stardock could rise if smart

They don't care about the PC market because the entire market barely sold 500 million in software last year... one single retailer, gamestop, alone sells enough console games to dwarf the entire pc market.

I didn't even know EB existed any more.

Local GAME stores where I live stock very few PC games now. Most PC users are smart enough to know prices are cheaper online I guess, as well as digital distribution becoming more popular.

Sadly, not managing to negotiate rights for non-american sales for games I've been looking forward to(which have been available just fine through other online retail channels), has put me off buying another game on Impulse.

I live in Brazil.

If the North American retailers are neglecting PC games, imagine how the situation is here.

I'm starting to think i'll never buy another boxed game again.

Actually, since i got a credit-card (which i acquired to buy Demigod - no retail avaiable in here), i didn't bought another boxed game.

Sadly, most of my money went to Steam platform, that has grown even more stronger with the recent sale. And i'm starting to see that various friends that usually never bought anything online are starting to spend money, and huge amounts of it, on digital distribution.

Man, I got my credit card a few months back, and literally haven't bought a new PC game at the store since. I've downloaded maybe 15 titles from Steam/other sites.

Digital Distribution is the way of the future. Boxed games = waste of physical resources/space. Digital copies are far more convenient.

/dance

I wouldn't buy any software online if the company refused to let you reinstall it an infinite amount of times or move it between computers. Stardock, however, is very kind about this.

Not to mention that DD is the prime way to sell odd/niche/budget softwar that isn't produced or released on a mass scale.

Torchlight/Shattered Horizon ftw.

qft

I think I know what the second F is for  

but Impulse have still not mimiced STEAM.

Take a look at steam frontpage - many games on display and navigation is Easy. Also games have easy acess to demos and videos.

Impulse had 4 games on the catalouge listed in easy to view (where steam has 10 - and next page quick to load) - pages take a long time to load on impulse.

Steam you can move back and forth very quick, almost like firefox with the back/forward/home buttons..

Impulse is very sluggish, try going from one catalouge to the other, they seem to be laid out differently and slow to respond. Try going from explore tab to communities or something like that and wait for AGES.

In an even fight I purchase 50% Impulse and 50% Steam. However when it comes time to buy, Impulse usually does not show up to the race...

Either their price is quite a bit higher or the game is not yet released on Impulse.

The times they did show up competitive to Steam i bought from Impulse 2/4 times to make sure both Steam and Impulse stay around in the future, although if Impulse cant update their stuff I may not even bother in future.

Impulse runs one of my cores to the max on startup D: it's like a g'damn video game. And it is slowwww. It's actually hilarious how my quad core desktop can barely run it by my dual-core notebook runs it fine. And I even have Impulse loaded on my SSD too, I think...

But, I think it just has to do with:

1) Skinning. They make /very very/ good looking applications. It just blows Steam out of the water. Their webpages are f'king hawt.

2) Hardware issues. They are a smaller company and so have less random hardware to test their stuff on. It's possible that my rig just wasn't sanity checked and so it has issues.

i am referring mostly to the better layout steam uses. You load default steam page and it makes you wanna look at the games, and buy something!

You look at impulse page and it shows a couple of titles, you may click on 1, much less chance of an impulse buy.

pun intenended

Impulse needs to pay some1 38 hours a week to copy the shizit outta steam so they can boost sales.

I've never bought anything from steam. I've heard bad stuff about the DRM that comes with stuff bought on steam. I hate DRM. So stardock will always have my money... End of story.