it ruins your crediblity.

Alright, I don't get the crazy rage here.

1. Gamestop isn't any more evil than the next publicly traded corporation. They make a shit-ton off used video games, they have some exceptionally poor staff in some stores, and they do in fact make marketing calls to people who sign up for their club. My experience w/ them is to walk into their stores, nod or say "Just looking" to anyone who approaches, and zip to the used games section. At the counter, just say "no" to pretty much everything they ask. Pay and leave. Take your new game buying elsewhere. They don't really want you to buy those anyway.

2. The arguments that Gamestop doesn't sell PC games is ridiculous. No brick and mortar retailer sells PC games. Why? Because there just isn't the demand anymore and profit margins are so bloody low. More importantly, USED GAMES are Gamestop's bread and butter - which PC games play no part of. New games don't keep Gamestop in business. The profit margins for retailers just aren't there.

3. Stardock can now focus completely on software. I'm sure they got a pretty penny for Impulse, and deservedly so. Gamestop can continue doing what it does best: retail. I'm pretty sure Gamestop is ready for this. They see a future where Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo create less and less physical media. Gamestop also has more flex power than Stardock. Hopefully, we shall stop seeing Steam exclusive games.

4. No one knows what Gamestop will do. Lets not get our panties all twisted just yet.

If it the updater is accessable to other programs (either by calling and running it in a separate process or by loading as a DLL) then someone (possibly me, I like being able to update through a client) could create a nice interface for it later on.

I think these speak to my main worry about all this.

I'm cautiously optimistic about some of the things Impulse can gain from this sale. If qualities like DRM policy can remain while other benefits are added on top, I may even be looking back on this as an unambiguously good thing.

But this seemingly wipes out one of the unique things about Impulse: Brad & Stardock being in control. Having the CEO of Impulse's owner publicly state that they stand by the gamer's bill of rights is not something you see at every download service. Perhaps I will be pleasantly surprised, but I'm guessing Gamestop's CEO is not about to do something similar.

Gamestop is a poor store with a poor selectiong. They bought out EB/Waldensoftware in our area then quickly stripped down everything that was good at those stores. When best buy has a better PC game selection then Gamestop it shows exactly what Gamestop thinks. The thing about gamestop besides ruining a few of my favorite stores to shop at, is they only carry whats hot. Hey im not being melodramtic. I understand selling what is hot helps the bottom line. Its a good business move, but only selling WOW and Sims expansions is not carrying computer games.

Now I know every single Gamestop is going to be just a little bit different, we have 3 in one mall here, and one across the street in the Wallmart parking lot. All a little different, except they all have rude customer service reps, and all have poor selections of PC products. I dont care that they sell used games for high prices, if you dont like the price dont buy it there. Ebay and CL(Long as you dont get stabbed or robbed) are great low cost alternatives to Gamestop.

My reasons condensed:

1. Thrashed my local stores then cut down what they carried

2. Horrible customer service(at least at my locations)

3. Poor PC game selectiong.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sins of a Solar, made lots of money, Mount and Blade made lots of money, Total War, Civ5(even if its no good) is going to make tons of money, yes the list gets shorter every year as game makers make more fluff for the console, but graphically PCs destroy console experinces. There are alot of PC games still made and released. Gamestop chooses not to carry them. Hell between the 4 stores locally they only ordered 100 copies of StarCraft 2. Its just not a PC friendly company. And now they own Impulse. Which is fine, I dont hate steam, I just was trying to support the little guy. And honestly if it wasnt for Galactic Civ2 be such an outstanding game I wouldnt bother support Impulse anyway.

Not being melodramtic, its simple. Stardock sold Impulse to a company that doesnt value or need my business the last few years.

Quite honestly, Gamestop's reputation is about as bad as you can get.  While you know the team involved, most of us know the retail side of Gamestop, and that's why our opinions range from skepticism to distrust to outrage. 

I cannot see any way this will end up a win for Impulse customers compared to you guys having kept Impulse.

I just hope that you guys have a backup plan in case Gamestop takes Impulse in a direction that you find unacceptable.  Some assurances there will go a long way.

The games you mentioned probably made more digitally or through the mail than any brick-and-mortar retailer. PC gaming isn't dying: brick and mortar stores selling PC games are dying. Shelf space is pretty ridiculous everywhere you go. If PC Games were money-makers, you'd bet the shelf-space would change. But... they don't, so retailers won't waste precious space.

Best Buy is able to hold onto shelf space because they make money through much more than games. Gamestop has no other product. If the game doesn't sell, and sell well, it needs to go.

Impulse is Gamestop's chance to get into PC games. Hopefully they don't destroy it. I'm not saying to not be slightly wary of the change. You should archive all your games just in case something happens. But, lets not cry wolf, when there isn't any wolf yet.

This move seems to be at such odds to much of what CEO Brad Wardell has been telling us, that it makes more sense to me as a prank. 

Brad has talked at length about how retailers exert to much power over game releases, and how this power has a detrimental affect on the quality and availability of our games.  He's blamed restrictive retailers for everything from the shrinking of game manuals and rushed release dates, to the homogenization of our games and the potential death of the  middle market.   He says that retailer reluctance to sell non-mainstream games restricts game diversity and limits developer opportunity.  He says this threatens the continued existence of fringe markets such as old school TBS. And he blames the retail market for mucking with dev cycles thereby reducing quality assurance and more.  He names that reason as being one of his chief motivations for releasing Fallen Enchantress as a digital download only.  He has spoken of these things before crowds of fellow developers and producers.  He's made press releases and given interviews.  He's come before the fans and preached about how his company was fighting the good fight and was looking after our gaming interests.  He put himself into a messiah like role in regards to gamers rights.  He went so far as to author a PC Gamers Bill of Rights.  I took him on his word for these matters because I looked at his companies past and found adequate assurance that his spoken convictions likely held truth.  I still believe that.  So I felt this just had to be a prank because Gamestops history is so strikingly at odds with Stardocks.

C'mon now... Brad said all those things about the negative impact that the retail industry has on the gaming industry; but then goes and sells our sole safe haven ESD platform to the self proclaimed "world’s largest video game and entertainment software retailer."  !?!  And not just any retailer, but one which is infamous for ultra PC restrictive practices.  A retailer specializing on video games, while marginalizing PC games!?  A company who restricts their limited sale of PC games to only that which is the_Most profitable?.  More power to them; this is their choice as it was mine to stop bartering PS2 games with them.  But this business practice runs opposite to that which Brad Wardell has so voraciously proclaimed his own to be.  

Furthermore, Gamespots entire existence is based upon something which Brad says has a negative impact on the gaming industry.  Gamespots business model is chiefly based on cutting into profits that would otherwise have been earned by game developers and their publishers.  Gamestop has made their way into the fortune 500 by buying used games cheap, then selling them back at near full retail cost.  In the 4th Quarter of 2010, Gamestops revenue was at 3 1/2 Billion.   Thats a big chunk of non-remunerated income that publishers like EA see as rightfully theirs.  This lost income potential drives publishers to invent invasive DRM schemes in order to stop the used game trade (DRM has not just been about anti-piracy). Now I for one am all for the used game market and have personally bartered scores of games dating back to Nintendo's first console.  I barter hard copy books and music as well.  I've been thankful for the opportunity to trade in old product towards something new.  And it's made me happy to do my part towards helping to keep my neighborhood mom and pop shops in business.  But to make the circle complete, I feel strongly that the developers and publishers should earn a slice of that resell pie.  I mean, how can we expect quality product in the future, if the developers are not being adequately remunerated for their work? Brad has said he agrees.  And that Impulse was going to help make it so.  He has said that earning of a share of that resell pie, can help motivate publishers to release non-mainstream titles; and drive developers to service the middle market.  He has said this with an assertion that I thought held some real conviction.  Yet if he had had true conviction while saying those things, then why would he relinquish control of Impulse to an entity which owes its existence to cutting into the profits of the gaming industry!?

I don't know what, if any, steps Brad may or may not have taken to ensure that this decision is in keeping with his publicly asserted convictions.  I don't know what, if any, handshake promises or contractual obligations that Gamestop may or may not have made to assure that Impulse would carry on as it has in the past.  Who knows what happened behind those closed doors or what motivates the decision makers.  All I know of a certainty is that Gamestop has historically taken actions, and followed a business model that appears to me to be at such extreme odds with Brads good fight preaching, that I felt it must have been an April Fools prank.  To think otherwise, would be to ponder if Stardock has preyed upon gamers misgivings towards a gaming industry run down by ultra-restrictive retailers, non-gamer profit blinded shareholders, and DRM + DLC crazed publishers. As well I would have to wonder if Brads Gamers R Us crusade was nothing more than a device for a small game studio to garner customer loyalty for the purpose of increased sales.   I find that hard to believe.  I find it easier to believe that this has all been a prank.  If it is not a prank I will pack my bags and jump off this Stardockian bandwagon for they do business with the shareholders devil. I won't give Gamestop the benefit of the doubt by blindly trusting that all will be well.  I've already been ripped off for a couple hundred dollars worth of product by two one-time major players in the audio digital distribution market.  I've learned my lesson and don't trust blind.  I have researched Gamestops past and found them to be exceedingly untrustworthy.  steam, the ESD giant; standing next to gamestoppers, appears angelic in comparison.  I gave up my love of the Civ franchise over the bundling of steam.  No other game held my interest as Civ once did.  Laying E:WOM to rest and never knowing E:FE is a bit easier, though still a bit unpleasent.  

brother, sister too
do what you must do
don't trust people you meet
they might promise you
that the river ain't deep 

New Genius by the Gorillaz

Really now. Last time I checked physical retailers had nothing to do with DRM. If anything they are probably upset by games like Mass Effect whose form of DRM will hurt second hard console sales.

Also if you are trying to get this thread locked by your excessive outburst, you will probably succeed.

Amen white elk.

At least Firaxis was upfront about people being forced into a contractual relationship with Valve/steam. With elemental and gamestop we were given no warning.. and only after we have purchased and supported it do we get to find out we are stuck in a contractual relationship with gamestop, not only with elemental.. but with ALL Our impulse purchases. Only options we have been left is to give up our games.. or accept whatever terms/conditions gamestop decides to add to impulse. Of course this is after we have given stardock/impulse our money so why do they care?

Gamestop won't change impulse for the worse? I'll believe it when i see it.

There is nothing melodramatic about choosing a company you trust.. entering into a contractual relationship with said company for a continuous service. Then later being told that company sold their side of the contract to a company which you have no reason to trust. Realizing that your stuck with that company or accepting your purchases as a loss. There have been no assurances that impulse won't change to require a client check everytime you run a game.. or require some invasive DRM on every game, a redownload fee, limited installs, limited downloads etc etc etc. By the nature of the contract we have with impulse.. they can add those at any time. See i knew stardock would never do those things.. what didn't even occur to me is that stardock would sell impulse to someone who would.

But i'm sure your sick of reading this.. and i'm sick of thinking about the way an open ended contract between me and stardock for access to games I purchased(which can be modified in anyway at anytime by gamestop come MAY) was sold to the highest bidder. So i'm done with this subject. GL all.

However given the effects of DRM, it would seem their (real) purpose is to kill the second hand market. GameStop did not create the DRM, it was created because of them.

Just like that and Stardock dispatches Impulse... Might as well sell the games' department to the highest bidder and be done with it.

Pardon the "melodrama" but I'm just leaving anyway. You don't have to worry about me being a customer again.

I imagine the majority of Elemental owners around here didn't buy it this year. How could we have been given warning in September, unless negotiations were in an advanced stage *months* ago? Even then, what would they say? "We're talking to someone about maybe selling it?" I don't know what you really expected there.

There was no legal assurance of that before either, only what Stardock said. If they woke up one day and changed their minds, you'd have little recourse.

There's already games on Impulse that have some of those things (invasive DRM in particular, since they carry Ubisoft games). Impulse doesn't require friendly DRM or adherence to the bill of rights in order to get listed.

I thought Steamworks was the Great Satan around here?

He's also an owner of a business, and has to do what's best for the business. I thought his reasons were laid out pretty well, and fundamentally Impulse was getting too large for Stardock to remain primarily a software company.

Manuals were actually the fault of Walmart. Release dates in the game industry (speaking from a close friend who works in the industry) are almost never realistic and are made by the marketing department. Retail only inflates that problem because everybody wants their game out at Christmas and there's limited shelf space, so you get a window and can't deviate from it. Being that they have limited shelf space and that shipping and stocking product is expensive, retail doesn't want to stock low volume items.

This is hardly the only industry that faces problems like that. That's not Gamestop being evil, that's Gamestop not wanting to be on the hook for 50,000 boxes of something they can't sell and that just sit in a warehouse. If my choices are to stock Call of Duty or to stock say Gemini Wars... well I like making money, so this is a fairly easy decision (unless I'm running a specialty store, but that's very hard to do these days for PC games due to Steam).

As for FE as a digital download only... well lets be honest here. A ton of people getting FE won't be paying for it. Where is the market for a boxed version? It's the right call for a number of reasons, including much lower costs and the ability to release "when it's ready" which is very important for this release. None of the reasons are "retail is evil".

(I snipped the used game discussion simply because I feel it's another entire thread and don't want to drag this one off topic.)
 

For Impulse to be of real value to Gamestop in the long term, it has to compete with Steam. If Gamestop actively works to make it worse then Steam... well then we've got Steam. Gamestop has done things in the past in some cases because of economics, and in other cases simply because as a major player they could. They're not a dominant player in this market at all.

@Tridus - I'm neutral on this whole Gamestop issue but thanks for bringing some rational and calm input to the discussion.

I don't actually believe that you've reduced all of your dissenting customers feedback to ignorable fan boy rage?   But it sort of comes across like that.  Not just from that posting but from your general response thus far.  But besides from registering our complaints for the change of ownership of the service which manages the software products we have purchased from you, is there any chance that this thing won't go through?  I read somewhere that the deal closes in May.  Is that just financial and legal wrangling, or is there opportunity to rescind the contract or amend the terms? 

Contrary to having too much time on my hands, I'm a little frustrated at the time I've been compelled to invest in order to learn about the entity which now holds the keys to my electronically acquired software. After having had two bad experiences with electronically distributed music, I still embrace the idea of ESD.  But I won't blindly enter into a transaction.  I researched steam prior to buying Civ5 and halted my planned purchase due to concerns of security, reliability, accessibility.  I read their EULA, heard from their users, researched the company and its principles before coming to the conclusion that I would not accept their terms, nor would I accept affectively relinquishing to them the uncontested control over my software license.  Then I went through the whole process again when pondering a purchase of Elemental.  In Stardocks case I accepted your terms and was impressed by your privacy and return policies.  So we made a transaction.    

Now you've sold Impulse to another party.  I've not been given opportunity to accept or deny their terms.  Furthermore my account information transfers to a company who at this time has a privacy policy which I emphatically do not accept.   

If this new company should set terms and policies for the use of the Impulse digital distribution service which differ from those which I had previously agreed to prior to installing Impulse, a service which is required in order to install the software product Elemental: War of Magic which I have purchased from you; will you refund the purchase price of said software product?

I surmise that from the way updates are currently installed, that if I do not accept Gamestops terms, that I will not have access to the software updates?  But you once spoke of the possibility of providing updates via CD or DVD for those with limited or no internet service.  Will you make Elemental updates available for CD install for those who choose not to accept Gamestops terms?  I suppose that Impulse::Reactor will be unavailable without Impulse, so services like mod and map sharing will be unusable?  And without Impulse we will be unable to validate the game for installation on another PC, nor be able to reinstall the game in the case of hard drive replacement or failure?  What about Object Desktop and Stardocks other non-gaming software?  Is that to be distributed and updated through Gamestoppers Impulse as well? 

To me this isn't about Impulse being successful.  I'm very worried the Gamers Bill of Rights no longer applies to the games I bought because of it.  I'm sure this is a fantastic move for Stardock, but I'd like to hear from Stardock while I should continue purchasing from Impulse and not Steam?  What is going to change from the users perspective with this move?

Not to be coerced into a contractual relationship with gamestop in order to maintain my already purchased games.

Further more.. yes nothing in the general agreement has changed as of yet.. the difference is who will be calling the shots. Before it was stardock who up until now showed a great deal of caring for gamers in general. Now its gamestop.. who doesn't give 2 shits about  gamers.. only the stock holders.

yes stardock could have changed the terms at any time.. but I trusted them not to. Trust was the whole point of my post. Now that impulse is set to change hands I no longer trust the entity who will be in control of access to the games which i purchased.

A fact which you totally ignored in your response. A consumer needs to trust the service provider not to screw him.. especially in the case of an open ended contract such as the impulse terms of service.

Finally yes.. There are no Drm restrictions short of steamworks currently applied to be carried by impulse. But the same time nor are there DRM requirements, limited installs, limited downloads, Limited time to redownload, extra charges for redownloading ect ect. Because once again.. Stardock chose not to do those things.. and i chose their service because I TRUSTED them not to. But now that Impulse is changing hands.. who is to say what kind of Stuff we will have to deal with to access the games we already purchased from impulse. Should we just blindly trust gamestop? Grin and bear it and hope for the best? and if/when they add crazy stuff like that just what? write off our money spent as a loss?

Guess it was really my fault for trusting stardock/impulse in the firstplace, and if that stuff happens I have no one but myself to blame for agreeing to Impulses TOS. This may turn out to be the first major horror story of Digital distribution.. and like it or not i Got me a front row seat.

You bring up some good points WhiteElk. I still think this is some sort of cruel April Fool's joke.

Ultimately we have to ask ourselves whether this move is good for PC gamers and PC gaming as a whole. At the moment the signs are not encouraging. Being the only real competitor to Steam, Impulse is now in the hands of a company with an unproven history with regard to PC gaming. With Stardock at the reins, we gamers had an idea of where the service was going. The sales, and game selection was at times better than Steam's and provided a real competitive advantage. Impulse Reactor also looked like a promising project that had the potential to fundamentally change the way PC games were played over the internet. Now with this sale the future of all of this is unclear and ambiguous.

Personally I promoted Impulse everywhere I went simply because I thought it was a better service than Steam (ignoring the spotty game selection). In times where I could buy either from Steam or Impulse, I always bought from Impulse. I wanted my money to go towards the games Stardock develops. I am thoroughly disappointed that I will probably no longer have an alternative to Steam and will most likely have all of my personal information handed to Gamestop.

You've jumbled the context.  That paragraph was speaking about how little shelf space Gamestop allocates for PC games.  Brad has spoken alot about how the process of acquiring retail shelf space has negatively impacted the PC gaming industry.  My point was that Gamestop is at the top of the list of retailers responsible for this particular impact on the industry.

I spoke of DRM in a separate paragraph.  It is a separate point.  That point being that big publishers see used game sales are cutting into their profits.   So they attempt to reclaim this lost revenue stream by devising various DRM schemes that go beyond transferable product keys and such.  They want to tag each game sold to an individual identity, and be able to prevent the game from being played if the identity check fails.  To do this they need to get into your computer and place a digital gatekeeper between you and your game.  Once again Gamestop is top of the list of reasons this is so. 

The greater context of my posting were the reasons why I believed this to be an April Fools prank.  Gamestop is responsible for many of the things which Brad has said is having a negative impact on the PC gaming industry.  So why then, if Impulse is touted as PC gamings saviour, would he sell it to one of PC gamings biggest threats?  That question, is why I thought this to be a prank.