A few weeks ago, Stardock published their annual customer report where they identified its own Impulse PC game download service as the number two most popular service with 10 percent of the market share, although it did admit being well behind Valve's Steam service which it said has as much as 70 percent of the market share. Now Gamasutra reports that IGN's Direct2Drive is calling Stardock's claims out.

Direct2Drive used a NPD Group study on PC download services which it says does shows Steam as the number one such service, followed by Blizzard.com, EA.com and finally Direct2Drive. Impulse was not listed in the NPD Group study. Direct2Drive Vice-President Sutton Trout called Stardock's claims, " . . . misinformation at best."

Brad Wardell, the CEO of Stardock, fired back, saying, "The data we used came from the publishers." He also stated Stardock's own exclusive games like Sins of A Solar Empire, Demigod and others that are not available on other download sites and services "allows Impulse to edge third parties:" There's been a ton of debate on exactly how many PC game sales are conducted via digital downloads with most companies keeping that data close to the chest. Direct2Drive's Trout says the company is " . . . actively engaged with reputable data-collection services to determine how to most effectively implement standardized reporting in the digital distribution business."