Impulse Reactor: Explaining one of Goo’s cool features

I wonder how this is going to work when I buy a game from the cheapest vendor, then download it from the fastest. Wouldn't the second party be a bit pissed they have to pay for bandwidth they didn't get paid for?

Answer: Market forces.

Basically, what I predict will happen is that part of every publisher agreement will be that digital distributors must support ALL their customers regardless of where it was purchased. 

One of the objectives of Impulse Reactor is to put the "power" back into the hands of the game players AND the game developers.  Presently, the retailers and the digital distributors hold too many of the cards.  That will change as competition in digital distribution grows.

But this hasn't happened yet with any publishers that have games on Impulse. They never let you have retail keys, or keys from any other service. It's backwards even, they didn't *want* you to, so you the distributor took the initiative and they are the ones who weren't interested.

How can Goo change that?

Suppose you, Stardock, goes out of business? I'm out of luck by then. Don't tell me that companies that made the game is now one that's responsible after that because the old argument of game companies dying and leaving users dry comes back...

DRM from game company or DRM from publisher is still DRM.

Is StarDock going to Goo-ify their existing catalogue?

No, Brad said they'll continue with the same system they've always used, no copy protection on the disk, but registration (and activation on install for digital-downloads). The quote is in one of the big Goo threads.

Elemental is going to get the ability for users to deactivate their own access and be able to transfer to another user, for the whole re-sale thing.

"Answer: Market forces.

Basically, what I predict will happen is that part of every publisher agreement will be that digital distributors must support ALL their customers regardless of where it was purchased. "

I was set to rubbish this idea but on reflection that would actually work. I bemoan the fact I can't get certain games on Steam, as an example, but eg Impulse does have them. When Steam and Impulse have different rosters and DRM (call it what you will) schemes I'm going to have a preferred supplier - the one that makes my life easiest. If a major digital distributor boycotts a game, the way the bricks and mortar suppliers have done (eg the DOW2 kerfuffle), but the rest are carrying it with a ubiquitous DRM policy then I'm not going to feel bad downloading from one of them if the experience is generally uniform.

Getting that level of agreement is going to be tough though. I thought this GOO thing was a wind-up but this post actually makes a lot of sense.

Oh and does this mean we can have Sins on Steam?

Waitaminute (I still can't edit my posts on here) I've thought of a flaw.

I can set up a storefront offering my ubiquitous download for a dollar less than everyone else but put no money towards my infrastructure. FG is suggesting that my lower price should encourage the better equipped stores to lower their prices to match my price but that's just hurting the people who invest in servers. Once word gets out that you can buy from my cheapass store but download from a real merchant with impunity then I'm going to unjustly funnel off sales at the expense of somebody else's bandwidth. All I'm doing is forcing people to cut their margins. Or did you have another interpretation of market forces?

In fact my extrapolation from this is that the major existing publishers should just get their heads together and set up their own version of Steam/Impulse and cut out the digital middlemen altogether. Refuse to put their games onto Steam/Gamersgate/Directtodrive/Impulse and price match with retail. If noone else can distribute the games online then they've got a monopoly. Or would that be illegal?

(I tried IE6 - it doesn't even render the page right. I'm running Win2k here so I can't get Chrome or IE7)

DD prices are almost always specified by the publisher, not the shop. So you'd have to work out a contract with the publisher to let you do that in the first place, and i doubt they're going to let you run a price lower than the others if you don't have any infrastructure.

I don't feel the DD provides enough support as it is. Since they usually refer the customer to the dev/pub. (which is problematic if dev kaput)

Anyway, I'm still liking the freedom of choice returning to me.

Wait, so if authentification is all on the publisher, why is Reactor bundled with the game exe in an encryted format?  What features are added in that encrypted exe taht are not part of the original game?

As I alluded to in another thread, how will support be handled if one of the DDs goes out of business?  Say for example I go out and buy a GOO game on Steam.  If I have a problem, chances are I'll send my gripes to Steam's support system--they might send me to the developer or publisher, but all too often people just go with whomever they bought the same from.  Now say Steam--my DD of choice in this example--goes out of business and their website just directs people to Google or something.  Maybe I go to the developer, who gives me the runaround because their publisher is calling all the shots (or worse yet have gone out of business themselves), or maybe I'm not a geek and don't know about other DD options.  Would Stardock reach out to the unwashed masses and try to steer them to their own site or another DD, or stay out of it and hope for the best?

I guess what I'm getting at is I'd like to know whether GOO is basically just a centralized activation server or if it represents a much broader shift of control and support from publishers/DDs back to developers.

I don't know how much I waited for this. Customers must have back the power that slowly was drained from them. With this Goo thing customer can choose at any times which service of which provider he want based on how good the service is. That's the only way to make provider wishing to improve their service. Otherwise a not so good provider with unfair methods that has gained the biggest catalogue in a filthy way could possibily rule the world of DD without improve itself, and that's would be bad for the custormers.