Impulse is coming!

Monday, February 4, 2008 by Draginol | Discussion: Personal Computing

Since 1999, Stardock has been a pioneer in digital distribution.  The original Galactic Civilizations was the first PC game to be released at retail and digitally at the same time.  Its flag-ship product, Object Desktop, made the transition from being a retail product to being digitally distributed with a subscription in 1999.

For the past few years, Stardock has distributed its content with Stardock Central:

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Stardock Central

And while Stardock Central was very cutting edge when it was launched back in 2003, it's getting a bit long in the tooth.  For the past year, Stardock has been working on a  new platform that will finally combine Stardock's various technological assets into a single place. This new platform is called Impulse.

 

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Impulse

Impulse isn't just a cosmetic make-over of Stardock Central. It greatly expands the capabilities of Stardock's digital distribution offerings. 

Here are 5 key differentiators of Impulse:

  1. Users do not have to load Impulse to use the software or games.
  2. Impulse will support third-parties submitting their software or game, name their price, and then after review having it available -- all done nearly automatically. Stardock already has this system in place on WinCustomize.com with "Master" themes.
  3. Impulse will integrate its next-generation social networking features in the Community tab that will let users have friends, chat about games, have blogs, and more.
  4. Impulse includes built in support for backing up your purchase to CD/DVD.
  5. Impulse allows users who buy software or games at retail to still manage their updates and re-download the entire product on Impulse (for products that support this feature).

 

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Impulse provides a cleaner UI than Stardock Central.

 

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Managing your software on Impulse is a snap. If you bought a game or software program at retail or even from another digital distributor, you may be able to still manage updates and such on Impulse.

Impulse is still in internal beta at Stardock but it expects to release it in mid February with additional features for it being added through the course of the year.

First Previous Page 1 of 3 Next Last
HG_Eliminator
Reply #1 Monday, February 4, 2008 2:36 PM
The interface looks great. but a couple of questions..

1) Will there be a skin browser?
2) Will there be integrated Chat (IRC)?
3) Will SDC still work in the long term?
Frogboy
Reply #2 Monday, February 4, 2008 2:52 PM

1) No. Not integrated anyway. As you may have noticed, it's difficult to maintain both the download client and an integrated skin browser.

2) Yes.

3) For quite awhile yes.  SDC won't be disappearing any time soon.

darkhelmet_OG
Reply #3 Monday, February 4, 2008 2:54 PM
This looks great! I'm really interested in the idea of submitting software, is your goal to be an alternative to sites like Plimus and RegNow, or is it still more of a distributor/portal type of deal? I can see how its probably somewhere in between, which would really be a great idea!
HG_Eliminator
Reply #4 Monday, February 4, 2008 3:03 PM
Cool. Thanks for the quick Reply Frogboy

I drooling over that sweet Interface..
PoSmedley
Reply #5 Monday, February 4, 2008 3:14 PM
This looks like it's gonna be awesome. I can't wait.
Lantec
Reply #6 Monday, February 4, 2008 4:11 PM
Looks slick. Don't see the monkey-lizard anywhere tho.....

Is it skinnable?
patrick24
Reply #7 Monday, February 4, 2008 4:12 PM
Cool! Reminds me of Steam, but way better looking.
zakai1369
Reply #8 Monday, February 4, 2008 4:34 PM
looks good
ZubaZ
Reply #9 Monday, February 4, 2008 4:46 PM
Don't see the monkey-lizard anywhere tho
Time to play "find the winky"
HG_Eliminator
Reply #10 Monday, February 4, 2008 4:53 PM
Time to play "find the winky"


Last time I tried to play that game the mrs smacked me..

killajosh
Reply #11 Monday, February 4, 2008 4:58 PM
Time to play "find the winky"


Zu, what you do in your spare time is up to you.......
DigitalCHET
Reply #12 Monday, February 4, 2008 5:29 PM
If you have to play find the winky on a regular basis perhaps you should turn off your spam email shields and look for one of those "p3n1s enlargment" emails.
Phoon
Reply #13 Monday, February 4, 2008 5:55 PM
looks good

Time to play "find the winky"



Yes, It looks good, but not good enough to prompt one to ... "search for the winky"!  

SteveGosselin
Reply #14 Monday, February 4, 2008 6:00 PM
Impulse includes built in support for backing up your purchase to CD/DVD.

Excellent!
I.R. Brainiac
Reply #15 Monday, February 4, 2008 6:28 PM
Sounds good,looks good.  
Pugboy
Reply #16 Monday, February 4, 2008 6:33 PM
Looks pretty... I can't wait!
JeremyG
Reply #17 Monday, February 4, 2008 7:16 PM
Would be nice if the Configuration applets for each application were integrated into Impulse as well.   I hate having to open a bunch of different seperate windows to tweak stuff.
Quentin94
Reply #18 Monday, February 4, 2008 8:05 PM
looks Sweet 
I can't wait to use it   
WebGizmos
Reply #19 Monday, February 4, 2008 10:14 PM
So...is this whats going to replace SDC? Looks awesome!
Leauki
Reply #20 Tuesday, February 5, 2008 10:11 AM
Any chance Stardock are ever going to develop for the Mac?

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