Impulse Was Built To Compete With Steam
GameStop bought a ready-made Steam rival in 2011—and then decided PC digital sales were a "passing phase." No surprise what happened next: Impulse shut down in 2014. For Larry Kuperman, the executive who helped build it and later ran PC electronic distribution at GameStop, that corporate turn still stings. "I thought that was going to be my forever job," he said.
Kuperman’s path to that moment started at Stardock, where he arrived in 2001 as the company was laying out an early digital strategy. Contracts were already being written with download rights in mind. "We reserved the rights to electronically sell the game," he recalled of his first project there, the economics sim The Corporate Machine. "I'm sure the lawyer at Take Two [was thinking], 'It's electronic distribution. Who cares about that?' That moment was kind of pivotal."
The first version of Stardock’s store wasn’t a client at all, but a website called Drengin. It looked every bit early-2000s and worked like it too. "Back in those days, it was not the same game experience," Kuperman said. "You got this thing to download and the serial number that came in your email."
A crisis created an opening. Around 2004–2005, Canadian publisher Strategy First—known for series like Jagged Alliance and O.R.B: Off-World Research Base—collapsed while working with Stardock. In the fallout, Stardock walked away with electronic distribution rights to Strategy First’s catalog. "That launched what would become Impulse, which was a Steam competitor from Stardock. It was a similar platform," Kuperman said. Impulse formally launched in 2008.
GameStop Bought In—Then Backed Out
GameStop acquired Impulse in 2011 and tapped Kuperman to lead PC electronic distribution. "I joined GameStop for two years as their head of electronic distribution on the PC side," he said. "I thought that was going to be my forever job. Ironically, that didn't work out."