the problem with impulse is that some game are priced to rip off € people , e.g.
http://www.impulsedriven.com/stfighter4
$54.59 (37,99 € EUR)
you can clearly see that the $ price is set to make a special (high) € price
on the other side
http://www.impulsedriven.com/dem
$39.95 (27,80 € EUR) $20.00 (13,92 € EUR)*
Its easy to see when they use reginal pricing and when not

Shall i help you to buy it for $39.99 ?

no thanks that just an example

Out of curiosity what part of the backups did you find you "didn't" have control over? When I restored my GalCiv2 backup to a computer that didn't have network access at the time, it didn't seem to have a problem with it. Leading me to believe that while it did require me to authenticate it, it was self contained in my local copy of impulse.

Impulse provide game patches faster than Steam.

Not necessarily. The patches are purely up to the devs. Sometimes Impulse gets it first, sometimes Steam does. Sometimes they both get stuck waiting and retail gets it fastest.

Are you saying that Americans pay more only to have Europeans paying more?

it goes like this for me.
GOG > Impulse > Gamersgate > Retail > D2D > Piracy > Steam

Customized for me.

for me
GOG = Impulse > Retail > D2D..................................................... > Piracy........................*light years*......................................... > Steam

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEEUtdhV_eA

i think the publisher doesnt care as long as they get most money out of americans and europeans, but its clear thar europeans are the ones that are the most disadvantaged.

GOG > Gamersgate > Impulse > Steam

Well, I didn't mean that. What I meant is that to say that they're ripping people off just because you see an unusual price in $ might be a bit unfair. Whatever the reason was - and I suspect that in this case they simply wanted/were forced to match Steam's price in Euro - I think they're only to be praised to keep euro-to-dollar ratio the same and you can see the same ratio used for Demigod pricing you quote. I don't care what currency is chosen to be the reference, as long as they are fair about it.
Just my 2 cents.

oh I forgot about gamersgate, I'll update my post.