The first thing they do when taking over Impulse is start selling games that require Steam.

Maybe I'm dumb, but I thought the point of a large corporation like Gamestop taking over Impulse would be to build it into a competitor for Steam. A "Steam-killer" if you will. I assumed they would use their industry leverage and contacts to get some Impulse exclusives and get Impulse as a mandatory part of some boxed games (and then hype those games in-store) similar to what Steam does.

Instead the first thing they do is start selling Steam games, in essence advertising and leading people to Steam.

Weird?

Makes sense though?

It makes sense for short-term profit gain, but I would think their focus would be elsewhere. Maybe I am wrong.

They're thinking immediate gains only. They want a big % from all those big game releases that nowadays come with steamworks. they way they see it, Valve doesnt get a % from a steamworks game sale made outside their steam store, and yet they have to enable and support that game in their steam servers. That doesnt seem that unreasonable imho. The concern with that approach is nonetheless, that those games will install the steam store which will show the storefront's deals, and eventually customers may skip Impulse and buy straight from steam.

Explain? People initially buying from there but then switching to GOG? I don't think so.

GOG? GOG has nothing to do with it. I am saying Gamestop likely bought Impulse for long-term interests, but selling Steamworks games seems like a short-term gain and long-term loss.

I'm glad I am not the only one who noticed this haha.

The only thing I can think of is that they wish to market Impulse as a kind of D2D alternative, where they will be able to carve their own niche in the market through their own particular sales strategies (like D2D's recent 20% off everything sales).

Of course, who knows how long D2D will stick to their current model anyway, being that they were just bought out by Gamefly. I could see D2D evolving into a digital rental service in the future.

That's an odd one too since you would think Gamefly could just start selling PC games digitally and rely on their own name recognition.

They are focused on rentals, not DD.

the main goal with buying impulse was getting a digital game library to go along with that On-Leash type of streamed game service company that they bought at the same time.