Really it seems to be two things that brought about the decision: it is possible for things regarding its sale through Impulse to be changed in ways they do not like, and they do not trust that the changes will not be made under Gamestop.

It is about pre-impting a possible problem that from where they are standing looks like there is a sufficent chance of it happening to worry about. They do not have the luxury of talking to the people that will be running the show starting in May, and the contract does not have the protection they would want had they known before hand this would happen.

Digital distribution doesn't involve shelf space.

Getting sold at retail has more to do with getting proper retail distribution (Ingram Micro, Navarre, Jack of All Games, etc.).  Indies rarely are able to get into that kind of distribution. That's why Gamestop, Best Buy, Walmart, etc. don't carry indies.

By contrast, I know for a fact that Gamestop sees indie PC gaming as a major force in digital distribution.

One of the things most people don't realize is that in *digital* distribution, independent games are, by far, the bigger profit center.  At retail, the overhead on game X vs. game Y is about the same (huge).  But at digital, the indies have a lot of big advantages because they are more likely to generate their revenue over a long period of time while requiring relatively little support from the DD.

FYI, I believe most people's issue is not that Impulse was sold. Rather, it's who it was sold to.

Though that might be different if there was not so much pre-existing hate for the buyer.

That has a lot more to do with the technical infrastructure behind Steam and Impulse. 

But going forward, if you're an independent game developer, Impulse is going to be the friendliest place for you imo. It's a major emphasis for them.

Let's just bear in mind that they had to convince each Impulse employee individually to leave Stardock proper and relocate to Dallas. Stardock guys aren't money-oriented. They're in this because they're passionate about it. And they, like me, very much like what Gamestop has in mind here.

Yea, I saw that.  Very odd series of things to say.  

It was certainly designed to provoke people. That said, the trend for developers, writers, producers (and now distributors) to bad-mouth each other has been on the rise these last few years.

Brad may not want to publicly say if he has an alternative idea or not- I don't think Gamestop would be too happy if they felt he was trying to hold them over a barrel on Impulse.  I wish Brad was at liberty (I'm guessing he isn't, but he won't be able to confirm or deny this I'm sure) to divulge more details over what protections Stardock has or what Gamestop's long-term ideas are.  

That said, do you guys REALLY think Brad would stand for Impulse having Steam-style DRM or worse?  I think if that happened, Brad would stick his games on his own servers again.   Selling a game isn't that different from selling Object Desktop- Brad's still in the retail business, just not in the 3rd-party retail business.  It seems the paranoid folks on other forums are convinced that the first thing Gamestop will do is put Steam-like DRM in Impulse.

Surprised to hear that from the Paradox and Gamersgate folks, I think they are making a play for the disgruntled Impulse customers.

That said, the popular image of Gamestop is that of a giant scavenging vulture.

So... yeah. There's that.

I use GamerGate, but I don't get why he thinks it's so superior to Steam or Impulse. That CEO, whatshisname, came across quite dickish.

fixed

Define "screw over"?  Looks like they'll all continue to have gainful employment as well as a chance to participate in the GameStop Collective.  As well as potentially cashing in on the acquisition itself.

I think that Brad has done pretty well by the Impulse crew, but that's really a completely separate issue from what happens to the Impulse customers.

Frogboy,

I don't trust GameStop at all - but I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt for now by not cancelling all my preorders. However, beyond my preorders, there's no way I'll drop another dime on Impulse until I see how this all shakes out.

I want to trust your optimism, but StarDock cares about their customers where GameStop cares only about their bottom line. Even if Impulse is managed as an independent division, there's no guarantee that Gamestop won't shut them down or force consumer-hostile new policies on us in the name of bigger profit.

I really, really hope you're right about them... but I'm not going to bet on it.