Valve: 'How a US company can leave the rest of the world in the dark'...

Malarkee

Malarkee

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You think that they could of made more of the fact that for EU countries preload and play is a day late of their times.

fair enough if they'd had GMT times etc but all Valve told the world was 'the 16th'

not that I'm angry or anything but I do feel once again they've had bad PR.

(*sorry if this has been said*)
 
I think you're nuts. :D
The world isn't so small yet that you cant expect to have to wait a little. Techinically you still get it at the same time as everyone else.
 
There's no way that they could have preloaded on the 16th without it being the 17th for someone unless it was very early in the morning. Why would Valve use GMT? It's their timezone, people are expected to use common sense.
 
Not sure why that would be bad PR? If they are releasing something on the 16th...and they are in the US.....wouldnt it be fairly easy to assume they are releasing it on the 16th according to their location?

If I'm reading what you're saying correctly it would be like getting mad at someone because they wished you a happy b-day late because they are in a different time zone. Seems like kinda a petty reason to complain.
 
Feath said:
There's no way that they could have preloaded on the 16th without it being the 17th for someone unless it was very early in the morning. Why would Valve use GMT? It's their timezone, people are expected to use common sense.
Click to expand...

and u know.. u make so much sense with this post of urs but im willing to bet money that some whiner is gonna come here and create a thread about how Valve were a day or a few hours late.

i think what pple dismiss or don't even think of is the world wide release idea.. i mean at whatever date they decide.. at some point in the world, its gonna be late at night.. perhaps even 2AM in the morning.. is that convienent for pple in that country? probably not but tough luck..

the world is not perfect.. deal with it.. :P
 
I get the feeling that Valve can do nothing right, and people would complain about anything they do.
 
Feath said:
I get the feeling that Valve can do nothing right, and people would complain about anything they do.
Click to expand...

I was sure that Valve would never release the game and now they're going to release it soon!
Damn the you Valve! Damn the you!
 
Feath said:
I get the feeling that Valve can do nothing right, and people would complain about anything they do.
Click to expand...

This is true. Any date that Valve gives is obviously going to be the US date. Pretty easy to wrap your brain around.
 
Dr. Freeman said:
i think what pple dismiss or don't even think of is the world wide release idea.. i mean at whatever date they decide.. at some point in the world, its gonna be late at night.. perhaps even 2AM in the morning.. is that convienent for pple in that country? probably not but tough luck..
Click to expand...


Actually that's not true. On a world wide release New Zealand gets games 20 hours before America :)
 
Malarkee said:
You think that they could of made more of the fact that for EU countries preload and play is a day late of their times.

fair enough if they'd had GMT times etc but all Valve told the world was 'the 16th'

not that I'm angry or anything but I do feel once again they've had bad PR.

(*sorry if this has been said*)
Click to expand...
It was a big screw up, the world revolves around you and in accordance with that Valve should be killed for thinking that any date other than yours is the correct date.
 
Damn them! Don't they realize that the world revolves around EST?? I'm going to petition the World Government to amend the Global Constitution to force all Timezone to syncronize with the East Coast!!

Who's with me? Let's rise up and demand our due!

Also, it's "Syncronise" for our British friends! ;-)
 
Valve is an American company, simple as that. What more do you want? Should all TV stations in the world change their times to reflect GMT as others around the world might be watching?
 
iamaelephant said:
Actually that's not true. On a world wide release New Zealand gets games 20 hours before America :)
Click to expand...

u missed my point...
i meant.. with a world wide release... at some point.. some gamers in some countrie(s) will be upset because for them it would be late at night.. i never said anything about New Zealand in particular.

anyway, Feath is right.. Valve can not do anything right.. some pple will find a reason to be upset. :|
 
Someone said:
If I'm reading what you're saying correctly it would be like getting mad at someone because they wished you a happy b-day late because they are in a different time zone. Seems like kinda a petty reason to complain.
Click to expand...

well you kind of read it right, no ones mad and I'm not really complaining. Just pointing out that the time zones could of been made clearer

seems a light hearted thread has been turned into a 'you want the moon on a stick, go and die noob and leave VALVe alone thread'...

Yes, I know its imposible to have it come out at a convienient time for every one (or infact a world wide release on the same date) but VALVe is not an american TV station that is mainly watched in the US (and infact all the world wide digital (as the majority of world wide channels are) BBC channels change their time zones accordingly) they are globaly marketing a game to a large multi country fan base and I just feel more could have been done to point this out (I'm well aware we're a day behind - we get steam updates on a thursday)

I'm glad the majority of you saw my first post as an angry rant too (??? why)
 
Malarkee said:
I'm glad the majority of you saw my first post as an angry rant too (??? why)
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because its become typical of users to hate on Valve ever since September 30th, 2003.

i don't know how long u have been browsing this site (besides ur registration date) but if u have been browsing this site for a few months.. then u shouldn't need any explaining the "hatin' on Valve" threads have become an annoyance.

couple that with ur original post... and perhaps u can see why some pple here are not taking this thread too well.

its not an excuse.. just the way things have been since September 30th, 2003.
 
well, a world-wide release with a day wait for some regions is better than a North America release followed by a European/Asian/Pacific release months later.
 
Dr. Freeman said:
because its become typical of users to hate on Valve ever since September 30th, 2003.

i don't know how long u have been browsing this site (besides ur registration date) but if u have been browsing this site for a few months.. then u shouldn't need any explaining the "hatin' on Valve" threads have become an annoyance.

couple that with ur original post... and perhaps u can see why some pple here are not taking this thread too well.

its not an excuse.. just the way things have been since September 30th, 2003.
Click to expand...

I've been lurking here long enough to know that 'OMG VALVe sucks, I refuse to buy the game because of steam' threads get shunned on here but it seems that its now gotten to the stage where most criticism threads get it because the community is so rampent with the usual rubbish.

I'm not a VALVe hater though, I've always stood by them but the I just think that this is another example of poor PR.
 
[sarcasm]Wow, Valve is an American company. That means by default the rest of the world hates them! LOL![/sarcasm]

It's coming. Just be paitent. They haven't forgotten about you.
 
VALVe people have lives that start early in the AM and go late into the night.It's absurd to think VALVe should reconfigure their schedules to please gamers 9 time zones away.

Everyone gets it at the exact same time over STEAM...
 
are people actualy reading the post and thread? or just scim reading it and assuming that its VALVe bashing?

For the last time: NO - No one expects Valve to be working to release the game at 3 am in the morning to please every on. That is not the issue

The issue is that world wide people where told solid dates (the 16 etc) but where not properly told about more specific times/dates for their area (eg early morning on the 17th for this country and late night on the 16th for that country etc)

Personally I knew that the UK would probably get it at about 2 am on the 17th because we get stea updates then on a thursday (not wednsday like in the US).

But the majority of people got so hyped about the release that no matter where ever they were the ' the 16th' was the date the would get it.

If VALVes PR team had pulled their weight abit then all the confusion. And no I'm not hating valve or having a serious dig but honestly, how long would it have taken the PR guys to figure out different dates for the 5 continents?
 
Malarkee said:
are people actualy reading the post and thread? or just scim reading it and assuming that its VALVe bashing?

For the last time: NO - No one expects Valve to be working to release the game at 3 am in the morning to please every on. That is not the issue

The issue is that world wide people where told solid dates (the 16 etc) but where not properly told about more specific times/dates for their area (eg early morning on the 17th for this country and late night on the 16th for that country etc)

Personally I knew that the UK would probably get it at about 2 am on the 17th because we get stea updates then on a thursday (not wednsday like in the US).

But the majority of people got so hyped about the release that no matter where ever they were the ' the 16th' was the date the would get it.

If VALVes PR team had pulled their weight abit then all the confusion. And no I'm not hating valve or having a serious dig but honestly, how long would it have taken the PR guys to figure out different dates for the 5 continents?
Click to expand...
It's their own stupid fault. Valve's PR team aren't to blame. If Valve say to me "we're releasing on the 16th" I take into consideration that they're talking about their local time, and then take into consideration that that's probably going to be after midnight in my local time.

I don't understand what the big issue is. In fact, it's not an issue, it's just you being pedantic.
 
You know, in the book "So long, and thanks for all the fish" (4th book in the Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy "Trilogy") there's a character who has declared the rest of the world insane. He did this because one day he looked at a toothpick packet and he saw that there were instructions. He decided that a world that needed to have instructions on a toothpick packet had clearly lost its mind.

Likewise, I think a world in which someone needs to be told to compensate for time difference when an American company says a time or date, is a world that needs help.

This isn't a "Valve PR" thing, this is more of a "common sense" thing.
 
Chris_D said:
I don't understand what the big issue is. In fact, it's not an issue, it's just you being pedantic.
Click to expand...

me being pedantic?...

Sorry but my first post was just ment to be light hearted (read the thread title ffs...) but within about 5 replies I was basicly being called an impatient noob by people who didn't understand/read what I said.

Yeah feath I guess the world is getting pretty insane :D
I'm not saying that its not stupid to think that VALVe could possibly have done a world wide release at the same calander date for every country (like I've said about 3 times now ;p).

But the fact is that people are stupid enough and hyped enough to think that, VALVe could of saved alot of forum spam if they'd just made it a bit clearer :D
 
Judging by the general intelligence of internet forums, I'd imagine that we'd get just as many posts off people asking what time zone they are in.
 
well then maybe Valve should draw a giant map in felt tim with HUGE fingers pointing to where people live (using IP tracing ;)) bunch of noobs I HATEZ VAVLE OMNG!

OK. maybe I am being pedantic now :p
 
iamaelephant said:
Actually that's not true. On a world wide release New Zealand gets games 20 hours before America :)
Click to expand...
Yes, it's nice living here. Often when there is a worldwide release date, they just say "the 16th" for example, and we get it when it's the 16th here while it is still the 15th everywhere else, then by the time it becomes the 16th there, it's already the 17th here and we've had it for 1 day.

This probably won't apply to a steam release, for obvious reasons.

Also, some releases take account for this and release it here 1 day later, LotR was a notable example, but even so we got it 2 hours before the USA did.

u missed my point...
i meant.. with a world wide release... at some point.. some gamers in some countrie(s) will be upset because for them it would be late at night.. i never said anything about New Zealand in particular.
Click to expand...
Depends on how it works. I have never seen a game come out with an -exact- worldwide release of a specific time, only a specific day. In those cases, NZ wins out by 19-20 hours.

If it is a specific time, then what you suggest is correct, and no one country is ahead of the rest. This was how the 5th Harry Potter book was launched, it came out at 11.01 am here (while it was 12.01 midnight in england).
 
Anybody that things valve should use Zulu time for their Steam servers is smoking crack.

Why would the incur the cost of having people doing the roll out in the middle of the night and incur the additional confusion of having their servers on a timer different than local?
 
Doesn't Swatch (the wrist watch makers) have their own time system that is the same all over the globe? I think its for skiers, though i don't see how.

hmm pedantic, time to whip out the dictionary
 
Malarkee said:
*bangs head off wall*
*shoots brains out*
Click to expand...

poor guy... :laugh:
i hope u understood Chris_D's post...hes right in saying what he did.
 
Order your .html copy of Malarkee's controversial thread at HL2.net!

"This thread is a great read!" -alehm

"ROTFLMAO LOLLERSKATES!" - silent night

"American pendantics at its best. This would never happen in Canada." -Cpt Stern

"Malarke SUCKS!!!11"- staddydaddy
 
did he miss his head with that gunshot?
Omg, I can't even hit a person from 3 feet away
--Man who knew too little
Who worked at a local blockbusteR : )
 
It's common sense to think that they'd go off of the US time zone they live in... PST.

To think anything else would be... well, foolish. Don't let your hopes make you ignorant.
 
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