Apparently the Stardock Customer Report 2009 struck a nerve with Direct2Drive’s Sutton Trout who claimed that the report’s findings that Impulse’s market share, at 10% puts it at #2 in market share for digital distribution platforms was “misinformation at best”.
As evidence of Direct2Drive’s superior market share, Mr. Trout points to an NPD report from earlier this year that lists Direct2Drive as one of the leading digital retailers. A report, I might mention, that does not include Impulse, Gamers Gate, Metaboli or other competitors.
This would be akin to Renault accusing Ford of spreading misinformation for saying that it sells more cars than Renault and pointing to an article that lists top car makers in France as proof of Renault’s superiority.
The data on digital platforms (as defined in the report as a digital retailer that allows users to purchase and download third party software that is also available through B&M retailers as well) came from surveying the publishers.
While it is true that if you took out Stardock’s own titles from the mix, Impulse would indeed fall to #3 or even as far as #5 because after Steam, the others are really pretty far behind presently). Then again, if one took Valve’s titles off of Steam, Steam’s total market share would drop drastically as well.
No one ever promised life was fair.
But what I think can be promised is that vendors publicly complaining about the right to claim they’re #2 in getting the scraps Steam leaves behind look silly.
The best thing these services can do is focus on making themselves better. Because they will need to be better if they want to effectively compete with Steam.
