A former GameStop exec thought building its Steam competitor would be his ‘forever job,’ but the retailer bet the house on digital distribution being ‘a passing phase’

Before a career second act at Nightdive Studios, the recently-retired Larry Kuperman’s big project was Impulse. It was to be GameStop’s answer to Steam, but it went the way of the dodo in 2014. Kuperman went into his personal history building up Impulse’s catalogue when we spoke at this year’s Game Developers Conference.

Kuperman came to the games industry about halfway through his professional career, with both his story and that of Impulse beginning at Stardock, a software company that was branching out into games. Stardock’s management was thinking in terms of digital distribution early⁠—Kuperman started in 2001⁠—and the company was laying the groundwork for its own service.