In its biggest push yet into the digital game market, major video game retailer GameStop today announced a pending purchase of Stardock subsidiary Impulse Inc., including the Impulse digital delivery service, as well as the acquisition of streaming technology company Spawn Labs.

The Impulse purchase, expected to close in May 2011, will give Gamestop a major foothold in the digital delivery market, and will also include the company's Impulse: Reactor and Impulse: Publisher middleware tools.

Spawn Labs has been working on a consumer-facing game streaming service since its founding in 2009. Since then, major competitors including OnLive and Gaikai have launched similar services that stream high-definition games run on servers to all manner of internet-enabled devices.

“With these important acquisitions, we will continue to make appropriate investments related to our multichannel strategy. GameStop is uniquely positioned to be the leader in both the physical and digital gaming space," GameStop CEO J. Paul Raines said in a statement

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I don't know what exactly will happen with Impulse, as they are usually NA-only, and besides Europa Universalis: Rome and Stardock's own Sins of a Solar Empire, I never bought anything else. anyway, it's an interesting change.

Interesting, though I have only taken an interest in Sins of a Solar Empire

This probably won't end well.  The DD market is a pretty well informed market, and it's that type of clientele that generally avoids a company like GameStop.

Plus, they'll be competing with Steam.  Who would choose GameStop over Steam??

I wonder what this will mean for Starduck.  I'm sure it's temporarily resulted in a nice positive cashflow, but Impulse is what was keeping them alive.  Their more recent releases tanked (Demigod and Elemental: War of Magic), and that's all they'll have left now to rely on.

And will they still be selling their games exclusively through Impulse.  I can't imagine that happening, which will give people even less of a reason to use the service.

Nice find. Very intriguing. 

I've never been a fan of the way that gamestop does business. I hope that this endeavor fails so they don't get a foothold on DD and hopefully will close their doors when DD takes off.