cecil: I just thought of an idea for GOG and the insomniac sales don't make it 3 rounds make it 4 but less copies in each round so round 3 doesn't take a week by itself.
skeletonbow: Not sure how that would solve anything, we'd just end up with some games whizzing by even faster, and others taking slightly less long but repeating more times and people would complain that now they have to look 4 times instead of 3. The reality is that no matter how the promo is constructed, it will be greatly liked by some and greatly disliked by others because we all have different likes/dislikes and needs/desires. I mean... why only 4 rounds? :) Why not 5 rounds but even less copies each round? Or if that is better, why not 12 rounds with far far less copies each round? Why not just one game per round with 10000 rounds? :) The latter would definitely prevent games from stalling for hours for sure! :)
I don't think GOG can easily predict the rate that any particular game will sell at, and they will sell at different rates during different times of the day, in different regions etc. and that may also vary from one round to the next in Insomnia too. Insomnia wasn't designed to have a maximum time for a game to show, it was more or less intentionally unlimited time although I doubt they figured a game would stall it for 4-7 hours or more either. :) The only way to reliably ensure that a game does not stall a promo like this is to put a hard coded maximum time limit on it at which time it gets bumped for the next game in rotation. Anything else is fraught with unknowns that could end up still burning for hours on end. But if they put time limits on things then it kind of turns into a flash sale. Personally I like flash sales better, and ones that have games showing for 4 hours or more at a time as that gives a wide swath of time to see a game and act upon it while not requiring me to be glued to a website all day or check it too many times a day. But others prefer the minute by minute daily grind with the uncertainty of games stalling so who am I to rob them of that hehe. :)
I personally find the Insomnia promo my least-favourite, but I try to have fun with it and the community while it's on anyway and stay light hearted. If I happen to score some games while looking that's cool and if not and I miss out because something whizzed by, that's cool too. I will joke about games keaning also, but I'm not upset by it, nor bothered really. I just take whatever is there and try to make the best out of it knowing future promos are around the corner and some of them are more of a match for my preference and my day is coming soon... :)
GOG has a tough job of a delicate balancing act to create a promo that caters to as large of a group of people as possible while keeping the money coming in hand over fist. I don't envy their monumental task at trying to please us all while simultaneously knowing it is a losing game. A developer or designer behind something like that has a tough job as they know they're going to always universally get flak. They have to build up a tough skin to know it is impossible to always please all people and that there are always people that will dislike something very vocally, and know it's just "normal" and do their best and rest on it. :) Even though I'm not completely fond of all the aspects of Insomnia or other promos, I know they do their best and they also listen to feedback and adapt over time so we're in good hands. :)
The hard coded timer was my second post/thought on the subject. I like the everything on sale method but the trouble with that is it tends to be like only 50% off so not really that great a "sale"... I can't complain though I got one free game from critical hit and bought 2 would have cost me 26 buck got everything for I think $4.
EDIT: Almost forgot I got one from Tarnicus need to give credit where credit is due.
EDIT 2: just did the math and it came to 85% off retail so far for me.
