Elemental & Impulse » Forum Post by MrShaw

Quoting MrShaw,

However, I assume like Steam you register the game to a specific account, tying it forever to that account? Thereby preventing any resale if you dislike or get bored with the game. Does that also mean that if I buy a used copy from amazon, I'm getting screwed cause I can't use it with Impulse to update it since that one will be registered to someone else's account?

As I understand it, Stardock does allow the registration to be transfered, though I think the person it was registered to needs to send a request to Stardock support (you may what to check up on that though).

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Alstein

Join Date 07/2004

+55

They do allow transfer, I did it- but there was a bug with the registration on one game (entering in the registration manually, after getting it via automated email solves this)

I think that issue is fixed now, just not retroactively.

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Registrations can be transferred, but SD does not directly support the resale of games since they don't see any income from that sale. Anyone trying to buy a game "used" that's already registered to an Impulse account takes a risk that the registration will remain attached to the original account, preventing them from updating/playing MP unless they have access to that other account.

I would not take the answers above as encouragement that resale of games registered to an account is fine, unless SD comes out and says so. They transfer registrations between accounts that are yours, but there's no guarantee if you tell them you re-sold one of your 20 games that they'll just transfer that one registration (and it might raise a red flag if you're asking for 1 registration transfer out of the several games, if you don't mention that you re-sold it).

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Quoting Annatar11,

reply 28

Registrations can be transferred, but SD does not directly support the resale of games since they don't see any income from that sale.

Here's my take on reselling games. Let's say SD makes 1000 copies of a game, and sells all 1000 copies. That's all the income they are entitled to for those games. If those 1000 people sell their games to a third party, SD isn't entitled to income again from those games. That would mean that SD is getting paid twice for one copy of a game.

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Quoting charon2112,

reply 29

Quoting Annatar11, reply 28Registrations can be transferred, but SD does not directly support the resale of games since they don't see any income from that sale.

Here's my take on reselling games. Let's say SD makes 1000 copies of a game, and sells all 1000 copies. That's all the income they are entitled to for those games. If those 1000 people sell their games to a third party, SD isn't entitled to income again from those games. That would mean that SD is getting paid twice for one copy of a game.

I don't particularly have strong opinions one way or the other, however that statement is not entirely correct. The income from game sales has to provide for both new development, and support/patching of the existing product. The support staff is an ongoing cost, which is why they generally provide it for the original owners of a game who bought it from them (and thus SD received money from them and is obligated to provide service). They're not under any obligation to provide support service for people who buy the games used, and transferring registration is a support service.

They don't specifically design Impulse/games to make re-selling impossible, they just don't necessarily provide support for the second-hand users. Meaning, basically, a second-hand game on a disk will play just fine without an Impulse registration (true for SD games), but patches/mp are ongoing support services that they don't really have to provide to that second user since they had no say in the transaction. If the second-hand user gains access to the original account as part of the purchase, then there's no problem for them.

There were plans a while back to provide an "official" means of re-selling your registrations, for which a percentage would go to SD/publisher, however as that basically requires new contract agreements with all the publishers who sell on Impulse, that quickly went nowhere.

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Quoting Annatar11,

reply 30

Quoting charon2112, reply 29
Quoting Annatar11, reply 28Registrations can be transferred, but SD does not directly support the resale of games since they don't see any income from that sale.

Here's my take on reselling games. Let's say SD makes 1000 copies of a game, and sells all 1000 copies. That's all the income they are entitled to for those games. If those 1000 people sell their games to a third party, SD isn't entitled to income again from those games. That would mean that SD is getting paid twice for one copy of a game.
I don't particularly have strong opinions one way or the other, however that statement is not entirely correct. The income from game sales has to provide for both new development, and support/patching of the existing product. The support staff is an ongoing cost, which is why they generally provide it for the original owners of a game who bought it from them (and thus SD received money from them and is obligated to provide service). They're not under any obligation to provide support service for people who buy the games used, and transferring registration is a support service.

They don't specifically design Impulse/games to make re-selling impossible, they just don't necessarily provide support for the second-hand users. Meaning, basically, a second-hand game on a disk will play just fine without an Impulse registration (true for SD games), but patches/mp are ongoing support services that they don't really have to provide to that second user since they had no say in the transaction. If the second-hand user gains access to the original account as part of the purchase, then there's no problem for them.

There were plans a while back to provide an "official" means of re-selling your registrations, for which a percentage would go to SD/publisher, however as that basically requires new contract agreements with all the publishers who sell on Impulse, that quickly went nowhere.

In fact, if you check the Bill of rigth for gamer, they said that we shloud have the rigth to transfer, re-sell or give a game without complication (maybe not in those word). And, if you check the law, when you buy a program, DVD, game or other "hardware" that contain information, we buy the RIGTH to play/watch the product. After we've purchase it, we can download it, make copy and if your cd/dvd/br disc scratch, burn or whatever, you can redownload it without remorse because you've already bougth the rigth to own it.

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Quoting kyogre12,

reply 1

You need Impulse to update...

Yes and no. You need Impulse if you want incremental updates. However, you can download an up-to-date stand-alone version of the game from anywhere.impulsedriven.com, provided you have a valid Impulse account and have purchased the game in question. Of course you'll have to download the entire game (all 2 GB of it), but you don't need Impulse to install it.

My advice? Just use Impulse, kids. Think of it as a specialized web browser for downloading and updating your games. It's harmless.

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Quoting konjad,

reply 9

And it's another useless program running in background which uses my computer's power.

If running Impulse puts a noticeable drain on your system resources then your computer is woefully underpowered. When I bring up Windows task manager, it shows that Impulse at idle uses 0% of my CPU and a mere 12MB of RAM. No big deal. But if it really bothers you then just exit Impulse. It doesn't need to be running to play your games. The only thing it's necessary for is downloading and updating.

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Quoting Goldmos,

reply 31

Quoting Annatar11, reply 30
Quoting charon2112, reply 29
Quoting Annatar11, reply 28Registrations can be transferred, but SD does not directly support the resale of games since they don't see any income from that sale.

Here's my take on reselling games. Let's say SD makes 1000 copies of a game, and sells all 1000 copies. That's all the income they are entitled to for those games. If those 1000 people sell their games to a third party, SD isn't entitled to income again from those games. That would mean that SD is getting paid twice for one copy of a game.
I don't particularly have strong opinions one way or the other, however that statement is not entirely correct. The income from game sales has to provide for both new development, and support/patching of the existing product. The support staff is an ongoing cost, which is why they generally provide it for the original owners of a game who bought it from them (and thus SD received money from them and is obligated to provide service). They're not under any obligation to provide support service for people who buy the games used, and transferring registration is a support service.

They don't specifically design Impulse/games to make re-selling impossible, they just don't necessarily provide support for the second-hand users. Meaning, basically, a second-hand game on a disk will play just fine without an Impulse registration (true for SD games), but patches/mp are ongoing support services that they don't really have to provide to that second user since they had no say in the transaction. If the second-hand user gains access to the original account as part of the purchase, then there's no problem for them.

There were plans a while back to provide an "official" means of re-selling your registrations, for which a percentage would go to SD/publisher, however as that basically requires new contract agreements with all the publishers who sell on Impulse, that quickly went nowhere.

In fact, if you check the Bill of rigth for gamer, they said that we shloud have the rigth to transfer, re-sell or give a game without complication (maybe not in those word). And, if you check the law, when you buy a program, DVD, game or other "hardware" that contain information, we buy the RIGTH to play/watch the product. After we've purchase it, we can download it, make copy and if your cd/dvd/br disc scratch, burn or whatever, you can redownload it without remorse because you've already bougth the rigth to own it.

Yes, and you can. You can give or sell someone else the disk and they can play the game off the disk just fine. It's the extra support that doesn't come with the resale, the game on disk works just fine.

In the case of the second-hand buyer, since only SD can offer those services, and the buyer did not buy it from them, SD has no obligation to provide anything. The second-hand buyer has the right to play what's on the disk, nothing more.

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there goes Annatar laying down the concrete. So Solid!

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