It is fine for you to say this, and maybe you have to.  However, I would guess that from here on out if you offer games on Steam and on Impulse, I would be willing to bet that you will see far more purchases coming in from Steam.

Personally I am extremely pleased that you are offering your games on Steam, as I will never buy another game from Impulse, now that it is owned by GameStop.  I agree with an earlier post that says you are getting a better package with Steam for two reasons:

1. I don't have to buy it from Impulse, which means I don't have to give any of my money to GameStop.  This is a personal preference, but if the forums are any indication, I'm not alone in this preference.
2. I have the game on Steam, which is where 90% of my PC game library now resides.

Granted, both of these reasons deal with the digital delivery, and not the actual game itself.  However, this actual DOES have an impact on my enjoyment of the game.  I despise the forced pop-ups that GameStop has placed in Impulse.  I love the fact that I can go to steam, and it is essentially a launch pad for every game that I play.

Anyhow, I will be re-purchasing Sins on Steam, if only to support the fact that you are no longer Impulse specific.  I will however no longer buy future Stardock games unless they are offered on a non-impulse service.  Amazon, Steam, Green Man, etc... Any of these are ultimately better than Impulse.

Bye spammer! -

-ID

I love Steam and really very happy to see SoaSE on Steam BUT I have to say I do not think I will be as willing to return to playing the game seeing that I wont be able to obtain a copy of the game on Steam without repurchasing. I dont want to BELIEVE that Stardock is getting greedy and wants to expand its coffers by making existing customers buy again just for the sake of it but it may just be true. Now the go to argument that Ive been seeing is that "we arent forcing you to do anything" and this is wonderfully true and convenient but you fail to realize just how much of a change Steam is vs Impulse. I didnt play the game because of Impulse but I would play the game if it were Steam. There is a VAST difference between the platforms. With Steam we would be able to see how many people are online at a given moment and be able to go online hoping for a good multiplayer game with greater ease. 

Also with Steam we have greater convenience and inclusion. The only games I play outside of Steam are Blizzard games and thats because their system is extremely solid and inviting. Sure there are a few irritations who continue to complain about having to log in to anything and run a client vs just simply running the game by itself but that isnt the popular thought anymore. Steam sales have made it extremely cheap to game on PC and no other platform has been able to compare. Impulse sales were pathetic and embarrassing compared to those on Steam. Theres a reason why so many people would like to transfer their purchases to Steam - its just THAT much better. I truely feel like the community would gain a welcome boost from an allowed transfer to Steam. Please, PLEASE consider it. 

I have a hard copy of the original SoASE but I just purchased the trinity pack from Steam.  I like Steam a lot and I am very happy with how it works normally.

I downloaded and installed the game with no problem, but when I try to launch the game a Stardock Account Regostration page pops up asking for my stardock account email, password the the serial number from the game.

I entered all of these things and it says registration fails.  Then it asks me wher I bought the game when I enter Steam another pop-up window opens that says to upload a file using a form at activate.stardock.com

After I do this it gives me a link to download a file that i have to put into the C:\ProgramData\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire\License directory which I did.

But the game still wont launch.

How come I cant just launch the game thru steam why is it asking for a registration thru Stardock?  I have a Stardock account and I know my serial code which I can view thru Steam.

How do I get the game to launch?

I don't really see how Steam is going to affect the game that much since Sins isn't a steamworks game. Correct me if I'm wrong but wouldn't the only difference outside of updating (and thus not needing Impulse to do that) be that you can launch the game from Steam. None of the multiplayer support or anything will be there as that's still all on ICO.

Further I don't think its fair to assume Stardock can freely give people keys to the Steam version. Even if they can just make a bunch of new keys, that still going to take a lot of support hours from Stardock staff to make the switch and it requires the cooperation of both Valve and (quite unlikely to be given) GameStop, and all of that time is certainly worth real money. It sounds like all Stardock did was sell x amount of game keys to Valve to distribute on Steam, just as you would sell x amount of physical copies to Walmart. To them its no different then allowing another brick and mortar store to sell their product. I know this is a flawed analogy, but in a sense this is equivalent to you buying a game at BestBuy, then later the same game becomes available at Walmart, at which you demand to swap stores because you like Walmart's return policy or something better.

Steam.  Those froze my son's account after something rather strange was billed out of nowhere to his credit card 1 hour after he purchased a game.  Big battle between bank and Steam ensued over the course of 7 months which never unfroze his account nor transferred the $300 bucks spent on games over steam over the course of 2-3 years prior.  He still doesn't have his account back, now another 8 months later.  Can't play any of the games previously purchased from Steam because they wouldn't xfer the games from old/banned account to a new one.

They got $300 off me, I won't give them another penny and welcome their downfall.

Myself and I'm sure many others who bought SoaSE on Impulse would fight for the opportunity to use our existing SoaSE keys on Steam, with good reason.

Argue against it all you want, blocking us from using our existing keys this way is just going to hurt your bottom line, whether or not you like to admit it. Steam already has a system in place to support this, you're just being hard-headed about it.

They could have just never brought it to steam at all.

You know the details of the agreement?  Do share.  I'd like to know how you know it's stardock doing the blocking.  It could be that Valve said they didn't want anyone using their service who didn't buy the game from them, and thus didn't give them a cut of the sale.

They could of never made video games at all. How does discussing things like this help?

It could be, but it isn't. Valve has allowed tons of different games to be activated on their platform that were purchased at retail outlets and whatnot.

I mean take a look at the Humble Indie Bundle. People could buy that for $0.01 and activate it on Steam. How much of a cut do you think Valve got from that? Hint: Nothing. All they got was a happy user who was more likely to purchase from them in the future.

Apparently Valve understands the value of a loyal user base better than you.

But you've given absolutely no proof of your accusations on how you know it's stardock's fault and not a term that Valve didn't want to agree to.  All you've given is the sentiment of indignation.

Then you don't really know more then a few of Stardock's customers because everyone that I know is pretty darn loyal, most of whom refuse to go to steam, and are waiting for SDC to be released so they can get rid of GameStop.  Myself included.  If that's not loyalty, then I don't know what is.

Not true. There's multiple examples of games where people could do it, as it's something the standard Steam agreements apparently allow. What evidence have you offered again?

No, that's a few people on the FORUM. Nobody knows what the wider world of SD's customers are interested in because the people who post here are a tiny minority plagued by selection bias.

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/03/31/stardocks-brad-wardell-talks-about-selling-impulse-to-gamestop/

In the interview above brad talks about impulse being its largest source of revenue but wants to concentrate on making games.

==I have a few questions in regards to its actual meaning==

1. Too much resources are allocated to running impulse? Does this mean its loosing money on impulse or the amount of profit made is small percentage compared to how much profit is made from selling its applications and games?

2. What's the relationship between ironclad and stardock as a result of selling impulse? In terms of % of profit recieved how much did Stardock make from selling sins of a solar empire.

3. Does stardock have enough money to produce games with the absence of impulse?

4. How is Stardock and impulse interacting in the production of Sins of a Solar Empire rebellion?

You are fighting a losing battle here.

The Stardock CEO has already said that using existing keys with Steam isn't happening and I don't see that changing.  I am not privy to the details, but from the outside I could well imagine there being issues with transfering customer data between companies as well as Steam possibly wanting something in return as bandwidth isn't free you know.  Plus if people really want it and buy a new copy then Steam make money from that too.

I understand updates to Sins will be downloadable via the new simple Stardock downloader if you really hate GameStop for some reason.

If you really really really need it on Steam then you can always pay the price for the copy on Steam now, or wait and hope it gets discounted more in the future and buy then.  Alternatively you could continue to download updates via Impulse as you have done for years.

You should remember that just because it is on Steam now does not alter what you have.  What you had on Monday is the same as you have today.  People who buy it on Steam today also get it cheaper than people who purchased the retail boxes on day one, but that doesn't mean Stardock should be offering refunds to everyone.

If anyone fancies a game on the new Steam SotE, then add me

add Tinkelburg if your interested !!!!!!