Thread: Steam downtime?

Originally Posted by Ewok

I'm positive they understand it. They just choose not to do it that way; take that to mean what you will.

Valve has a tendency to value their developers over their customers (i.e. deny the customers gaming time vs make their devs work at odd hours).

Exactamundo. With businesses, scheduled downtime is done during non-business hours to minimize cost and profit loss. All Steam has to worry about is temporarily burdening part of the gaming community (no financial loss) and losing some purchases from the store, which most likely will be picked up when the store goes back online (minimal financial loss), all while keeping their rollout/testing crew happy they dont have to pull an all-nighter.

Originally Posted by flame

So run it at 8am and deal with any bugs during the business day. Doing it at end of business day means that problems would happen at night and remain over night til next morning.

If you think worst case scenario though, being a complete SNAFU of Steam, leading to 8 hours of downtime. Would you rather have it down throughout an entire day when most people play or an entire nite when most people dont? Usually a rollout has a gameplan and a 'Plan B' if things go awry. If something goes wrong, it wont be left until the next day to be fixed. It will be fixed then and there.

Plus, the US is not the only country that plays Steam games. No matter when they schedule it they are impacting prime time for us, Europe, Asia, someone.

Originally Posted by Ewok

I'm positive they understand it. They just choose not to do it that way; take that to mean what you will.

Valve has a tendency to value their developers over their customers (i.e. deny the customers gaming time vs make their devs work at odd hours).

Primetime IS an odd choice for working hours. The reason the TV networks chose and designated primetime as they did is because most people are at home ready to be entertained during those hours. Normal working hours are 9-5.

Though it is a stupid time for an update, does it matter all that much, you can still play the game just you wont have the unlocks. Too bad for MF! though thats a bummer. Could you just do it at 9?