-WhiteElk

Interesting interview. I didn't learn anything of substance from it. But enjoyed it all the same. And there were little tidbits of clarifications. Like Brad saying he actually had held a couple jobs. In a posting in these forums, he'd made justification for something or another by saying he had never worked for anyone else. That he had come right out of college and founded Stardock. Missing the whole working for someone else experience. ;~p</p

Interesting point Hybridvitae. They've put the cart before the horse here. I wish War of Magic would be completed before gamestop takes over Impulse. It would have been nice to final update E:WOM into a working fun state before canceling my Impulse account. I don't mind missing out on Fallen Enchantress so much. At this point I just want the game I paid for ( had planned on purchasing E:FE as well, despite it being free for

[quote who="RFHolloway" reply="3" id="2920275"]opening sequence for QI[/quote]LoL, yep there he is. [video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5GBYWuctt4[/video] Frogboy @ the 21 second mark

Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computer and designer of the Apple I and Apple ][ computers, said in a recent interview that he would consider returning to Apple if asked. This comes at a time when a group of Apple shareholders attempt to detail a CEO succession plan in response to Steve Jobs recurring illness. I'd like to se

[quote who="tetleytea" reply="1" id="2920792"]I would say the absolute worst wait time is Soarin! at Epcot. In fact if you don't get a fast pass you might not even want to bother. At your income, you probably should get Fast Passes for everybody.[/quote]Oy vey! People pay to cut lines!? Not cool [e digicons]X|[/e] And not a good message about class privilege to teach the kids. --------------------------------------------------

I've seen Frogboy in every episode of Survivor this season. In some episodes he makes multiple appearances. Have there been Frogboy sightings in other shows?

I used to be Charlie Brown [video]http://youtu.be/GsSXMT0NrB4[/video] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsSXMT0NrB4 But the Lucies of the world drove me to become Doubting Thomas

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="233" id="2919192"]I guess one of the challenges here is that many people just see "Gamestop" as in a single monolothic corporation. By contrast, I see Steve Nix, David Adams, etc. the guys who will be running Impulse which is effectively an independent unit within Gamestop. They're going to be doing some good things for our industry and for consumers. I would just ask that people give them the benefit of the doubt.[/quote]

[quote who="Ptarth" reply="208" id="2918941"] Quoting WhiteElk, reply 200One thing that keeps coming to mind... ... But I can think of none worse. I've agreed with many of your points, but I think this one is crossing the line. Worse choices that come to mind, in no particular order: Apple, Microsoft, Electronic Arts, Valve, Ubisoft, Ebay, Sony. Better Choices: Google, Amazon.[/quote]I was speaking of brick and mortar retailers. But I agre

[quote who="Tridus" reply="201" id="2918460"]What if they'd sold it to Microsoft to merge into GFWL? Or Valve, to poach the users for Steam? It can always be worse.[/quote]I was speaking of brick and mortar retailers. [quote who="Tridus" reply="201" id="2918460"]Actually DD DOES dominate over retail for PC games, as of last year, and is the growing part of the market. Retail is on the way out for PC games.[/quote]I've seen nothing to support this. I

One thing that keeps coming to mind... Impulse was the only option for some of us, who for various reasons, distrust ESD. Stardock was perceived by some as a trustworthy company. So Impulse provided us a way into the ESD market. The digital game market is growing but slowly. If more people had trust in it, developers might more quickly reap the rewards of gamers gone digital. Now that Impulse is no longer owned by Stardock, wouldn't it stand

[quote who="marqaha" reply="43" id="2918400"]Brad and team: I will continue to support Stardock Entertainment but I do not wish to do business with Gamestop due to past issues. Since Impulse is no longer a viable digital distribution platform I want to avoid it. Is there a plan, or a possibility, to allow users like me to download our previously purchased and future games, as well as patches, directly from Stardock, circumventing Impulse entirely?[/quote]<span style="font-size: sma

[quote who="BigDogBigFeet" reply="190" id="2918061"]I don't get it. Why all the hightened "concern" over Gamestop?? Why make real decisions based on imaginary problems? [/quote] If I were to not look into the companies history, I feel like I'd be blindly making a decision based on an imaginary based trust. And after having already gotten screwed out of a couple hundred dollars worth of online music purchases, I'd have to be pretty dense not to

[quote who="Alstein" reply="152" id="2917105"] That said, you should at least give Gamestop a chance to mess up before condemning them. I figure if Gamestop does do something stupid, you'll have some heads up notice, and can archive stuff as needed. I'm not going to scream and ragequit until I have good reason. [/quote] By exercising due diligence and reading the fine print, I avoid hidden fee scams like the one Gamestop

[quote who="louist" reply="145" id="2917066"]How, exactly, are the hardcore anti-steam/pro-impulse crowd taking it? I've always been as skeptical of Impulse as I am of any digital service (that is to say, only very mildly), but some people on these forums have a fanatical drive to support Impulse and demonize the competition. I'd think they might be more shell-shocked than the rest of us. The faith they had in Brad's ethics no longer plays a roll, as Brad's ethics no longer pl

I've been amateurishly working on an idea to present to Stardock which I thought might be a way for Impulse to compete with steam; while at the same time providing an opportunity for mom and pop shops to compete with Gamestop, Walmart and the like. Kill two beasts with one stone as it were. Now I am very concerned that Gamestop is going to use this to strengthen their position over competition. The idea simply being that brick and mortar shops consign w

So we got Gamestop; an international, publicly traded company in our communities. As Gamestop expands into a region, it pushes out locally owned competition. Gamestop is in position to sell product cheaper than mom and pop shops can. Consumers blissfully save a dollar and help Gamestop finance an expansion into somebody elses neighborhood. Rinse and repeat, Gamestop spreads across the nation and beyond our shores. One reason some people have a problem with

[quote who="Tridus" reply="115" id="2916569"]They didn't stop carrying PC games because they hate PC gamers. They only stopped carrying them because the space in the store is more profitable if it carries something else. That's just business. The whole paradigm is turned on its head online because the "shelf space" isn't really limited and its so much cheaper to get games listed.[/quote]I do understand this I really do. A shopkeeper is limited to X amount

Oops I do want to say one more thing today.... [quote who="Tridus" reply="94" id="2916429"] That's not Gamestop being evil, that's Gamestop not wanting to be on the hook for 50,000 boxes of something they can't sell and that just sit in a warehouse. If my choices are to stock Call of Duty or to stock say Gemini Wars... well I like making money, so this is a fairly easy decision (unless I'm running a specialty store, but that's very hard to do these days for PC

[quote who="Tridus" reply="94" id="2916429"]He's also an owner of a business, and has to do what's best for the business. I thought his reasons were laid out pretty well, and fundamentally Impulse was getting too large for Stardock to remain primarily a software company.[/quote]Well thats a minor aspect of my dismay and confusion over this. Brad has asserted time and again that as a gamer himself, the gaming side of his company is all about the games and not about the business.

[quote who="GoaFan77" reply="89" id="2916364"] Quoting WhiteElk, reply 88 And not just any retailer, but one which is infamous for ultra PC restrictive practices. Really now. Last time I checked physical retailers had nothing to do with DRM. If anything they are probably upset by games like Mass Effect whose form of DRM will hurt second hard console sales.[/quote] You've jumbled the context. That paragraph wa

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="63" id="2916217"] I just think some people have too much time on their hands. People seem to invest a lot of energy looking for something to be outraged about. I guess I shouldn't be surprised given how much vigor I put into debating the merits of OS/2 vs. Windows back in the day. Only time will tell how this all works out. But knowing the team involved and being privy to the direction, I have a high degree of confidence that people

[quote who="Tridus" reply="33" id="2915884"]People need to put april fools out of their heads here. It's completely irrelevant. Anybody confused by that simply doesn't understand how business deals work.[/quote] This move seems to be at such odds to much of what CEO Brad Wardell has been telling us, that it makes more sense to me as a prank. Brad has talked at length about how retailers exert to much power over game releases, and how this power has a detrimental

[quote who="Gwenio1" reply="39" id="2915623"] Quoting WhiteElk, reply 35 I won't place my credit card, or my products in the hands of an entity so untrustworthy. Then archive your games and an install of pre-Gamestop Impulse to a disc, and do not have the internet running while installing. Then you can continue to use your games without dealing with GameStop.[/quote] E:WOM's not yet&nb

[quote who="Tridus" reply="31" id="2915574"]You do know that Stardock is a corporate entity, right? [/quote]Then lets say privately held vs publicly held. Gamestop has shareholders to cater to. Stardock has customers. Bottom line for me: Gamestop's been sued for ripping off their employees, abusing customer payment data, advertising bogus DLC bundles, selling used games as new, ripping off customers with a hidden monthly payment scam, selling roach infeste