There was an article months back about one of the digital download players closing shop, anyone remember where that was posted?

Oh come on, it wasn't very great for NA customers either. I've gotten the weekend deal emails for years and I rarely saw anything compelling. Also, pretending their "you must activate your backup with us" DRM wasn't DRM got to me too. If you have to use DRM, fine, but don't lie about it.

With that said, the playthrough reviews that you can access via the client is a pretty good idea. I'm surprised no one else has commandeered the idea yet, in fact.
Are you sure he's a fanboy and not an employee that followed you over from Twitter?:)

This is not entirely true. They might only do online sales in the US, but the brick and mortar GameStop is an international company comprised of the retail outlets GameStop, EB Games, Babbage's, Micromania, MovieStop, and FuncoLand. They have stores in the United States, Canada, Australia, Ireland, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Austria, Puerto Rico, Switzerland, Portugal, and Sweden.

That being said, they are pretty much only known in the US for being a "console kiddies" store (they don't really sell PC games anymore) and for maintaining the worst used game market in the US (buy back games for $5 in-store credit, turn around and sell it for $15+).

Sounds like my stance on not buying anything more from Impulse is going to remain firm.

I'm happy with Steam and Gog at the moment and this certainly won't change my stance on that.

Kind of hoping Stardock goes back to a personal delivery system for their games again, that way I can skip Impulse alltogether.

Either that or I wait till the 'foreseeable future' where they see their games still linked to Impulse and nowhere else, ends.

They own Micromania? I used to buy from those stores (though not anymore since I've found out that buying from the UK was way cheaper). While they're more console-oriented, at least the employees were always friendly and knowledgeable.
Maybe there's a chance that Impulse will improve then.

This. Although I welcome new competition. Unlike the frothing masses, I've never had a problem with Gamestop and my many dealings in the past with them have been well done.

Fuck it Brad !!!

I don't always like the things they assume are "okay", but honestly when I've called and asked a retail location to make something right that I thought was wrong, they were always polite and always did it, even if they were replacing a gut Gamestop.com sent me with a unopened copy. Some of their employees still do love this stuff and really are decent folks.

You mean this ?
http://news.bigdownload.com/2011/01/02/feature-big-downloads-2011-pc-game-predictions/

edit :
http://gametheoryonline.com/2011/03/30/gamestop-digital-video-games-sale/

I'll deviate from the actual discussion to wonder --

Does that mean we might start seeing Stardock games in other DD services (AKA Steam, GoG, D2D) now that they're not tied to their own service? That'd for sure increase revenue for them, specially now they no longer need to defend Impulse.

But Brad said that Steam is evil. :)

It likely means exactly that. Even though GOG is more in line with their stated philosophy (seemingly not their actual philosophy) I don't know if I'd hold my breath for GOG right off (perhaps on some of their older stuff), but I'd expect to see them on Steam before Christmas easily. I assume they won't need FTC approval for the deal.
He'll just saying something crazy and pretend it constitutes sound reasoning for the change.

I'm sure it won't be that evil anymore once he notices how his audience would more than double by just signing a paper ;)

Not likely.

Gamestop isn't a fan of any competitors - especially Steam. I'm sure they'll try to force devs to have Impulse-exclusive bullshit to try and lure people to their service.