DarkCntry wrote on Apr 18, 2011, 20:00:
a bullet-point in describing a scam.
Ok fine, since you need bullet points.
- Months ago valve begins planning portal 2 release
- During the planning they decide they will release/unlock the game soon after midnight EST on Tuesday 19th
- Shortly afterwards a marketing guy comes up with an idea. "Hey, lets run a multi game cross publisher promotion that requires additional sales and playtime but only gives people the illusion of being able to unlock the game early. We'll have to 'push' the release date forward from our originally planned midnight to early morning to give us the room to call it an early release
- A programmer says "well just in case not enough people work on it, we need a way to adjust the release clock to our preplanned near midnight time, so lets introduce potatoes to give us a fudge factor
The exact sequence maybe didn't happen in that order with those exact words, but I'm convinced that the overall planning and end effect is that.
Linksil wrote on Apr 18, 2011, 20:14:
Time zones don't matter for count downs. Right now it's 5pm West coast, There's 6 hours left on the countdown. It's been taking 1 hour off for each of the last 3 games. 4 games left means fastest we'll have it is in 2 hours. If not somewhere between here and there. Here's hoping it just auto unlocks when all the games are done.
It matters that the release tiem is AFTER midnight in at least 1 time zone in USA, so that retailers can't come after valve for screwing them over in digital vs retail sales. Retailers can get in big trouble for releasing a game before its street date. I wouldn't put it past gamestop to try and turn that around on valve and tell them they aren't getting shelf space if they screw them over like that.
Also, its been roughly 50 mins per game if you look at the difference between the 2 timers on the glados page, and divide that difference by the completed games.
This comment was edited on Apr 18, 2011, 20:26.