I fully agree with his sentiments. There is more than enough room for two competing services and the competition can only benefit the customers when each tries to out do the other. The problem though is that right now he doesn't have his service where his mouth is. I love Impulse. I check it regularly and have purchased a number of games from it so far but by far the biggest problem is a major lack of content. Steam has major games from nearly every publisher under the sun. Impulse has Sins and GalCiv. Until Impulse scores some big wins for its roster, they are going to have a hard time gaining much traction. Then again it took what, 6 years for Steam to get where it is now so I can't judge Impulse too harshly after barely a year. Anyway, best of luck to both Stardock and Valve. Keep the great gaming services coming.


...bysmittyPosted at 9:27AM on Mar 11th 2009 by bysmitty

To be fair, Facebook sucks, too.

But I like competition. Impulse in the mix will hopefully spur a betterment to Steam's offline mode.

Impulse still has to work on the little "price" thing, though. TQ Gold for $30, but it's $20 on Steam, for example. Gish, $20 on Impulse, $10 on Steam. Many more like this.Posted at 9:34AM on Mar 11th 2009 by Sokkratez

Steam cannot even show how much gigabytes remaining on a download. I agree with Stardock Steam needs a good competitor.
Pricing issue is true also. I wanted but UT3 from Impulse instead of Steam but they don't have a discount.
UT2004 is cheaper on GOG.com too.Posted at 11:25AM on Mar 11th 2009 by mko

There is more than enough room for all competing services on the Web. Each has something unique to offer. Despite the fact that Facebook's member base has surpassed Myspace, Myspace continues to have loyal users. Another new social network that is trying to take part is Hoponthis.com. They are similar to the other social networks but offer cash and prizes to their members just for using the site. Posted at 11:51AM on Mar 11th 2009 by Annalise

I've often thought one of Steam's greatest advantages was that it needed to be on when you play. It never let you forget that you had it. And once it got more features to further justify its use, it was more and more preferred to keep it online even when you aren't playing it. Impulse is a very good service, but it lacks many of the games and features that might keep it from being something you want to have on all the time (if that is even what they desire). I'm hoping that the new features slated for Impulse change that.Posted at 11:47AM on Mar 11th 2009 by ChimpWithAHandgun

Anyone remember Triton, which exclusively distributed Prey digitally but later suddenly went out of business? To its credit, Steam has Half-Life 2 and its expansions and mods to push down people's throats. Today Steam not only distribute Valve games exclusively, but new PC releases such as FEAR 2, Dawn of War 2, and Empire Total War all require Steam accounts to be played. What does Impluse have besides hardcore turn-based strategy games that have a relatively small audience? Wardell should put his money wher his mouth is and secure some better exclusives before bashing Valve. Comparing Steam to Impulse is like comparing MySpace to GeoCities.Posted at 9:41AM on Mar 14th 2009 by Astrixzero