Gamestop buys Impulse from Stardock!

The big news over the weekend is that retail giant Gamestop has purchased digital retail venue Impulse from Stardock for an undisclosed sum. Brad Wardell, CEO of Stardock has released a statement, but this FAQ sums in up pretty well. I think this is an absolutely fantastic move for consumers, for Brad's company, and for Gamestop. Take the long journey through the wall of text with me if you please!

Quick side note: I'm not sure if this post is interesting or not so please let me know what you think in the comments if you could! Thanks!

Let's face it; digital distribution is the future of PC games. You don't need a fancy advanced economics degree to see that the retail video game market will start rapidly declining in the near future. It will never go away as long as there are grandma's with christmas and birthday gifts to purchase, but us "savy" consumers have already pretty much completely switched to digital for our PC purchases and many have even started with digital for their consoles.

Console digital distribution is another whole can of worms, but let's focus on why Stardock selling and Gamestop buying is a good thing.

One of the many amazing things our 26th president Teddy Roosevelt was very well known for was introducing the very first anti-trust laws into American culture. It is a pretty widely held opinion that monopolies are good for no one (except those who hold them) and that having no competition in a marketplace is scary for a few reasons. First there is no reason to be better or advance. If you have no fear of losing your grip on the market why try and waste money on new features or advancing your market? You are getting the income anyways because hey! Where else they gonna go? It is also bad because the monopoly can dictate price. If you want the product you will pay because hey? Where else ya gonna go? These kind of tactics certainly explain why diamonds are so expensive.

Valve are currently dominating the marketplace with Steam and for now it is a great thing. Steam has manageable DRM and low costs for developers, and it brings us consumers so much convieniance it is crazy to think we ever purchased games another way. Sure it certainly isn't perfect, but it is really damn close. It will always be this way as long as Valve has the threat of a usurper; ie another distributor like Impulse. So far Valve does nothing but right by it's customers and fear of losing them will keep them in line.

Stardock kind of started Impulse by accident. The have been using their own methods for digital distribution for years and it made sense from a business standpoint to make some extra cash over it. The important part of this sale though is that Stardock as a company decided it wanted to define it's identity as a developer of software and games, and not a retailer. When a company has one sector that represents the bulk of it's income then of course that department is going to get the most focus. That is why we never saw Starcraft Ghost from Blizzard (RIP Nova).

Stardock want's to focus on what they are really passionate about; making REALLY nerdy PC exclusive strategy games that are so complex and with such a hgh bar of entry that no one but the best of the best PC master race will dare to venture in (ie me). Their last game Elemental: War of Magic was kid of a disaster to say the least. I did purchase and play it about 5 months after release and a few patches and while functional, it wasn't that fun. It certainly had a lot of potentail, but the bulk of the mechanics and game play elements were clearly rushed and not well planned out or executed. It clearly wasn't the company's main focus and it showed. I have a feeling that Wardell and crew were not happy about that and didn't like the way they were going, so they changed things. They wanted to release "Starcraft Ghost" and not focus on "WoW" (yeah that analogy is a bit of a stretch but I think it works).

Gamestop is a retialer. They know retail. They also know that physical stores are on the decline (see above). They will be much more passionate about really expanding impulse and becoming viable competition for Steam because they need to to survive. They have no choice but to take a piece of the digital marketplace because I am assuming that they enjoy making money and feeding their families.

I think we will see a lot of changes to Impulse in the coming year. First, and certainly least I definitely a level of DRM implemented that doesn't exist with Impulse right now. From a publishers standpoint this may be a sticking point for more AAA titles being put up for sale on Impulse (not that there aren't plenty). What else will we see? I certainly have no idea but we do know that Gamestop is coming for Valve and for all of us PC peeps that is certainly a good thing.

Valve will continue to make Steam the best, and I think they will work harder because now they have a real retailer who will be clawing at their throats. Gamestop know's that their future really depends on this purchase and I really believe they will be hungrier for our PC dollars. I certainly don't plan as of now to switch to impulse, but I am excited that they will certainly keep Valve on their toes.