Brad Wardell's views about technology, politics, religion, world affairs, and all sorts of politically incorrect topics.
Published on February 4, 2008 By Draginol In Personal Computing

Since 1999, Stardock has been a pioneer in digital distribution.  The original Galactic Civilizations was the first PC game to be released at retail and digitally at the same time.  Its flag-ship product, Object Desktop, made the transition from being a retail product to being digitally distributed with a subscription in 1999.

For the past few years, Stardock has distributed its content with Stardock Central:

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Stardock Central

And while Stardock Central was very cutting edge when it was launched back in 2003, it's getting a bit long in the tooth.  For the past year, Stardock has been working on a  new platform that will finally combine Stardock's various technological assets into a single place. This new platform is called Impulse.

 

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Impulse

Impulse isn't just a cosmetic make-over of Stardock Central. It greatly expands the capabilities of Stardock's digital distribution offerings. 

Here are 5 key differentiators of Impulse:

  1. Users do not have to load Impulse to use the software or games.
  2. Impulse will support third-parties submitting their software or game, name their price, and then after review having it available -- all done nearly automatically. Stardock already has this system in place on WinCustomize.com with "Master" themes.
  3. Impulse will integrate its next-generation social networking features in the Community tab that will let users have friends, chat about games, have blogs, and more.
  4. Impulse includes built in support for backing up your purchase to CD/DVD.
  5. Impulse allows users who buy software or games at retail to still manage their updates and re-download the entire product on Impulse (for products that support this feature).

 

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Impulse provides a cleaner UI than Stardock Central.

 

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Managing your software on Impulse is a snap. If you bought a game or software program at retail or even from another digital distributor, you may be able to still manage updates and such on Impulse.

Impulse is still in internal beta at Stardock but it expects to release it in mid February with additional features for it being added through the course of the year.


Comments (Page 2)
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on Feb 04, 2008
Looks pretty... I can't wait!
on Feb 04, 2008
Would be nice if the Configuration applets for each application were integrated into Impulse as well.   I hate having to open a bunch of different seperate windows to tweak stuff.
on Feb 04, 2008
looks Sweet 
I can't wait to use it   
on Feb 04, 2008
So...is this whats going to replace SDC? Looks awesome!
on Feb 05, 2008
Any chance Stardock are ever going to develop for the Mac?
on Feb 05, 2008
Is it skinnable?
on Feb 05, 2008
Well...is it?  
on Feb 05, 2008
Not that it matters to me, will the archives made with SDC, be compatible with impulse so that can be used to apply them instead & SDC deleted
on Feb 05, 2008
Maybe there's already a way to do this but will Impulse support a way to import ALL of your registrations into the app in one shot? I re-install windows alot and I really get tired of having to click through all of the different options to enter all of my registration codes.


Looking good, can't wait to try it out!
on Feb 05, 2008
Yes.
on Feb 05, 2008
Yes.

Yes to what?

I can't wait for this, it looks awesome
on Feb 05, 2008
Looking forward to trying it out   
on Feb 05, 2008
Bring it on!
on Feb 05, 2008
Muy Caliente!
on Feb 05, 2008
Looking forward to checking it out!
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