gazcrowbar

...yah maybe I guess. Though Impulse basically does that already.

Kestrel, that response was GOLD.

Let me sum that up Kestrel:

Let's gimp the sales of our product in order to (maybe) spread our unrelated distribution platform = GOLD.

Why would Stardock use Steam, seriously? 

What business model teaches you to pay your direct competitor to distribute a product you are being paid to distribute? 

All Steam has going for it over Impulse is that it is established.  Every other aspect, with the exception of social networking, as Trigeminal points out, is superior on the Impulse platform.  And the nice thing is that Impulse is fairly modular.  You can incorporate social networking apiece once you have it polished.

Steam is bloated, inefficient, and old.  It has grown used to owning the market place, and gotten fat and lazy as a result.  Don't get me wrong, I use it and will for many years, as long as the games are on it.  But what we are seeing is the digital distribution model taking hold and smart, efficient systems being put into play that owe nothing to Valve and present benefits in comparison to it. 

Unless Steam does some serious innovation PDQ they will be displaced as the premier digital distribution within 5 years.

So back to Demigod.  Would it have more sales if it were on Steam?  Maybe.  Or maybe it will be the game that takes Steam down a notch and shows Impulse as a DDN to be reckoned with.  Either way, GPG knew exactly what they were buying into with Stardock, and it wasn't Steam.

As much as steam is suck, almost  everybody these days own it and see it every day and if demigod will be in steam much more people will see it and it probably sales much more. Impuls is realy better but its new and not many poeple own it now.

You can compere this fight to WoW Vs all other MMO's. even if its old (WoW), no body leaves it and not even looking at the competitions, even if some of them are better. I know, its not the perfect comparison but you see my point.

Plus I'm sure that as soon as Impuls will realy threat Steam it will get updates so people wont leave it.

To beat such fight you must have a realy supirior replecment, good timing and a lot of luck and I'm not sure Impuls will have all this by the time Demigod release.

BTW, Pelron post was hilarious.   (and quite true )

And I'm pretty sure it is a problem on your end. Steam doesn't have any noticeable impact on my system.

Steam doesn't effect my performance at all...

You do know that the dollar to pound switch has actually caused britons to get mostly better prices on steam right? It's the dollar to euro conversion (for countries that don't even use the euro - € does not equal European contient, Valve) that has people actually shafted on price.

Ok, let´s have a quick look at Impulse vs. Steam:

Loading time: Steam is faster than Impulse (I´ve deactivated this "fast start" thing, because I don´t like entries in the autorun which slows down the booting) -> for Steam

Games in the shop: I´ve got 445 games in the Steam shop (don´t know if this is the right number) and 31 pages on impulse (assuming every page fits 5 games = 155 games) -> for Steam

The loading time in the shop is faster in Steam -> for Steam

After browsing a little around in Impulse and in Steam, Impulse needs 38MB Ram and Steam 28MB -> for Steam

The price thing is now for the european users bad on steam, because they are now unable to pay in dollars -> for Impulse

So 4:1 for Steam. I´m using both, Steam for CounterStrike and Impulse for Demigod, so not really a fanboy here.

Let's see:

Impulse loads a lot faster than Steam.

Impulse is a lot less obnoxious to use than Steam.

It's a lot snappier and slicker than Steam.

Why doesn't Valve sell their games on Impulse? Same reason Stardock doesn't sell their games on Steam.

Steam has a fantastic overlay.  Impulse needs to rip it off. *shrugs*

I never cared about overlays until steam made such a good one.

I don't see why it wouldn't work on Steam. Games for Windows Live games are available on Steam.

so here's the thing:

steam and impulse are not mutually exclusive on a computer or on a user basis. you can use both with no negative consequences. it is free to download the client software and free to create and maintain an account on Impulse. if a player knows about Demigod and wants to buy it there is almost no obstacle for them buying it through Impulse. 

adding the game to Steam would have no benefit besides a marketting benefit. that marketting might be worth quite alot actually, but negating the value of getting the Impulse platform on more computers might make that marketting benefit not so good after all.