Why is the sale over before the day is over?

[slark lvl 3]

This morning I was browsing the sale that was said it's going to be up from 28th till the 1st and decided which games to buy later that day after I finish work. But when I NOW tried to buy it says that the sale is over EVEN THO ITS STILL THE SAME DAY - THE 1ST OF NOVEMBER.

So of course my guess would be that now y'all gonna tell me it counts for a certain time zone ESTPASTE+123 whatever the ♥♥♥♥ they are with their stupid abbreviations to which I would simply ask - why? Why should it be this way? Why can't it be until the end of the said day? Many companies do that. There is literally. LITERALLY ZERO downside or loss for the company or whoever else. I just cannot see it. Another argument I predict from y'all it would be that some people from the eastern countries could change locations to extend their sale time with a few hours to which I would ask so what? Why would that be any kind of a problem to anyone? The corporation can't possible lose anything from this. I just literally don't understand it. It is mind boggling.

[Seretti]

10 years on Steam and you still haven't noticed that sales tend to start and end at 10 am pacific time?

[Aachen]

Sales always end at 10 am PST.

[Crazy Tiger]

Sales always have the same start and end time: 10 AM PST.

Store pages have a countdown timer for the last 24 (or 48 hours, unsure about the exact duration), so it's shown on there how long it lasts.

[MoonC A T]

In addition to what others have said, you do realize that if the sale ended at 11:59pm YOUR TIME, that would not be the case for people in other areas of the world.

[Cat]

It was a Halloween sale. Why would you schedule your purchase for the evening after Halloween. They literally give you a countdown timer too.

[Mad Scientist]

Seriously, if you've been on Steam for 10 years and didn't just buy that account, this would be nothing new to you. Not to mention you had plenty of days on the sale, of which ends tomorrow at 10AM PST.

You have plenty of time after work or otherwise on free time to make a purchase, it's not Steams fault people don't use any available off-time to purchase something, as sale times are constant until the sale ends.

[nullable]

Originally posted by slark lvl 3:

This morning I was browsing the sale that was said it's going to be up from 28th till the 1st and decided which games to buy later that day after I finish work. But when I NOW tried to buy it says that the sale is over EVEN THO ITS STILL THE SAME DAY - THE 1ST OF NOVEMBER.

So of course my guess would be that now y'all gonna tell me it counts for a certain time zone ESTPASTE+123 whatever the ♥♥♥♥ they are with their stupid abbreviations to which I would simply ask - why? Why should it be this way? Why can't it be until the end of the said day?Many companies do that. There is literally. LITERALLY ZERO downside or loss for the company or whoever else. I just cannot see it. Another argument I predict from y'all it would be that some people from the eastern countries could change locations to extend their sale time with a few hours to which I would ask so what? Why would that be any kind of a problem to anyone? The corporation can't possible lose anything from this. I just literally don't understand it. It is mind boggling.

A company could choose to juggle multiple timezones to start and end sales. Some companies choose to. It's a perfectly fine way to operate. But there's no specific reason why every company has to. Starting and ending the sale at the same time for everyone is a perfectly simple and sane way to do things.

After all you complained about when the sale ended. Well if Valve operated the sale based on tiemzones, people would also complain about having to wait for sales to start while everyone else in eligible timezones is already on the sale.

No matter what you do someone, somewhere is going to have an argument of inconvenience. And Valve can't make everyone happy. So they might as well make themselves happy.

And I can tell you as a developer, dealing with timezones, screwy date math, daylight savings time and the like really blows. If I had the option to skip all that and run everything off UTC or my local timezone I am never going to opt to torture myself managing timezones.

Valve had that option, and they elected to keep it simple for them. And it seems to work well enough where hundreds of millions of other users aren't that put out by it.

[rawWwRrr]

Originally posted by slark lvl 3:

So of course my guess would be that now y'all gonna tell me it counts for a certain time zone ESTPASTE+123 whatever the ♥♥♥♥ they are with their stupid abbreviations to which I would simply ask - why? Why should it be this way? Why can't it be until the end of the said day?

So you know the answer, then. But as others have said it's always been at the 10AM PST/PDT hour of said day.

And if it were "the end of said day", whose end of the day do they observe? Midnight where you live isn't Midnight for everyone on Earth. Steam is a worldwide available service. Which Midnight are they supposed to observe? Far better to observe the same specific time all of the time so everyone becomes accustomed to it, theoretically given your circumstance.

And there will always be another sale. Autumn and Winter sales are coming before the end of the year. Plenty of opportunities to get the games you want on sale.

[Vomitur]

Originally posted by NightCat:

It was a Halloween sale. Why would you schedule your purchase for the evening after Halloween. They literally give you a countdown timer too.

Because not everyone is available during these days. Most of us that work weeks through weekends/holidays are ♥♥♥♥♥♥. Thanks again, Valve, for your considerate timings. At least you'd end the sale at Novermber 1st 23:39...

I didn't even get to see this year's sale splash screen.

Originally posted by rawWwRrr:

And if it were "the end of said day", whose end of the day do they observe? Midnight where you live isn't Midnight for everyone on Earth. Steam is a worldwide available service. Which Midnight are they supposed to observe? Far better to observe the same specific time all of the time so everyone becomes accustomed to it, theoretically given your circumstance.

Easy answer. GMT. Or, even easier: Ends @ 23:59 of said day for each time zone. How would that be something difficult? Doesn't it already does that? Didn't it end at 5pm for every time zone? Lol, what a sorry excuse.

[Chika Ogiue]

Originally posted by Vomitur:

Easy answer. GMT. Or, even easier: Ends @ 23:59 of said day for each time zone. How would that be something difficult? Doesn't it already does that? Didn't it end at 5pm for every time zone? Lol, what a sorry excuse.

No. Sales don't end at the same clock time for everyone. Steam sales end at 10 am PST, which for me is either 2 am or 3 am depending on whether the clocks have gone back/forward for PST.

As a customer it isn't difficult to learn when sales start or end in your timezone. On the other hand, it would be a logistical nightmare for Valve and developers/publishers to manage staggered timezones. They'd immediately see an increase in attempted VPN usage for one thing (even though that's not going to help people). Worse, though, they'd see an increase in accounts attempting to "trade" games by having people send their log in info so someone in a current sale zone can get them a game cheaper before their own zone rolls into a sale. That's just a headache when someone ultimately winds up with their account stolen, etc.

[Wizardhermit]

What I don't understand is the "I was going to wait until after work to buy games". 1: you have 4 days to buy the games... 2: you can buy the games on your phone with the app at any time.

[rawWwRrr]

Originally posted by Vomitur:

Originally posted by rawWwRrr:

And if it were "the end of said day", whose end of the day do they observe? Midnight where you live isn't Midnight for everyone on Earth. Steam is a worldwide available service. Which Midnight are they supposed to observe? Far better to observe the same specific time all of the time so everyone becomes accustomed to it, theoretically given your circumstance.

Easy answer. GMT. Or, even easier: Ends @ 23:59 of said day for each time zone. How would that be something difficult? Doesn't it already does that? Didn't it end at 5pm for every time zone? Lol, what a sorry excuse.

Your easiest answer was choosing a specific time in a different time zone? How is that different or better than what Steam is already doing? It's not like at midnight GMT that it's midnight everywhere at that time. You don't have a grasp on timezones to begin with yet your second solution is that the sale should end at each timezones midnight like that's a simple solution.

Here's an even easier solution just for you. Place the games on your Wishlist and Steam will email you directly the moment they go on sale so you can purchase them immediately without having to plan your purchase before the vague ending time.

[76561198407601200]

Originally posted by Vomitur:

Originally posted by NightCat:

It was a Halloween sale. Why would you schedule your purchase for the evening after Halloween. They literally give you a countdown timer too.

Because not everyone is available during these days. Most of us that work weeks through weekends/holidays are ♥♥♥♥♥♥.

The sale was several days long. I find it hard to believe you had not even an hour to spare in that time to browse AND purchase games. I work and have worked saturdays recently, yet managed to purchase games.

[Judgmental Amaterasu]

Originally posted by Vomitur:

Originally posted by NightCat:

It was a Halloween sale. Why would you schedule your purchase for the evening after Halloween. They literally give you a countdown timer too.

Because not everyone is available during these days. Most of us that work weeks through weekends/holidays are ♥♥♥♥♥♥. Thanks again, Valve, for your considerate timings. At least you'd end the sale at Novermber 1st 23:39...

I didn't even get to see this year's sale splash screen.

Originally posted by rawWwRrr:

And if it were "the end of said day", whose end of the day do they observe? Midnight where you live isn't Midnight for everyone on Earth. Steam is a worldwide available service. Which Midnight are they supposed to observe? Far better to observe the same specific time all of the time so everyone becomes accustomed to it, theoretically given your circumstance.

Easy answer. GMT. Or, even easier: Ends @ 23:59 of said day for each time zone. How would that be something difficult? Doesn't it already does that? Didn't it end at 5pm for every time zone? Lol, what a sorry excuse.

Yes Valve is supposed to magically cater to LITERALLY MILLIONS of different people on different schedules. You had plenty of time. Your inability to manage time isn't Valve's problem.

[ReBoot]

Originally posted by Vomitur:

How would that be something difficult?

That's a rhetorical question, right? Or do you think it's the client's decision whether a sale is going or not?