Valve are *special*

Think about it, this is not valves fault or steams. To a certain degree they have been mainly a american company and other countries have meerly adopted steam as a way to play/buy certain games. Valve isnt going to change the offers for each timezone, ie what if they did make it available for longer in the UK, then any other person from any other country may (probably wont) do exactly what your doing.

Valve is a business, end of the day, they decide when they want a deal to end and it is easier if they use what they already use now when they give us release dates/patch dates etc, PST time.
 
Snax said:
It is my fault i miss the sale.

My point is that if you went into a shop that had sale prices at 10am and suddenly they changed them when u went back at 1pm the same day you would be a bit miffed (im projecting here, so please correct me if I am wrong) and confused.

This would not be so frustrating if they advertised the sale as finishing at 12.30pm that day. it just makes things clearer.

I dont take offense at anyone, i am trying to understand why people would regard it as a positive thing for a business to behave like that

surely it would be more desirable for a business to be crystal clear and avoid confusing circumstance?
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If you decide to buy something, in a sale of any kind, get it nice and early.

You then can avoid this situation, if you're going to be busy at the time and don't think you have time, ask a friend or a member on here to buy it for you or something.

Yes, ending sales mid way through a day isn't brilliant, but I can't say I noticed.
 
DampCat said:
Because it's a US based company, and they ended it in their morning, not in the middle of the day.
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Exactly

Snax said:
It is my fault i miss the sale.
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/Close thread.

Snax said:
My point is that if you went into a shop that had sale prices at 10am and suddenly they changed them when u went back at 1pm the same day you would be a bit miffed (im projecting here, so please correct me if I am wrong) and confused.

This would not be so frustrating if they advertised the sale as finishing at 12.30pm that day. it just makes things clearer.

I dont take offense at anyone, i am trying to understand why people would regard it as a positive thing for a business to behave like that

surely it would be more desirable for a business to be crystal clear and avoid confusing circumstance?
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Its their obligation to. Anyone who's anyone knows that Valve is an American company and therefore will adjust their deals to American deadlines. They are under no obligation to tell us when their sales extensions end (to the minute) and to be fair, you should have purchased it on the weekend when the deal was running. They've not really confused anyone bar yourself here.

In regards to your argument about the shop, Valve are a 24 hour store. You can't compare them to a store that is open 9-5 because of the times in which these deals will take place. I have also known of some stores that will do early morning deals in order to entice consumers in, its a business technique and one that is widely used.
 
i missed the sale, i was mildly miffed. the reason i ran to the internet (lulz) is because i was more peeved at business practise, i wanted some opinions (as well as a vent).

my way of thinking is that goodwill is difficult to acquire and lost easily. Here, i see an instance where a little organisation/forethought/something, would have made a positive impact. It is something for very little.

Valve avoids more awkwardness on their international front (people seem disgruntled abot cross border pricing, again i would refer you to their forums) and reaps the goodwill from their weekend sale.

To answer some of the many points,

If you go on american time, it is even odder- late morning, early afternoon to close an extension.

it isnt a problem running american deadlines, just tell people that is your schedule and define it. i.e. extended until 17 feb 1300

mor94n, an early morning deals only works if you tell people it is early morning only i.e. opening to midday; which is what i suggest, delineated hours...

the upshot of it all is that i ahve had a thoroughly intersting conversation with you kind people. i dont have l4d, but i probably will pass my pass-these-exams-or-you-get-fired-exams as i have no distractions.

all's well that ends well.
 
Snax said:
In my experience, if something is listed as finishing on a certain day, it ends at the end of the day, not some random hour in the middle of the day.
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Doesn't have to work that way. They stated the deal ended on Feb 17th, and it did indeed end of Feb 17th. In fact you could argue that the deal was online for too long, and that it should have been terminated just after midnight on that day.

I wouldn't have minded picking this up on the cheap, I was kind of um-ing and ah-ing about it over the weekend as although it's highly rated, I don't like 'scary' games and I hardly ever play online games anymore except for Quakeworld. I'm certainly not going to cough up £27 for it so if Valve want my custom they'll need to slash their prices.
 
Snax said:
the deal was advertised as being extended. Meaning it ran longer than the weekend.

the argument comes down to semantics/what is customary- I presume that if something is advertised as ending on the 17th, it runs for the whole of the 17th. Confusion has come about because of a vaguery, it could have been easily avoided.
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You answered your own question.Yes the deal was advertised as being extended. Which it ran longer than the weekend, which it did!

The advertising states that it ends on the 17th, which it did! You are the only one that PRESUMED that meant the end of the day in the UK. Which is a bit ignorant of you as a customer.

You seem to be the only one who is confused by this. Most people know that valve never operate with UK times, look at all the posts about a game being released a certain time but does not correspond to UK time.

Unfortunately you missed the boat on this one but I am sure that it will come around again soon.

what sort of excuse is I was working at the weekend? In other words you couldnt be bothered to buy it after work or during your lunch?

And if you ask nicely I am sure that they will restructure ALL their future products and offers to revolve around your life. :eek:
 
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Valve did many people a favour keeping the deal going for a day or two.

The simple fact that you are complaining about valve making a good thing (weekend deal) better (extended deal) is a bit arrogant.

They are a brilliant company compared to some of the companies you find out there.
 
Snax said:
yah indeed and the forum post i liked up the top lists it as extended to 17th Jan

In my experience, if something is listed as finishing on a certain day, it ends at the end of the day, not some random hour in the middle of the day.

As I said, i was there during the afternoon and gone by the evening.

Ho hum, you win some you lose some.
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uhmmm... arent they based in the states? time difference maybe?
 
valve is based in america. they deal said ends on the 17th, and the deal ended when valve opened shop on the 17th. No lies, nothing unfair, you were just slow. They even extended the deal by an extra day!
 
kelik, blackhawk, bloodline,

you missed the primary point i was making; it is entirely up to valve when they end things. My request was they clarify running times so as to avoid confusion.

it is nothing to do with arrogance. i dont want them to change how they offer their deals etc, nor do i think that they should revolve the times of their deals around any nation. I just want them to be explicit about the nature of the running time and not vague.

yes there is a time difference with the states, but if you adjust for that it is still in the middle of the day for the states.

also, me working is not an excuse, it is a set of personal circumstances that led me not to be inclined to purchase the game on the weekend. im not blaming valve for outrageously extending their offer. im saying valve were mind-bogglingly and infuriatingly vague about the nature of that extension.

devil- good point, so the inference is that the extension ended when the shop recognised trade as occurring on the 17th? that makes sense. the terms of their extension are still vague and the fact that it has taken almost 100 posts for someone to make that deduction proves my point.
 
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I don't think Valve had to email us all saying "well it will end on the 17th at 30 seconds of the 3rd minute of the 12th hour"

Valve said that it was a weekend deal, so... you buy it Friday evening, or Saturday or Sunday :)
 
Snax said:
kelik, blackhawk, bloodline,

you missed the primary point i was making; it is entirely up to valve when they end things. My request was they clarify running times so as to avoid confusion.
.
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the one point you seem to be missing is, if infact it was on at 5.30pm and was gone by 7.30pm, well. A sale in a store, as you mention, normally will end when the staff go home and the store shuts. The majority of the support staff behind the scenes of the steam website and customer support people, the majority will work a 9-5 job like anyone else in the world. If it did indeed end somewhere around 5.30pm, when most of the staff have gone home for the day, I'm not sure where even your thought that its an arbitrary time comes into it.

The end of the day might officially be midnight, but for the majority of the planet, the end of the day normally refers to around the end of the business day unless otherwise specified.

Basically being pedantic and calling a company on doing something arbitrary by applying your own arbitrary(and immensely biased as you missed it) rules of your own.


But think of it as £14 saved, unlike me who wasted money on it. For those talking about how long they played it, that doesnt' really make it better value for money. If you bought tetris for £1 now and played it for 100 hours in the next few weeks because its addictive or you like it, it doesn't mean it would still be good value at £50, its a cheap to make game.

for me L4D has 4 maps, that offer identical gameplay throughout, every single encounter is identical and I can't fathom how anyone finds it so good. its ridiculously easy with even a semi competant team, and theres about 3 minutes of gameplay all told, before everything basically cycles over and over again. The only way it would ever become a good game would be to have much larger teams and multiple objectives, so one team has to hold area A protecting, a bridge from damage, while team b goes off to fix the train to go over the bridge and theres much more varied attacks from the enemy rather than the incredibly boring, easy uber rush every few minutes with one remotely difficult to kill guy in it. it needs, 10 more maps, 2-3 more game modes that actually, offer different gameplay and maps where the same gamemode will actually make you play differently.

Going back to a CS:S comparison, one map, you have multiple different options, hide in the shadows and snipe, defend an area, attack an area, go insane with a shotty, whatever. Every map, with multiple different players and attacks that can come in any strength at any time with no warning, essentially fairly unpredictable gameplay is whats needed of any online shooter. Thats I guess what it boils down to, L4D is the single most predictable online shooter I've ever played.

Either way, you're very clearly not desparate, Valve will get low sales and offer a cheap price on it again in the future, wait for another sale.
 
Snax said:
kelik, blackhawk, bloodline,

it is nothing to do with arrogance. i dont want them to change how they offer their deals etc, nor do i think that they should revolve the times of their deals around any nation. I just want them to be explicit about the nature of the running time and not vague.

QUOTE]

I didnt say arrogance, i said ignorance :D

Surely you understood when you posted that you would get this response. You missed out on an offer at the end of the day.
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Snax said:
mor94n, an early morning deals only works if you tell people it is early morning only i.e. opening to midday; which is what i suggest, delineated hours...
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I probably should have mentioned my point there :p, which is that morning cannot be defined just like the 17th of February. Sales end when the companies holding them say they will end and often the consumer does not recognise their view of time.
 
drunkenmaster said:
for me L4D has 4 maps, that offer identical gameplay throughout, every single encounter is identical and I can't fathom how anyone finds it so good. its ridiculously easy with even a semi competant team, and theres about 3 minutes of gameplay all told, before everything basically cycles over and over again....

L4D is the single most predictable online shooter I've ever played.
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Sounds like someone only played Coop up to advanced :)

Coop is repetative after a time (I was bored within a month or so and only play with newb friends these days).

Coop L4D is like CS:S with bots, no lifespan, linear, boring.

VS is the real multiplayer/online challenge that changes a fair bit each time. (Although maps available does suck, it will be fixed soon enough).

If you think it's easy come have a game with me on VS tongiht, the games I usually get going are pretty fair if not a whisker in it. Certainly not easy depending on who's on your team. If you haven't played much VS then I think you might have overlooked it a bit. I've got to know loads of OcUK gamers through it and have laughs on a daily basis. You're welcome to come along so I can perhaps change your mind about.

The same comparisons you can compare to CS:S really. The *good* maps that there are (handful?) are overplayed to the hilt. Dust 2 being the perfect example. Nothing new in that, even in mix/clan match scenarios.
 
On these deals do they put the time when it finishes i.e. Sunday 12pm and then the time zone PST, CST, GMT etc.

They probably should do for completeness and to avoid confusion because I would be slightly annoyed if I missed the offer by an hour due to this.
 
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