Stardock Bringing Games To Steam Following Impulse Sale

Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity will be the first game from Stardock to appear on Valve's Steam service after the company sold its Impulse digital distribution service to Gamestop this Spring. "With the sale of our former PC digital download technology to GameStop earlier this year, we no longer have any conflicts of interest in offering our titles to other digital distribution channels," Stardock CEO Brad Wardell said in a statement. Other Stardock titles will be coming to Steam "in the coming weeks" Wardell said, and the company is also planning "more distribution platform announcements" in that time frame to "give fans the opportunity to play on the platform of their choice." In late 2009, Stardock estimated that Impulse made up roughly 10 percent of the digital distribution market, compared to 70 percent for Steam. Even that sliver of the market was enough to make Impulse the most profitable part of Stardock. But Wardell told Gamasutra the company decided to sell because it was afraid Impulse "was taking over the company with its revenues and profits." "Normally, that's great, but we're a technology company," he continued. "We would need account managers, a lot more technical staff, a lot more business people. … [it's] a disruption to everything else we're doing." EA recently announced it would be adding third-party games to its previously first-party-only Origin digital distribution service, putting it in more direct competition with Steam.