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Denver, 9:35 AM
Tue Dec 8
64 posts in the last 24 hours
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12/04/09
12/04/09
12/04/09
12/04/09
12/01/09
It didn't evolve into a major store front for non-Valve games until a bit later, when they started to add independent games (Darwinian comes to mind), then moved on to working with other companies to sell their games on Steam.
And because it's "their" launcher and "their" store front, they put a lot of hard work into it, and it shows. Unlike say D2D who just sell games, Steam actually has a lot of love put into it, and I think that's a direct result of Valve being the developers who use it for their own games. The service behind Steam just seems so much better than D2D as well, I've had nothing but issues dealing with D2D.
12/01/09
Steam on the other hand, has been nothing but good to me so far since the Orange Box came out.
12/02/09
12/01/09
I also picked up L4D2 from their 5day1day sales which was a decent price for a recently released game.
12/01/09
12/01/09
Started using Steam because of Orange Box and D2D because of an indie game called City Rain.
12/01/09
I'd like to hear some of the actual reasoning though.
12/01/09
12/01/09
12/01/09
I've always been impressed with how well Impulse uses my broadband connection for downloading titles and updates. It uses as much as it can while still letting me browse the store and have a couple of windows open and active in Firefox.
Impulse's problem is that it is almost completely reliant on Stardock and GPG in order to attract customers. Well, OS skinners and modders apparently like it but I don't have a clue how well that really does. The option to update is a genius option, as is the clear instructions on how to uninstall a game patch if the game borks.
Steam does pretty well, but every now and again it hits a snag somewhere downloading a title or update and the speed dies.
I've also noticed recently that the non-Valve published titles require more tinkering than just the Steam installation in order to make them work well, or at all, on my computer. Normally its just fiddling with the .exe properties or changing something in a .bin file but that's more effort than most people are willing to give.
The only reason I normally purchase off Steam compared to Impulse is that I'm able to find more on Steam and it's normally discounted when I'm looking for it. I do comparison shop, and when there is no difference in price I pick Impulse as they seem more consistent and provide more options in how the game runs in the long-term.