This again?  Didn't we discuss this like 5 minutes ago?

As is the case with apples and oranges, the two are not mutually exclusive.

apples and orangse are both fruit, steam and impulse are both content-providing-shopping-centers-via-digital-conveyence
also, apples>oranges

Impulse have so far never given me a i wanna strangle the shit out of this software so impulse have a score of 10/10 so far. while steam continue to to have 0/10 for me. steam have never ever given me something i wanted and always been a reason for headaces.

Impulse has been a good influence on Steam.  One example:

Steam is now doing the DRM listings that Impulse does, you can see it on their store under 3rd party DRM.

When Steam first game, I disliked it. I didn't want to install any additional programs on my computer just to play the same Half Life mods I'd played before. It also took long time for a patch to arrive for Desert Crisis, if I remember right, and the mod was pretty abandoned for a longish time. When I heard lots of people having problems with Steam, I simply uninstalled HL1 and went for other games.

I haven't gotten over this. As long as Steam needs to be on to play games, and there's checks that require internet connection, I won't be touching Steam. Just recently a friend bought Zeno Clash via Steam, a game I really wanted to play. But, as long as it needs Steam, I won't. I didn't really want to install Impulse at first, either, since I put some value on owning game manuals (when they're good manuals. Like in Arcanum) and packages. But since I liked Stardock to begin with, and after reading about Impulse and Stardock's policy concerning DRM, it wasn't that big deal to download a game digitally. Well, excluding some problems with payment methods.

It's like OP said, it's good there are options. Many shops simply won't seem to bother with PC games nowadays, and with digital downloading eliminating much of the distribution costs (and pollution, too), it is a good choice. Impulse is pretty much what made it possible for me. There are some games in Steam I'd like to play, but there are lots of good ones in Impulse too.. atm I'm already looking forward to Elemental.

Though I still do miss good manuals with some background story and art. But whatever, as long as the games are good, and computer gaming stays alive

I never ever want to be FORCED to be connected to my internet connection to play a game. So Steam is out.

When I am at my camping and I want to play X3 I do not want to see no internet connection game does not load message. Dang that!!!

Impulse is a bit more stable for me, and quicker to start. It's also prettier - you can tell that it was designed by experts on user interfaces. Lastly, offline mode is much, much more reliable with Impulse.

Which is not to say that Steam is bad: for the most part it does it's job pretty well and doesn't give too much grief. Try using it with a slightly flakey internet connection, though, and it's becomes a real pain.

I like the clients equally. that being said

the in game overlay for impulse looks and functions terrible. that thing needs an upgrade asap, the one for steam is much better

Yeah, Impulse is faster, more compatible(Steam doesn't work in the DMZ of all things), uses significantly less system resources, has a cleaner interface, and is vastly more useful on the information front.  Having information on how large a patch is for instance...

Although niether of them function well on satellite at all...

Things I hate about Steam:

It screws up mods

It required to be on to play games, and doesn't turn off when you stop playing them.

It's not one-click shutoff

Give me a choice, I'll take Impulse, then Gamersgate, then Steam.  (except for Paradox developed game, where I'll go Gamersgate to support the devs 100% if I get one of those)

I think there's a misconception that Gamers Gate is owned still by Paradox.  Check out this interview with GamersGate CEO Theodore Bergquist, over here (http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/the-gate-keeper).  Specifically:

"Q: Historically GamersGate was part of Paradox Interactive - do you still maintain that relationship?

Theodore Bergquist: Yes, it's both ways. GamersGate is a completely separate entity with separate management, budget, goals and so on, but it did start as a project under Paradox because their community demanded some downloading services, because they couldn't buy the games.

The first traffic came from the Paradox community, and they're still into GamersGate, but as we grow their relative size is getting smaller. Certainly there are fans still buying Paradox games on GamersGate though. "

I,m in same camp as Keemosi. I wanna go buy a game and its mine, not have xtra program JUST to play my game that I just payed for. But it seems to be the way things are headed. I purchased Empire:Total War and got steam(I forgot it came with it) Game installed I played turned comp off. The next day I go to play and click the icons and they wouldnt work, go to all programs and select from there and nothing. So I restart comp and error comes up saying program not responding. It was steam.exe, so I had to hit "end now" no biggiy right. So I figure to just uninstall and reinstall steam and it should be fine, NOT. It uninstalled my game and steam grrrrr.  ok so Ill just reinstall game, WRONG now my disk wont install, I have to reinstall via steam....15 GB @600kbs is ohh  about 3 hrs of my time. So now the game I payed for is useless frisby cause I gotta use them to play it or install it, 3rd party is just crazy.  Oh BTW I have to use task manager to turn steam.exe off then it restarts itself and I can play. Their support took 6 days to get a bad fix for me that included uninstalling steam again,haha not doin that again. I found the taskmnger fix on youtube lol their support was wrong. Steam I dont care for steam to much.                

Impulse I like much better and Ive been reading here more than the net lol. But I really dislike having to have a 3rd party app just to play a game I payed for. But as a gamer what can I do, nothin I guess but to convert.  Demi-God FTWin

Rather than Impulse vs. Steam, I'm more curious to compare Impulse to Steam to salesforce.com AppExchange to Apple iStore.  In general, there seem to be a lot of competing distribution platforms for various types of software.  I'll be curious to see in a few more years what people generally think works vs. what doesn't, and in what field.

Interesting point. I don't have Steam, but I have no complaints about Impulse at all. I really like how it compresses your downloads and auto-extracts them.