Summer of Stardock
Friday, September 23, 2011 by Island Dog | Discussion: Personal Computing
Summer is almost over and what a summer it was!
The summer started with Stardock selling its Impulse digital distribution platform to GameStop. This was the first time in Stardock’s history that it has ever sold one of its business units.
The reason Stardock sold Impulse was because Impulse’s success was starting to come at the expense of the other two parts of Stardock – the software and games groups which had seen resources being taken from them to put onto Impulse to handle its amazing growth. If Stardock’s goal was to become predominantly a digital retailer, that would have been fine, but it wasn’t. Stardock’s primary objective is to make cool stuff, not sell other people’s cool stuff.
In the near-term, our software and games will continue to be purchased, downloaded and updated exclusively through Impulse. But we expect to have a new, albeit much simpler, digital distribution system for Stardock’s own software and games up and running before the end of the year that you’ll be able to start purchasing, downloading, and updating through. We must warn you, however. It won’t be anywhere near as expansive as Impulse or even Stardock Central. It’ll just be there for making it quick to download and update your stuff. Very un-intrusive.
Reply #2 Friday, September 23, 2011 9:47 AM
But we expect to have a new, albeit much simpler, digital distribution system for Stardock’s own software and games up and running before the end of the year that you’ll be able to start purchasing, downloading, and updating through. We must warn you, however. It won’t be anywhere near as expansive as Impulse or even Stardock Central. It’ll just be there for making it quick to download and update your stuff. Very un-intrusive.
And am very happy that I can redeem my copy of E:FE! Thank You!
Reply #3 Friday, September 23, 2011 9:57 AM
As long as auto-update can be turned off, I'm happy with whatever SD comes up with. All I need is something that allows me to check manually and decide what I want to update and when. (Like Macrovision, filehippo Update Checker, or HP update, for example,)
Reply #4 Friday, September 23, 2011 11:06 AM
This is fine, in fact it is all that is needed.
Reply #6 Friday, September 23, 2011 1:06 PM
Probably the most important question of the decade.
Reply #7 Friday, September 23, 2011 1:53 PM
From what I have seen it looks like WB would take care of it. To reiterate what was said, this is a very minimal application.
Reply #8 Friday, September 23, 2011 2:17 PM
WB? World builder? No, thats Civ4. What is WB?
I thought I was in a minority who favored minimalization. But from various threads here and elsewhere I am beginning to think that minimal is the new black. The in thing. But my exposure to the masses is limited. I like Google Chromes minimal UI. I like GOG.com's small footprint downloader and minimalized store interface. And other stuff. But now I wonder if minimal is not niche, but rather the future.
Reply #9 Friday, September 23, 2011 2:38 PM
I am sure WB means WindowBlinds, one of Stardock's software products.
Reply #11 Friday, September 23, 2011 6:02 PM
Neither one. It's what we are left with after Obama economics. 
Reply #12 Friday, September 23, 2011 7:57 PM
Question/Observation: If Impulse was such a time consumer and a big money maker why not just hire more people to run it. I'm fairly sure that while the profit margin wouldn't have been as high, a profit would still exist and some more people would have jobs.
Reply #13 Friday, September 23, 2011 9:03 PM
If one could wave a magic wand and "just hire" high quality employees then few businesses would ever be sold or acquired since those companies could simply have "just hired" the people they need.
A lot of Stardock's best developers were taking off of Object Desktop and the Elemental project to work on Impulse because we couldn't hire enough people fast enough to do what needed to be done (and Impulse doesn't exist in a vacuum, it has competitors who are going as fast as they can too to add features and capabilities to their services).
I feel confident in saying that our Object Desktop and Elemental: War of Magic customers noticed a drop in the quality and rate of software development. But that could just be my imagination... 
Reply #14 Friday, September 23, 2011 9:16 PM
Definitely not your imagination. 
Reply #15 Friday, September 30, 2011 7:26 PM
Dunno about quality, but quantity definitely tanked. And there were entire product lines dumped - I actually liked ThinkDesk!
On the flip side though, Gamestop (yuck!). After their first Terms of Service/Privacy Policy changes (very, very anti-consumer) I'm anxiously awaiting Stardock games going Impulse-free. Would you believe Impulse itself now violates Stardock's Gamer's Bill of Rights?
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Reply #1 Friday, September 23, 2011 9:43 AM
Unintrusive seems to be the way to go... something like the tray app for impulse that would pop up a notification for updates/store notifications.
It would be nice if it were combined with other systray icons for SD apps so everything could be done through the systray or through say, Tiles' show systray option if one chooses to hide the taskbar.
Might go well with W8.