Luckily for me, Valve hasn't wronged me yet so I have plenty of places to get content. I was never in love with SD to begin with, I only came here for WoM. So there's no customer loyalty from me when it comes to Impulse. To me Impulse has always been the DD that wanted to do their own thing, at the cost of their title selection vis-a-vi Steam.

I've had lots of good and bad experiences with Gamestop.  Unfortunately more bad than good.

Worst though was when buying a new copy of a game and had to listen to the clerk tell me that if the cd-key didn't work (this game had to be activated on steam), that it wasn't Gamestops fault.  It is kind of ridiculous when all new copies of games at the Gamestops, at least around here, are opened and the discs are just stored in flimsy white sleeves thrown into a big drawer or in a binder or whatever.  

One of the so called new games another time I bought was damaged.  I always checked the discs quality before leaving the store since I rarely got an actual sealed copy and once it was damaged a lot.  I hadn't even left the store and had to argue with the clerk to give me another copy with him claiming I damaged it in the thirty seconds since the transaction ended.

I just don't understand how they can justify selling opened copies of games and sell them as "new" when Gamestop employees can take games home to play them, etc.  If they pull that kind of crap at retail and get away with it, who knows what kind of hell they will create with Impulse.

I was looking forward to SoaSE: Rebellion, but now I'm not sure if I will even purchase it.  Unless things go well with this happening before then, I will have to say good bye to one of my favorite franchises over the past few years.  Disappointing for me.

I know a lot of people seem to have lots of hate, but it is justified.  Too many people have been f'ed over by Gamestop for this to happen peacefully.

Ankerous, neither I nor anyone I know have ever had a problem like that at our local store. I think you just happened to end up with a singularly poor store in your local area. That isn't something that should reflect on the corporation's online dealings, because the power structures are very different.

Well I've definitely seen Gamestop (and other stores as well) keep the CD outside the box for games. I suspect that they do it as an anti-theft deterrent. I've never had a problem with CD damage though.

The idea that employees take them home and play with them though is something that I suspect is purely speculation on akerous' part. I mean you never know when someone will steal or break the rules so it could happen. But I'm pretty sure it's not something which is allowed.

I know it is allowed because I have friends who used to work at one of them years ago, unless the policy has changed since then, which I doubt.

      Call me a conspirisy theorist but did the boondoggle that was Elemental WOM and the two free games Stardock finds it self faced with lead to a hole that the sale of Impulse had to fill? I would also add that an expansion of Sins, instead of money needed to invest in a Sins 2 is part of this?

    Games are announced years ahead of time, just to drum up interest.....I don't believe that Ironclad has anything else on the plate. Then again I could be completely wrong.

So.. I suppose that now, my Impulse games are tied to Gamestop?

That's.. that's actually worse than Steam. This is a downright horrific thought.

I really think now that Stardock is getting out of the DD business they should look at putting their games on Steam. For someone selling games, that's the place to be. (And for those of us who don't have a problem with Steam, having the community features it provides would be a bonus.)

There might have been a contractual obligation to not use Steam, or Stardock may have an agreement with Gamestop where they get a very good deal on Impulse (like maybe Gamestop only gets 10% instead of 30% for example).  This is conjecture, but a very reassnable assumption, though one Stardock would not and likely could not confirm.

There may be a business reason for them not to use Steam. 

Was that confirmed?  If so, I'd expect to see the next Stardock game on all DD platforms, but requiring Reactor.

That's fine by me if that happens.  I'd just get Gamersgate version and save a couple of bucks.

After the 1 year period, I hope Stardock puts their stuff on the servers they'll be using for Object Desktop.  My reasoning:

a) You buy from a DD portal, they get a cut.  If I'm paying for a Stardock game, I'd rather see Stardock get the full share of the money.  While I have nothing against Valve/Paradox/Gamestop specifically, I don't see why they should get $15 of the $50 if I don't have to give it to them.  Stardock gettting the full share= more revenue for them= more funding for their projects.

I trust Stardock's DD capability, and I suspect beta patches/access will be faster on there.

So, I'm hoping Brad decides to put his gaming products on his own servers non-exclusively, for positive reasons.  Of course, he can't say as much, and I wonder if there would be compatibility issues (though I dobut it).

I always had mixed feelings about that because it made it hard to tell what was actually new and what was just something that had been bumped up for the 20th time after a minor update.