I used to be pro Impulse in the hayday, bacl when it was StarDock central. Was really sad when they sold it. But in retrospect I think that was a good move.  Everyone was moving on to Steam anyway.

I can still install my games but can't buy any new one. I always prefered Impulse over Steam...i don't like all this thing about renting games....

They still sell games but now it's limited to the US (since this week). Steam is not bad but much more restrictive. Gamersgate lets you keep the install file for most games so you install without being online. Steam had a lot of problems to keep up connections etc lately, so there's a good chance you can't play a game when you want to which is not the case with Impulse where you can play always play offline. In Steam, when you launch it and notice there's connections problems, you can't swith to off-line...then it's too late.

My preferred online service is GOG but they don't have as many new games which is a shame because they are the best.

I understand why SD sold Impulse. It was overhead they did not need at the time, and it was a smart sell, because it allowed them to recover from the disaster of Elemental.

Once Gamestop took over i switched to Steam. The way things were going everything was going through steam anyway. The haters can hate, and there are some things about Steam that still annoy me, but it has improved a lot since those days. At least i can now play steam games offline without going through BS if i want to. Plus steam is not the Boogeyman the haters make it out to be. Steam hasn't done me any wrong yet, and as long as it stays that way i'm fine with it.

I refuse to use Origin. EA... enough said.

What i liked about Impulse while it was under SD's control was that it was an easy, DRM, and BS free way to get games. Plus it had a very low system footprint. It had a lot of potential, but GS did nothing with it. Gamestop's focus is on console gaming anyway. So their purchase of impulse made absolutely no sense at all. I am surprised it lasted as long as it did.

You can switch to offline in Steam even if you don't have a connection.  You don't need to be online to switch to offline mode.  I've had to do this several times due to my ISP.  It will generally try and go online, but after that, you can just switch to offline and go (unless there are games where the developers have specifically set it up to require an internet connection, but thats a developer thing, not a steam thing).

Hope you and the other Impulse guys/gals are all doing OK, Zoomba.

Good to know!

Initially, i was not that negative about Gamestop and the people complaining about it but i was wrong. Brad should have found another buyer.

It's a shame because i really liked it. Maybe Stardock should give us steam/gamersgate etc keys to the Stardock games we bought on Impulse.

I joined TotalGamingNetwork/StardockCentral to buy GalCivII and subsequently other games. Then Stardock sold Impulse to Gamestop and it went down hill all the way.

Worst of all, as of today, I can't login to my account using the GameStop App, the so call redemption link at http://impulsestore.gamestop.com/redemption/Redeem.aspx gave a connection timeout and I have zero access to all my games. Multiple emails to Gamestop did not help and thus I am stuck.

Any other forumers having difficulty with the Gamestop app?

I tried to reinstall Elemental (from disc) and update it with the Gamestop app.  My login fails, and I get "Try again in a few hours".  Uh... ok.

I tried to download and install the game from Stardock but then the game won't launch for some reason.  Guess my nostalgia trip won't happen.  I'll just stick with FE:LH on Steam.

the impression I got was that Gamestop vastly offered more for Impulse than any other buyer- Brad was going to sell period at that point, and he didn't know how bad Gamestop was.

GFireflyE, I think you are going to have to get to downloading software including games from digital distributers be that steam or another physical media is on the way out for software delivery. Though personally I don't care if you use steam or not obviously.

Just an update to my problem pertaining to accessing the game library at GameStop.

Seems that GameStop does not allow access from Malaysia, but I was able to access using Firefox + Hola using US proxy .

After setting up the Hola US VPN, I can login using the GameStop client.

So I guess is confirmed that GameStop has zero intention/consideration for international customers.

My lesson : DRM model is bad. Better stick with GOG.

I did try to use Impulse under GameStop control, but I came to not like it. I gave GameStop a chance and they disappointed me. I especially didn't like how their pre-orders didn't show all the information I felt I needed to know before making a purchase, namely the types of DRM used. I quickly stopped pre-ordering games I thought looked interesting because of that. It seemed to become all about the pre-order bonus goodies and the surprise DRM... then came the Steam keys. They stopped trying to sell and distribute the games themselves, so I stopped bothering with them after that.

Under Stardock control, I was confident that the all the games were either all DRM free, or had DRM carefully crafted to minimize the inconvenience to the user (such as GOO). I did try to support the Stardock middle ground, because it looked good enough and that it would last. Now it seems it that Impulse is going the way of the dinosaur. A shame, as I did buy many games during Impulse buys sales, but I need Impulse to download and install all those games.

Another reason to support GOG.com I suppose. I know the games and files I download through them will survive so long as my hard drives do.