I use Steam.  I like Steam.  Frankly the latest version of impule might be better but, at least for me, Steam was in the right place at the right time.  Now all my friends are there and I prefer to play my games on Steam.  I also love the games that Stardock makes. 

Ultimately I want to log into one place to find all my friends.  I would rather see Stardock and Valve play nice.  I don't dislike Impulse in any way...but its really hard to get my friends to migrate once all their games are on Steam.  Steam has critical mass.  If Stardock REALLY wanted Impulse to be THE digital distribution platform I think they missed the boat.  Valve made the deals.  I personally prefer a Stardock that focuses on great games but ultimately it may be the digital distribution that pays Stardock's bills and I understand why they want their share of it.  I understand the corncerns about DRM but have never encountered any DRM related issues. 

I would prefer to give Stardock my money because I prefer their principles but in reality I buy most games on Steam because that is where my friends are.  I'm not sure how Stardock solves this.  I'm certainly gonna buy Civ V and I will probably buy it on Steam because, again, that's where my other games are and where my friends are.  Unless Stardock gets similar deals for major games that forces all my friends onto Impulse as well I probably will continue to buy on Steam. 

...but I would like a reason to buy more games from Impusle...

So you're saying that Steam is the better product; has lots more people using it - and Impulse is only for old men with beards?

EDIT:  For the record, it doesn't matter if a game comes on Steam or Impulse:  I use both. 

Having said that:  Impulse's UI for purchasing games is frankly crap - It's the reason 99% of the games I buy are on steam.  I hate trying to find a game via the catalog.  More people use steam because their UI is better (even tho I had issues with their lastest UI release).

Oh, and prepurchased Civ V a long time ago - soon as it popped on Steam.  Don't care about DRM or anything else - I want the game and have never had a problem with DRM.

Because obviously with steamworks integrated in, you can use civ5 without steam...

Other than Stardock games and software, it's unlikely that you will see many "Impulse exclusive" games or software, simply due to Frogboy's views on monopolies. Sure, games that use Reactor are required to sell on Impulse in addition to whatever other vendor the publisher chooses, but that doesn't mean that Impulse is required. I could go out and buy Elemental from Walmart, uninstall Impulse from my computer, and never use my Impulse account to log in to multiplayer, and, assuming I::R operates as advertised, never need to install Impulse to update Elemental. Can you say the same of a steamworks game?

When someone says "buy on steam" they don't mean add it to their steam games list. They mean buy it from steam store which is definately NOT the only place to buy civ5.

Secondly the only real difference in major functuality between steam and impulse (steam is better than Impulse in most ways btw) is that steam has its store tied to its service. That means the store needs to be running as well as steamworks to play the games.

Thats a really good business decision and Brad would have made it too if he wasn't competeing (and therefore needs to offer something steam dosn't).

First of all, I also answered that in my last post.

Second of all, how is it apples & oranges? You have to sell the game somehow. Most sales are still at retail. Saying Steam's cut is bad when it's smaller then the retail cut is flatly absurd. Why would it be bad if Firaxis makes MORE money off Steam copies then off retail copies? More money to the developer is what we're all after, isn't it?

It's also almost certainly true that they make more by selling on Steam then by setting up their own store. If setting up your own store was easy and cheap, everybody would be doing it. But doing it well is not cheap, and keeping servers and bandwidth for years because you sold someone a game once is an endless drain on the bank account. Steam takes care of all that for a known up front cost. It's not a bad deal.

No, you're bringing up comparisons and then changing them when you don't like my reply.

Picking your apples&oranges instead of an apples&apples is the fallacious Argument By Selective Reading -- cherry picking the worst case example to make your chosen point, ignoring valid comparisons.

Me, not having your remarkable skill, when told that I'm misconstruing, I take them at their word and ask for clarification, then accept said clarification.

Next time I have a question I'll be sure to ask you what it is. 

Then you'll have both the question and answer and I won't have to post at all

A while ago there was a thread linking to an article that detailed Kotick's philosophy in regards to activision-blizzard and games.  I ran across some reports from DICE1009 where Newell gave the keynote address which gives some idea of what his philosophy is.  Sources are Geek.com, MTV Multiplayer, and G4TV.com.

"Valve has hired an experimental psychologist to come up with new ways to excite users with pricing models and sales. He suggested one in 25 users that buy Left 4 Dead get another Valve game for free."

"Newell added that Valve has hired an experimental psychologist to explore more unconventional sales tactics. He joked that the move was “turning us to the dark side of B.F. Skinner...”

"Valve aims to touch its customers in some way every three weeks, not every three years when a new game is shipped."

"As far as privacy goes, Gabe believes that people are willing to give up system and personal information if they feel it's being used to get a better service. Steam's hardware survey is an example of this. Rather than spying on users for nefarious reasons, Gabe believes things like its hardware survey helps with better sales of products and service. As long as companies are transparent, he feels that customers will accept this."

"By using the service’s strengths such as extensive data-mining capabilities, the company can be given a competitive advantage. Newell warned, however, that intrusive measures must be transparent and can be proven to give the customer better service or better games."

"With Team Fortress 2, Valve shipped the game as a service and not a product."

"Right now, those two social networks [Facebook and MySpace] are sources of interesting features, but not quite right for a partnership currently."

"Perhaps Newell’s grandest vision of them all was the evolution of game companies into more general “entertainment companies.” He reckoned that most consumers were similar to Harry Potter fans, who are fans of the entire franchise and not just the books or just the movies. To that end, Newell intends to take Valve in the “entertainment” direction. The studio tested the waters with Team Fortress 2 animated shorts using the game’s characters. The house that made those shorts will be making TF2 comics in the near future, Newell announced."

"the winner of the next-generation console war won’t be whichever box has the best graphics, but rather which machine allows game companies “to have this relationship with your customers.”

"Video game companies acting as "entertainment companies": Newell said he is "obsessing" over gamers' expectations for "what kind of entertainment company they want us to be." They are fans of properties, not forms of entertainment, fans, to use his example, of Harry Potter, as opposed to just Potter books or just Potter movies. As a result, he said he is moving away from thinking of Valve as a video game company. One example is the introduction of "Team Fortress 2" video shorts made by Valve. The next will be that same team's "TF2" comics."

From all this it's clear that steam being required even for single-player offline Civ5 games isn't an 'accident', but it's the goal, so steam/steamworks was made to be taken as a whole and not to be divided up to allow choice of what to include.  Steam needs to be installed and running in the background as often as possible for valve's desired goals as described above -- extensive data-mining, offering us advertising as often as possible, 'touching' us at least every 3 weeks, becoming an 'entertainment company' not merely a video game company, possibly a partnership someday with the likes of Facebook and MySpace, etc.

Newell's goals seem similar to Kotick's, which makes sense from their perspective.

Same here. I've been discouraged by changes at both Valve and Blizzard lately. I am beginning to understand why the designer of Portal left and why a large chunk of Blizzard's talent departed around 2004 to form ArenaNet (Guild Wars 2 is looking awesome, by the way).

You sound as if you think any business man like Gabe should be working for the betterment of mankind rather than their shareholders, the companys bottom line or thier own pocket.

Why would he be doing anything other than kotick? (trying to take over the world improve thier profit margin).

How does my pointing out Newell's philosophy -- some of which I don't care for, some I do, and some I have no feelings on either way -- suggest to you that I think "..any business man like Gabe should be working for the betterment of mankind rather than their shareholders, the companys bottom line or thier own pocket."

Because all the things they do are good business decisions. If you don't like his business decisions you either think they are not going to make enough money or you have some kind of 'ethical' objection.

Thus, "you sound like you have an ethical objection to steams pratices of making as much money as possible by growing thier market share agressively by trying to force thier platform via atractive well proven systems that developers have little other choice but to accept." which is the plain version of what I said.

Newell has his priorities -- maximize his profits, etc.

I have my priorities -- good games ('good' being defined by me).

Commenting on Newell's philosophy from my point of view does not mean he's wrong in his priorities, or that I think he should be "...working for the betterment of mankind rather than their shareholders...".

This ain't rocket science, it's basic rhetoric and logic.

Hyperbole, False Choice, and Non Sequitur in 2 posts -- you're on a roll!

I don't see how what I said isn't true.

You want X, steams action are is proivding Y (in your eyes, yours and his priorities do not match).

Thus your objection to steam seems to be that they arn't putting 'better games' ahead of profits.

Remember, you commented on the actions of Newell, you gave no real conclusion other than Newell is just like Kotick (a widely hated figure).

I commented on your comment that it seemed like you were saying that newell should NOT be doing what Kotick is doing and should be doing something else.

Regarding [1] ("...If you don't like his business decisions...") -- some I like (the 75% off one for example), some I don't have an opinion on, some I dislike.

Let's just focus on those I dislike (no need to specify them for this).

Regarding [2] ("...they are not going to make enough money...") -- I think just the opposite, that they'll provide money hats for Newell and his employees.

Regarding [3] ("...you have some kind of 'ethical' objection.") -- this is business, no ethics involved (well, except for things like the Ford Pinto's exploding gas tanks and the like, which clearly aren't applicable here).

So your 2 'choices' are false.

The correct answer is that I think some of his decisions make the game worse for me.

Yours was the fallacious False Choice because you offered only false choices, and purposely excluded any other options.

Hey, that's Strawman.

An entire post and you have yet to say which of his decisions make the game worse for you. How can anyone argue against you when all you state are vague things like "I think some of his decisions make the game worse for me."

You are intentionally vague, then lash out against anyone who tries to interpret your nebulous opinion. How about this: from now on, stop being so abstruse and list your arguments in bullet points so those of us lesser than you can make acceptable arguments.

And instead of dissecting other people's posts, try dissecting your own opinions and statements before you post, so that we may see all facets of your arguments.