It makes sense to me too... ;)

Thank you for the answer. But I still think your decision was a bit unfortunate. There were just 8-10 deals left. Wouldn't it have been better to put them on the mainpage all at once for an hour or two, just to make sure that no onen misses the deal he or she was waiting for?

Of course I don't have any idea if that solution would have been possible from a technical point of view.

Just a suggestion to stem off an Internet lynch mob in the future... Update the web code to trickle the game counts down artificially on slow moving games so that all of the games proceed as normal but don't hold up long enough to roll past the maximum time you intended the sale to run. Just have it auto-decrement slow movers every N seconds to help "push them along". This would accomplish several things actually. Everyone would get a chance for the games they expect the number of times they expect, games that stick around long would stick around shorter which shouldn't be a problem anyway because people aren't wanting them as bad indicating they have been over-allocated, so it's just an allocation correction, and it makes sure the promo ends on or before you expect without anyone getting their feathers ruffled over it. :)

Just an idea... free of charge. :)

It's certainly true that sales were quite slow, but looking at my statistics, the hours leading up to the end of the sale were *generally* quite slow throughout the sale. At least to me, it seemed quite likely that it would have ended on its own sometime today - in fact, I would not be surprised if it would have ended on its own by now. I don't know if that was factored into your decision to cut it short, but it seems like a relevant data point, at least.

As others have suggested, a time limit on each title would probably be a good idea if we get another insomnia sale in the future. This could be a fixed time limit (X hours), after which the deal is immediately ended, or a gradual trickle every X minutes without a sale (which in turn implies a fixed time limit of X minutes*Y copies, but avoids any jarring transitions).

More awesomeness for GOG? How may that be possible ;)

Yes, that could definitely work. Say for example pegging each game at 5 hours max, and then decreasing the total quantity available by one-fifth every hour (assuming less than one-fifth has sold during that time). The only real downside to this is that it removes some of the organic flow, such a title sticking around long enough for some sleepers to eventually catch. But that is a minor consideration and is offset by the advantages of a time limit. Plus GOG could then be sure of a maximal running time and plan accordingly.


EDIT: typo

As others said, less copies for round 3 would have helped a lot. It would have ended sooner than the artificial cut.

[rant]I was specifically waiting for the AVGN movie (I know, not the best movie here, but I love the episodes and wanted to contribute), which I missed twice while I was sleeping. It was three days of constantly checking gog.com (and also watching other games in case something interested me), trying not to sleep much time in one go, and finally the sale was cancelled when only a few items remained (one of them the movie I wanted).

One last sale with all remaining games and movies at the same time for one or two hours of limited time would have been enough for many people. Just a bit more time for us, and more money for GOG. You could have earned my 3.60€ for that movie. Now it's 0€ (until the next sale :p).
[/rant]

I know these sales must be madness and very hard for the GOG staff, but it's sad that this happened without any announcement or anything. A countdown saying "XX:XX until the Insomnia sale ends. Remaning games won't appear." would have helped us understand the situation and not be mad about this.

That being said, don't take this as a hate post, just as an advice for future sales of this kind.

Edit: others' ideas for time limits for each game sound very good.

Thanks for the reply. :)

I'd have cut the numbers of available keys for each game left down so that at least the cycle is through, but whatever, I appreciate the reaction and explanation although it's what I've thought will be the reasion anyway.

Apparantly during Insomnia promos everyone suffers. I wonder who invented these horrible things. ;)

Do I detect a smidgen of sarcasm? :P

Wasn't Insomnia a 96-hour deal?

No, that was merely the non-stop Twitch stream.

Well, my solution would be look like this, but I guess that would be some work for the programmers:
If a game didn`t sell out after, let`s say, 3 hours, then the remaining copies should be reduced by a fixed amount, 1/5 or 1/4, if after an additional hour the game still isn`t sold out then it should go into the "last chance mode", meaning the game is only available for 10 more minutes. There should also be shown a countdown in flashing red digits, to make clear that this is serious! After those ten minutes the next game should show up.

Yes, the non-stop twitching that accompanied Insomnia lasted much longer.