Why do steam sales always end 1 day earlier than advertised?

[whomichaelwho]

In Australia. 24 hours ago all the sales in my wishlist were on sale for a further 30 hours. Now none are on sale. I remember last year they also finished 1 day early..

[J4MESOX4D]

They don't. The end time is displayed clearly on the store page and its your job to convert the time. Steam is a global store and sales end at the same time for everybody regardless of what it is in their local region. There's a big banner and also a big countdown so I'm not sure how you missed the glaringly obvious details outside the date.

[Cathulhu]

All sales start and end at 10AM P(D)ST.
Lunar sale ended 16 hours ago, just as planned and announced.

[whomichaelwho]

I don't care when it was planned and announced. The counter on my screen when I went into each game said 30 hours. There is no conversion needed.

[Judgmental Amaterasu]

Originally posted by whomichaelwho:

I don't care when it was planned and announced. The counter on my screen when I went into each game said 30 hours. There is no conversion needed.

Yes there is. All sales/events are in Steam time which is P(D)ST

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

If they state time zone that what's the timer most likely base on. Google can help you figure out time zone comparison to your time zone, so you have an idea exactly when something ends.

Counter could glitch due to cache, or counter could be going by what your time on your clock being set wrong, that why when companies list date, time, and time zone this gives you that time range to know when it start to end.

If company base time launching game at midnight for NA EST time, of course it won't match what happening in AU as there huge time difference.

Anyways there always another sale that can happen, just watch out for what you wanted to get on sale. If you want can try checking key sites to see if can get game on sale on those, try using isthereanydeal.com to help find deals.

[J4MESOX4D]

Originally posted by whomichaelwho:

I don't care when it was planned and announced. The counter on my screen when I went into each game said 30 hours. There is no conversion needed.

The counter counts down how long a deal is left so if you failed with that then there is no hope of you being able to convert time.

Perhaps if you cared about such things that are in BIG BRIGHT LETTERS then you wouldn't run into this problem or maybe even don't leave it until the last day of an entire sale.

[nullable]

Originally posted by whomichaelwho:

I don't care when it was planned and announced. The counter on my screen when I went into each game said 30 hours. There is no conversion needed.

All we can tell you is how Steam has operated for the last 18 years. The sales begin and end at the same time for everyone.

If your claims were true I'd expect a decent number of Australians to be complaining about the bad info. I'd also expect that if counter was broken we'd all have seen some confusing results, not just Australians. And yet neither thing has really occurred.

It's possible you had an issue on your system. It's possible you misinterpreted the data. It's possible you don't understand when sales begin or end (as there's always a handfu of users who need 10am PDT/PST explained to them). Heck, it's possible you're making things up. It's a bit less possible that incorrect sale info is "always" isolated to your system and no one else seems too experience it.

I think there's an explanation here that probably isn't a Valve issue.

[DC-GS]

To not talk ♥♥♥♥, I just verified it myself.
The Remaining time shown is calculated (at least in Steam) based on locale time, not server time.

I used that game:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/861650/Session_Skateboarding_Sim_Game/
As of now, remaining time is 27h and few minutes.
I manipulated my time and set it 2h back. It showed me 29h remaining.

So if it does show you the wrong time, just fix your damned PC and set the correct time!

[B_Tannen]

Time zones!

[crunchyfrog]

Originally posted by whomichaelwho:

I don't care when it was planned and announced. The counter on my screen when I went into each game said 30 hours. There is no conversion needed.

Then you need to understand two things - how the internet works and timezones.

For a start counters can go wonky sometimes if you're seeing cached pages.

Second, timezones exist.

It is WELL known on here that when any timing takes place on the Steam store it is based on their local (Seattle) time -midday.

So if a sale ends on midday a particular day, that means here where I am in Britain that's 6pm.

[davidb11]

Apparently it's possible to glitch out the timer by messing with your system clock.
So, now we know that Steam's sale timer is based on your system clock.

[crunchyfrog]

Originally posted by davidb11:

Apparently it's possible to glitch out the timer by messing with your system clock.
So, now we know that Steam's sale timer is based on your system clock.

You can also do it if you have some cached pages or have some security or cookie management too.

[DC-GS]

Originally posted by crunchyfrog:

You can also do it if you have some cached pages

I doubt it.

The website does NOT contain the information for how long the sale will go.
It contains the end date and time. A clientside script will replace it with a countdown. The edndate wont change, so a cached date wont affect it. The current time is read from system, no cache involved.

[crunchyfrog]

Originally posted by DC-GS:

Originally posted by crunchyfrog:

You can also do it if you have some cached pages

I doubt it.

The website does NOT contain the information for how long the sale will go.
It contains the end date and time. A clientside script will replace it with a countdown. The edndate wont change, so a cached date wont affect it. The current time is read from system, no cache involved.

I am talking more from the point of view of confusing messages, rather than saying the countdown will be showing as still ongoing. I should have explained that better.

It can commonly happen where someone goes to buy a game on sale and it still shows as ON sale, but it ain't because the page is cached. We see it on here from time to time.

[DC-GS]

Originally posted by crunchyfrog:

Originally posted by DC-GS:

I doubt it.

The website does NOT contain the information for how long the sale will go.
It contains the end date and time. A clientside script will replace it with a countdown. The edndate wont change, so a cached date wont affect it. The current time is read from system, no cache involved.

I am talking more from the point of view of confusing messages, rather than saying the countdown will be showing as still ongoing. I should have explained that better.

It can commonly happen where someone goes to buy a game on sale and it still shows as ON sale, but it ain't because the page is cached. We see it on here from time to time.

I see.

Too bad I'm minutes late to test it myself. Sales just ended.
Curious what will it display. Still show on sale, but with counter run out? Or will the counter force a page reload?