Impulse early on used to be as good as Steam and it had extra software in it to download like Stardock Fences that I liked. I felt it a bit infuriating that Stardock didn’t seem to see its potential and then the same for gamestop. It had Demigod and a handful of other games. It was a successor to Stardock Central. Stardock digital storefronts predated Steam but Stardock didn’t have the right vision compared to Valve and GameStop didn’t after buying Impulse
It was still mainstream to say PC gaming was dieing until like 2014 so I guess no surprise how little so many companies wanted to invest in a PC platform but that’s what makes Valve special. When PC gaming shelf space was disappearing in brick and mortar and old guard PC game studios were calling the platform a dead end (Epic), Valve was building up Steam as a relatively small company long before they had their live service sugar daddies in TF2, CSGO, and DOTA2
Then Valve again with Steam on Linux. Steam Linux share hits 5% this year in 2026. Steam Linux went into public beta 2012. They’ve been working on Linux for at least 14 years and it’s starting to look like it’ll pay off
I wanted Impulse to succeed as well because I thought PC gaming needed numerous major desktop client storefronts to save PC gaming. Turned out Valve would improve Steam beyond anyone’s expectations and doing that with anemic competitor challenges to push them
Impulse early on used to be as good as Steam and it had extra software in it to download like Stardock Fences that I liked. I felt it a bit infuriating that Stardock didn’t seem to see its potential and then the same for gamestop. It had Demigod and a handful of other games. It was a successor to Stardock Central. Stardock digital storefronts predated Steam but Stardock didn’t have the right vision compared to Valve and GameStop didn’t after buying Impulse
It was still mainstream to say PC gaming was dieing until like 2014 so I guess no surprise how little so many companies wanted to invest in a PC platform but that’s what makes Valve special. When PC gaming shelf space was disappearing in brick and mortar and old guard PC game studios were calling the platform a dead end (Epic), Valve was building up Steam as a relatively small company long before they had their live service sugar daddies in TF2, CSGO, and DOTA2
Then Valve again with Steam on Linux. Steam Linux share hits 5% this year in 2026. Steam Linux went into public beta 2012. They’ve been working on Linux for at least 14 years and it’s starting to look like it’ll pay off
I wanted Impulse to succeed as well because I thought PC gaming needed numerous major desktop client storefronts to save PC gaming. Turned out Valve would improve Steam beyond anyone’s expectations and doing that with anemic competitor challenges to push them