Allright, here we go:

Two Worlds sale (75% off) on March 6th, 2008 using web.archive.org: http://web.archive.org/web/20080316173454/www.steampowered.com/v/index.php?area=news&id=1472&cc=US

Prey sale (75% off) on March 28th, 2008 using web.archive.org: http://web.archive.org/web/20080330011703/www.steampowered.com/v/index.php

Impulse has been released on June 17th, 2008, more than three months after the Two Worlds sale on Steam. Source: http://www.impulsedriven.com/news/1059/Stardock_Launches_Impulse_The_PCs_NextGeneration_Distribution_Platform

The first "Weekend Impulse Buy" sale on Impulse was on December 11th, 2008 - eight months after the Two Worlds sale on Steam and more than seven months after the Prey sale on Steam which already was called "Weekend Deal". One of the discounted games was, as you stated, Space Rangers 2. I don't have to use web.archive.org because i think you will trust your own website and timestamps: http://www.impulsedriven.com/news/1166/Weekend_Impulse_Buys

In summary:

The first 75% off sale on Steam was in March 2008.

The first 75% off sale on Steam called "Weekend Deal" also was in March 2008.

The first 75% off sale on Impulse was in December 2008.

Before that Steam did 39 sales. Yet you are still insisting Impulse was first and Steam only did it because of Impulse?

People keep bringing this up, but the fact is that you never need Impulse to play the game right out of the box. You can't say that about Steam. If you can't see the difference there than this discussion is pointless.

Stardock central=very old impulse.

Look up that date.

I wonder where I fit. I like the Steam service itself; I bought the Orange Box at retail and played Team Fortress 2 quite a bit, and found the matchmaking, updating, and achievements systems to be excellent. The community features are probably very nice as well, but I don't know because I don't have any friends there.

However, Steam brings with it a bunch of DRM baggage that I simply find unacceptable. I can understand the client needing to load and authenticate games for updates and online multiplayer, or loading at start for a multiplayer-only game like TF2, because the client is providing the backend for those things and I usually have to be online for them anyway. What bothers me is having to load the client and authenticate for singleplayer. It makes the game take longer to start up, and prevents me from playing offline. (I have a pretty good connection, but while it's never gone out during a thunderstorm, it has been taken down by high winds and occasional ISP incompetence. Also, what if I want to play on a laptop away from home?)

There's also the issue of Valve being able to confiscate my purchased games any time they wish. What if the authentication check goes wonky and won't let me play? What if someone hacks into my account and steals it or gets it banned? What if someone at Valve has a bad day and accidentally/deliberately breaks something or abuses the banhammer? What if a third-party licensing issue forces Valve to disable access to certain games?

This isn't just an academic issue or the paranoid ravings of a lunatic; Amazon did something very similar last year to Kindle owners when there was a dispute between publishers.

Google lists many accounts of people having their Steam accounts stolen, and while I don't think I would fall for the kind of scam involved, I'm not so naive as to say I'll never fall for any scam.

Guild Wars also recently had a lot of issues with hackers stealing accounts, with methods ranging from fansite data breaches to brute-force password hacks necessitating the addition of more security features. Losing one game account is bad enough; imagine having it happen to a Steam account with hundreds of dollars worth of games tied to it. Is Steam's account security better than Guild Wars' was? I have no way of knowing. What I do know is that if my Impulse account ever gets hacked, I can still access my installed games while I work with support to get it resolved.

Valve has also used Steam to remove unlocks and achievements from misbehaving players, but while most such acts are well deserved, the TF2 Hatpocalypse showed that they're perfectly willing to punish players ex post facto. If you can get items taken away for doing something not explicitly forbidden and which they've never said was wrong, then it's not hard to imagine losing your entire account for some accidental infraction. I don't have to worry about this as much with Impulse, because Stardock can't take away games I've already downloaded and installed. I don't need their permission to play.

The bottom line is that, in my opinion, Steam is not a safe place to buy games. I simply can't justify spending $50-$60 on a product that can be taken away from me on a publisher's whim.

As for group 3, I know the dangers of a closed software ecosystem and don't like title exclusivity, but I see the PC as an inherently open platform. Steam may have or gain market dominance, but developers always have the option of making their own services and selling games online the old-fashioned way: from their websites. The fact that Impulse and so many other digital distribution services exist is proof of this. Now, if Steam suddenly starts requiring exclusivity for all titles, that could be a problem due to their large number of users and the fact that small developers of multiplayer-centric games don't have many options if they can't afford to host their own matchmaking service. In that case, I'd expect some rapid consolidation as the other services try to combine their userbases. As for the multiplayer backend, I think that's where this Reactor thing comes in. It's starting to seem really important that Stardock gets it out there as soon as possible, and I'm sure Frogboy's working hard to do just that.

So...

Group 4: Doesn't want to pay full price for an unspecified-term rental?

Actually, please explain the differences.  How is requiring a user to install third party software in order to get a patch "right out of the box" - sometimes just to play on their machine - any different? 

The difference is that if I want to play my game when I buy it from Walmart - if it has Impulse then I can install it like a regular game and play it right there. If it has Steam I can't. Plain and simple. That's the difference, that's what I don't like.

If I want updates and other extras, I have no problem going somewhere/using something to get them. However, if I buy a game and just want to install and play, I shouldn't have to install anything except the game.

I also shouldn't have to download a patch to play my game. Games should be complete and working out of the box.

Maybe true for single player, but if you want the latest patches and multi player you will need Impulse installed.  

You are awesome at the skill of deflection. Please stop ignoring/changing the argument. The fact is there is a difference between Steam and Impulse and the difference is I need Steam to play my game NO MATTER WHAT. Impulse is not needed to play my game at all. Update; yes. Play; no.

Heh, interesting that some people cannot make a difference between Steam and Impulse regarding this. Weird stuff.

Not to mention, that just like Ubisoft's DRM, Steam means nothing with regard to copy protection. The pirates are cracking all Steam only games very easily. It's good to be a paying customer!

I fall into category 3.  Competition = good, monopoly = bad (for the people buying that is).  I don't mind Steam, I have all the half-life games, audiosurf, and left 4 dead on it, as well as some other cheap pick-ups, and it running in the background doesn't affect me much, and I've known how to set it to offline mode since I started using it (when all I had at my house was dial-up).  Also, I'm not that big of a Civ fan, I got Civ 4 complete on Impulse and played it a bit, but I wasn't very good at it.  So, I probably wouldn't even get Civ 5 until it was on sale somewhere.  But now I won't be getting it at all most likely.

It's not that I'm really all that worried about Steam getting a monopoly, since hopefully Impulse Reactor, with it's distributor independent attitude, will win some publishers over at least.  I just like playing games, and I like competition because that means lower prices and better deals for me.  I'm not claiming anyone to be immoral or evil or wrong (although I definitely don't want Brad harvesting my organs...) and I'm not going to claim to hold the high ground and say "This is what's best for the PEOPLE!"  All I'm saying is that I like games and I like 'em for as cheap as possible.

You just don't get it, do you?

I have no problem with needing Steam to get patches for a game.  Same as Impulse.

I have no problem with needing Steam to play multiplayer.  Same as Impulse.

I DO have a problem with the requirement that Steam has to be running *all the time* just to play the game.  Let alone a single player game.  Even in "offline mode" Steam *still* has to be running.

THAT is what most people have a problem with and I refuse to buy any game that requires Steam in this way, including Civ 5.

Again if Civ 5 came with Steam for multiplayer and thus I and the vast majority of Civ players (which have no interest in multiplayer) didn't need to install it could simply ignore it then I'd have no problem with it.  And if Steam would only have to be run to update the game and then never run again until the next patch, I'd have no problem with it.

But as it stands Steam runs like a virus, running all the time and you can't stop it if you want to simply play your game.

Impulse?  I've run it all of 3 times *all year* simply to get patches.  That's it.

If you still can't understand this very simple issue...

From Brad's groups, i belong to 1 but i still use Steam anyway (dislike Impulse too but i use it also). Crysis/Warhead just happened to be so cheap there i didn't see reason to buy them from elsewhere. So i ended up using Steam despite saying sometimes that i won't ever use it. Principles are easy to break.

As far as i'm concerned, UPDATES ARE A REQUIRED THING. I never play a game without updating it first, or looking for a fan-made patch and using one if possible (though if such has large amount of changes, not just fixes, then i usually try to original one patched to latest official version). Why would you play a game if you can make it better first (patches that break the game are of course no-no). Besides, if i play multiplayer, say in Elemental (over the internet, through the central servers/Matchmaking, however the system works), then i have to get the updates, so in the essence, i'm required to use Impulse to play it. Now i did buy Elemental from Impulse on the first place so this multiplayer part doesn't really matter anymore. (Note that i have no idea how the system works so maybe i'm wrong.)

Since i already have Steam, and i like Civ series, and the direction Civ5 is going... I don't like the idea of PC becoming a closed market really but is that big enough a reason for me not to buy a game i'm probably going to like and get some entertaiment and fun in a world where those are rare enough? Only thing as a consumer i could do is NOT to buy the game but what good would that do? Even 50 or 100 consumers' decision not to buy wouldn't do a thing. I mean, there are probably thousands, even millions of people who don't give a thought about this. 100 is not enough. Maybe some do think about this, like those who read this thread but quite many probably decide to buy it anyway: "We are not enough, so i might as well buy it and have some fun rather than miss it with fleeting hope this would do some good".

(Does this look coherrent enough? Am i talking without a point? Did i miss the point of earlier posts?)

According to the Frogscale I am a 1 and 3.

I might make my own Steam thread when CIV V comes out. I have no experiences with Steam, but I dont like the fact that some games require the steam client installed.

I would document every step from installation, paying, playing, updating and so on. We will see. I will first read reviews of CIV V carfully as I will not taint my PC with both Steam and a mediocre game.

(Group 1 people only, I understand Frogboy's standpoint)

So, if the game simply required 6-21mb more memory usage to run and required you to register online one time merely to access the game to prevent piracy you wouldn't get it whatsoever?  The only reason you have an issue is it outsources to a 3rd party program which does the job much better?

It's a bit different. When I exit Civ, does Steam close automatically too, or do I have to close it manually? Twice as long to close the game. Also, there are quite a few people who buy a game and then hack it/get a no-CD patch to circumvent the DRM annoyance. The idea is quite similar here. The Impulse activation check is much nicer.