Stardock's Impulse Nears Millionth User
Tuesday, March 17, 2009 by Island Dog | Discussion: Personal Computing
Stardock Corporation announced that its digital download platform, Impulse has grown to close to a
million users since its launch last summer. Impulse (www.impulsedriven.com) enables users to purchase and download PC software including games, utilities and applications. The nine-month-old Impulse platform now boasts games from THQ, 2KGames, Atari, Capcom, Dreamcatcher, Epic, Paradox as well as numerous new applications, utilities, anti-virus and more. To celebrate its success, Stardock will be giving its one millionth Impulse customer a brand new top-of-the-line gaming PC worth more than $4,000.
Impulse attributes much of its early success to customer-friendly experience as well as aggressive pricing such as its "Weekend Impulse Buys" in which selected titles are up to 70 percent off for that weekend. Another reason Stardock cites for Impulse's success has been its support of local currency conversion which has been popular with both users and publishers that use it.
"We're very pleased with how quickly Impulse is growing," said Brad Wardell, president & CEO of Stardock. "The digital distribution market is still in its infancy, ensuring that publishers and consumers both have choices this early on ensures that this market will continue to be dynamic and competitive."
Stardock will be at the Game Developer's Conference meeting with publishers as it prepares to formally unveil Impulse Reactor, a library that allows publishers to provide effective protection for their software, in-game chat, ‘friends’ lists and micro-expansion purchasing. Impulse Reactor does not require publishers to change any code in their software or include a third-party client with their title. This allows publishers to have a single executable to be sold at retail or digitally that is vendor neutral.
Wardell continued, “A big part of our upcoming focus with Impulse is to work with publishers to ensure that they don't lock themselves and their customers into a particular vendor. That means providing technical alternatives to publishers they can count on and the best possible user experience for our users."
Next month Stardock plans to release the third major update to Impulse since its release which will include features such as Impulse Anywhere (ability to download your title from a web page on one PC and then install on your home PC), and the full release of Impulse Reactor, which will provide in-game features from Impulse seamlessly and an updated Impulse client with a host of tweaks and changes.
Gas Powered Games' new real-time strategy game / RPG Demigod will showcase the new Impulse Reactor features on April 14th.
"By Impulse's first birthday, we expect Impulse to be the 2nd largest digital distributor of PC games and to have nearly all of the major PC game publishers on board," said Wardell.
To learn more about Impulse, visit www.impulsedriven.com.
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Reply #22 Wednesday, March 18, 2009 12:05 AM
Promotions like giving away a computer to the 1 millionth user is just utterly stupid though... There will be tons of idiots creating false accounts (less if there is purchase required to be eligible), and even if that doesn't happen, why is the one millionth customer more special than every other person who has signed up before him/her? This has always bugged me when these things happen... I can see how a real life store could promote itself this way, but they can't be expected to have a list of all previous customers like any webbased store can.
999'999 people who also helped build this massive userbase are all ineligible... No, that's just plain wrong... a $100 gift certificate for the millionth user and a random draw among the full million of users for the computer would be the right way to go (in theory, the draw COULD end up with #1000000 as a winner too, but atleast it would be fair to the rest of the users)...
Oh well, I congratulate, and am happy, for the lucky ba****d who wins the thing...
I concur. But..who cares?
Congrats, SD. I'm glad to see someone finally give Steam something to worry about. Plus, your stances on gaming, software and stuff is awesome. You guys rule. Keep up the great work.
Reply #23 Wednesday, March 18, 2009 1:43 AM
Congratulations Stardock 
, I am glad to see this homegrown company doing so well. I speak of your company and the user side of your business from time to time, and have recommended your products to many people. It's funny that not many people I have talked to... have ever heard of you, and most of them are quite computer literate and become enthralled with the idea of super customizing "their" PC. I am guessing that many people have come your way by word-of-mouth.
To put my 2 cents in on the cool computer prize... as a long time and current subscriber/customer... Does the 1 millionth customer have to be a NEW customer?, or can I log in to Impulse and purchase something to be eligible?
Reply #25 Wednesday, March 18, 2009 2:50 AM
/b/... and is there any worse place for something to have been?
And boy do I want that computer =/, shame I only have the one account with most of the games I can afford to want on impulse already bought
Reply #26 Wednesday, March 18, 2009 3:12 AM
Congratulations! I'm pleased to see Impulse doing so well, Steam needs the competition and, frankly, you're the superior platform from a non-intrusiveness standpoint. Expand that catalog as much as you can, if a game is available at the same price point on Impulse and Steam it's an easy decision in your favor IMO.
Reply #27 Wednesday, March 18, 2009 7:14 AM
Just one thing irks me about being a viable competition to Steam: Last I checked, the 2K Games titles on Impulse were restricted to North America, while the same titles on Steam were available for the entire world. If Impulse is to compete on equal grounds with Steam, you'll at the very least need equal distribution rights for your digital downloads.
The only thing that irks me more than seeing games I want with the worst Securom versions is "Available in North America/Canada only" or similar that effectively says "This pulisher doesn't want your money if you live in Europe".
What's the point in releasing titles for digital download with no DRM if 3/4 the world isn't allowed to purchase them?
One thing would be if it was only old games with old publishing contracts that had this restriction, but even some new games comes with this "no dirty european devils' money wanted". What is wrong with some companies? If some of them are starting to realise that draconian DRM might encourage piracy, what do they think "we won't sell you this" does?
Reply #28 Wednesday, March 18, 2009 7:15 AM
Slightly more on topic though; grats on almost 1 million customers! Hopefully you will get many more 
Reply #30 Wednesday, March 18, 2009 2:32 PM
Reply #33 Wednesday, March 18, 2009 2:57 PM
If the prize is for only NEW customers, it's a disrespectful BS promotion in my book. My previous post explains why, so I won't repeat it.
Reply #34 Wednesday, March 18, 2009 3:05 PM
I am feeling confused by the "answers" in posts 31 & 32.
HeLp? 
Reply #35 Wednesday, March 18, 2009 3:21 PM
The prize is for the millionth new customer who purchases with Impulse.
There is nothing disrespectful about it. 1 million users is an incredible milestone, and we are celebrating that with a prize to that millionth customer.
Reply #36 Wednesday, March 18, 2009 3:48 PM
I bet many people will just create new accounts, and "sell" their accounts to others, in the hopes that the poor suckers will eventually buy the one millionth account. 
Reply #37 Wednesday, March 18, 2009 4:10 PM
There is nothing disrespectful about it. 1 million users is an incredible milestone, and we are celebrating that with a prize to that millionth customer.
It IS an incredible milestone. But really, you wouldn't have a millionth customer without the 999'999 "old" customers. I think it's disrespectful, because it makes me feel as if I'm a less important as an existing customer than the new bloke registering and buying something.
As I mentioned before, a $100 gift certificate for customer one million, and then some kind of draw for the big prize would seem alot more right. Something like "Everyone who bought something within 48 hours counting back from the time of the millionth purchase has a shot at the grand prize".. It would give existing customers a chance to win the really nice price announced (and likely increase sales too as a bonus).
It's my opinion on the matter. Even if you hade done it the way I suggest here, I'd still have no chance to win since I can't afford buying anything at the moment. I would still feel better though. I always get disappointed by promotions like this, because someone wins a grand prize because tons of other people made something possible.
Reply #38 Wednesday, March 18, 2009 4:27 PM
Replies #31, #32 and #35 are contradicting each other. I'm going to assume that frogboy's is the word on it. Since it's his company. His answer is
I take that to mean that I can be 999,999 to buy something and then 1,000,000 to buy something and win. Is that right? I can't think of any way to dumb this question down any more. Maybe this: Are all the folks that have purchased things via Impulse already not eligible for this rig?
Reply #40 Wednesday, March 18, 2009 4:36 PM
Island dog isn't the boss though. There is much confusion between the 3-4 posts about this topic. I think it should have been contained to one post only...imo.
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Reply #21 Tuesday, March 17, 2009 11:33 PM
If the 1millionth user is from outside the USA, will he still get the 4000$ computer?