I never expected Stardock would allow their Impulse sold keys to be activated on Steam. I just really despise Brads attitude when anything he says is not immediately taken as the voice of god by the filthy masses. What brad said is not entirely accurate, when someone said as much Brad makes a speech about how he must be a greedy bastard who drinks the tears of endangered species. That is honestly what I have a problem with. The him vs us mentality is not healthy, especially when he has already made a monumental withdrawal of good will and understanding.

I honestly felt I had been robbed when Stardock sold Impulse to Gamestop. I literally felt that my money and possessions had been stolen and I still do. Now when I see Brad has the opportunity to win back some support, to make up for it a little or even just to explain to people why exactly it can't be done he instead turns it into showdown at the playground hour.

I want to see either:

A: A gesture of good will by allowing people to activate their Impulse Keys on Steam

or

B: An explanation of exactly why that isn't possible for Stardock to do when other companies can and have done it.

The Space Pirates vs Zombies Devs made all the keys sold before they released the game on Steam, activate on Steam and gave a pretty detailed explanation of what exactly has to be done in order for them to do that. So its not like this is some huge dark secret ritual that requires the sacrifice of 7 executives to the dark lord Cthulhu. It involves getting a list of keys and adding them to Steam... its boring and takes time but its not rocket surgery.

If Steam are taking a cut and charging for each copy activated, Stardock could easily offer a service on their website by which people enter in their Impulse CD key, Pay X amount to cover the charge and get a nice shiny steam CD key.

There are solutions... but instead we get some bs about endangered species.

Your account and your stuff is still accessible.  If you don't like Gamestop you no longer have to download GC II from them.  What more do you want?

If there is that mentality, it's because people keep whining about how they've owned the game for years and suddenly feel entitled to own it in every possible outlet that distributes it.

You accuse the guy of being greedy but it's you guys who are mooching.  For stuff that you already have.  Uh, okay then.

Whose feathers are blue. I just forgot to mention that part. The feathers are blue.

Well I guess we have solved the mystery as to why Steam owns over 80% of the digital distribution market.

I owned the game for years and it was downloadable directly from the people I bought it from. Now I have to go through an entirely different service owned by a different company which I have an exactly opposite amount of respect for. Big difference. The terms under which I purchased the game (nota bene: not legal terms here, but assumed terms, my fault perhaps) are now markedly different.

A lot of this problem could've been avoided by having the alternate, direct-from-stardock downloads ready when you switched over rather than forcing us to wait! It is now nine months after you sold Impulse to a company which I despise in the very core of my being, as much as most people hate congress, and I still don't have access to my games in the form under which I did when it was purchased. For me, functionality was removed. 

When people protest regarding unreleased games outside of Valve's offices, they get free pizza. When we protest in the forums over games we have already purchased, we get bad analogies. Maybe this is why I'd prefer my games through Steam rather than Stardock directly. Who knows when you'll sell downloads.stardock.com to another company I hate, like Bank of America.

You can (or will be soon depending on the game) download the game directly from us.

I thought you sold our accounts to Gamestop so you could get out of the digital distribution business and focus on software? This looks suspiciously like a digital distribution source for Stardock titles.

I can't right now. I haven't been able to since March. And for how long? How long until you sell this one too?

I don't mean to be ungrateful - I've enjoyed GalCiv 2 for many many hundreds of hours, it was a fantastic purchase and game from your company. I'm just saying, you told us you wanted out of the digital game distribution business, and when proferred with a way to do so, you tell me I'm being mean or something.

I'm frustrated. I've been frustrated for months. I'm frustrated this was rather sprung upon us, im frustrated there was no support at launch for people who didn't want to use a service owned by GameStop, and im really frustrated the same company who gave us the Gamer's Bill of Rights then sold our stuff to the "maximum profit margin, screw the players" gaming company of the decade.

I want to like you guys again; you were the gaming company I held up as an example of what the industry could do for the players while making money for themselves; but now its very hard, and I'm not exactly feeling like there's a lot of desire for that on the other side too.

This... ten thousand times this.

I really want to like Stardock again. I really want GalCiv3 or any future expansions to be an instant no thought buy as opposed to me having to wrestle with my morals to even consider buying them.

Someone gifted me Sins of a Solar Empire last week... I feel dirty like I am returning to an abusive lover and I have no pride or shame. I don't want to feel dirty for playing a Stardock title.. I want that feeling where there was a small well of adoration. Where i knew the game I was enjoying was made by a guy who truly loved what he did and treated the PC community fairly.

I want the old Stardock back.

Two different things really.  Impulse/GameStop is a 3rd party retailer.  Stardock Central will be a download manager that will only distribute Stardock games/apps.

https://forums.wincustomize.com/413462

That's the very definition of digital distribution. There shouldn't be any room for confusion here... Its distributing my shit to me digitally. I'm just not seeing why I have to use your bandwidth instead of leeching off Valves.

Digitally doesn't mean it's freely available at any outlet.  That seems to be an impression some are trying to make.  

You can use Valves bandwidth all you want if you purchase from Steam.  

It's a two-way street.  Right now, I'm not liking some of you very much either.  I find some of the comments here reeking of entitlement.

We make games and software. You bought them through a service called Impulse that we owned at the time. We sold Impulse but nothing changed from your perspective other than a philosophical issue.  However, despite that, we are still making sure users can directly download and install their Stardock purchases from us. It'll take time to get all of them on there but most (90%+) of our stuff is already on there.

Quit acting like you're entitled to some sort of additional new service that was never, in a million years, expected to be provided (i.e. getting Steam keys for your Impulse purchases).  

At the end of the day you need to not be a bloody zealot.  Do you like what we do here? Do you like our games? Do you want more games like them to be made? If you do, then know we're doing the best we can.  If you don't support us, then don't.  Vote with your wallet and don't buy our stuff. But the policy on Impulse keys is final. We can't term them over to Steam. End of story.

This would be like if I was your government and informed you that I had sold your citizenship to Zimbabwe, and that in order to get the rights afforded to citizens, you had to move to Zimbabwe and conduct your business there; and that your distaste in such is merely a philosophical issue. You can still have the rights of a citizen; you just have to move to Zimbabwe. It'll take some time before we can process your worker's visa, but until then you can feel free to lack all social services such as police protection.

I will remember that in the future - do you intend to release your future games on Steam as well as your back catalog?

I bought a license from you. I don't own the software, I own a license. Companies selling their day one DLC on disk have made this very clear that the distribution method does not enter into the equation. It shouldn't matter if I install from the disk, from you, from Impulse or from Steam. I still paid for and own one license. 

I love how the lines in the sand change depending on what works best for the company in question at the time and the exact same logic when the roles are reversed means the consumer is being unreasonable and has entitlement issues.

I think at this point there's nothing more to discuss.

And yes, I make my decisions based on what's best for Stardock.  Providing good customer service is one of those things which is why we're making sure people can download their stuff from Stardock directly in the event they don't choose to continue to use Impulse.  And yes, when a customer demands something that is not good for Stardock, I consider that unreasonable. Businesses that do that too often don't remain in business.  I believe in enlightened self interest.