Indie Game Star Ruler Leaving Impulse in Protest. 'Fighting the Man' or Fighting Themselves?

Late last week I wrote a story detailing  Gamestops desire to acquire streaming technology company Spawn Labs and Impulse, a digital distribution platform, with the finalization of that deal concluding in May of this year.  With in increase of digital distribution of PC games it seems like a solid move for Gamestop who have, at the same time, responded to an explosion in the console market by limiting their PC retail space to a sad and paltry few shelves in their physical stores. Anyone paying attention to retail space over the past 10 years have watched this metamorphosis happen before their very eyes.

Not everyone is happy with this move however. Indie developer Blind Mind Studios have announced that they are removing their game Star Ruler from Impulse as a protest against Gamestop practices that they call destructive to PC gaming.

"We are ending sales through Impulse due to GameStop's long, negative behavior toward the PC platform and independent games. We would never have signed onto distribution through GameStop, and being forced into this situation has only made it worse for us. We feel GameStop cannot serve as the leader of a true competitor in the digital distribution market.

I want to stress that our interactions with Impulse have been consistently good. We would've had no issues with continuing to sell on their service, and we had every intention of being on their service for future games; so long as they were owned by Stardock. However, with the announcement of the merger, and due to the nature of our contract, we had to decide rather quickly what we would do"

They then go on to list the key points of dissention.

• GameStop's business practices stand opposed to our goals.

• We feel they would not respect our customers.

• GameStop consistently focuses only on large budget titles and safe bets, shying away from the independent market.

• We supported Brad Wardell's direction of Impulse, and his absence ruins our faith in the service's future

Now even though the punk side of me may be raising a little fist with it's ability to stand with anyone trying to 'fight' any sort of 'man', I can't help but think that not only is Blind Mind Studios acting a bit rash in their decision, but their quick rush to cry foul and make some sort of adolescent statement is going to do them much more harm then good.

Their main gripe seems to be that "GameStop consistently focuses only on large budget titles and safe bets, shying away from the independent market" even though GameStop is making moves which are directly opposed to that statement.  Of course I'll agree that those moves are being made only because there is currently a profit margin in the download market, but Gamestop is in the market to do just that. Make money. They are not a developer, nor are they even a publisher. It is not their job to believe in your art. It's their job to make money selling your art, and those prices (in a large way) are set by the publisher.

By pulling their indie game off Impulse they are actually hindering GameStops ability to rectify one of their main gripes. It's silly and downright pompous in a way that only an indie development studio could muster.  And like a pair of tight skinny jeans, their attempt at standing as the hippiest of the hipp is only serving to constrict the bloodflow to their most important of areas...the reproductive one.

Until this moment I've never heard of Star Ruler or Blind Mind Studios and though they have certainly garnered a bit of free publicity now, I can't help but think that they would have been better off using the resources of a large company like GameStop than throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and that's really my main point here. I'm certainly not one to defend large corporate cabals, in fact I'll be one of the first to dance amongst the smoking ruins of America's gated communities when the revolution starts, but I am one who thinks it's a good idea to use their resources for your own gain whenever you can.

I can't help but think of the other garage developers who spend hours upon hours, after their day job, creating their game as a labor of love with only the slimmest of hope that one day they can turn their hobby into a career.  Do you think they stand with a studio who had the chance to propel their careers in such a way, only to throw it all away in protest?  Should Team Meat have told Microsoft to take a hike when they had the chance to get Super Meat Boy distributed on XBLA because they "didn't agree with Microsoft's business practices"? You would have called them a fool to do that, and unfortunately I have to call Blind Mind a fool now.

Like it or not, not many people heard of Impulse before GameStop attached their name to it, and Blind Mind Studios might have just thrown away the biggest chance at large scale distribution they ever had.

And for what?

A passing reference in video game blogs that will be pushed off the first page by screenshots of Duke Nukem throwing poop within the first day.