What do you get out of that? Once a new game is on you have a set period of time to buy it if you are interested, why make that longer, and torture those who aren't?

TET's words

I add a second to the timer when I already bought the game in the past, but want to express that I really like it and think it should stay for a while, so more people can get the chance to see and buy it (not everyone of us can watch the sale the whole time).

Would be interesting to know if people actually make use of that button, because my guess would be that most don't. If the offer appeals to you and you buy it, you automatically add 3 seconds but are not allowed to add more manually. If the offer doesn't interest you because it's not your kind of game or because you already own it, you're much more likey to subtract seconds to see what's next.

The only reason I could see why someone should want to manually add seconds is because they're currently in a situation where they can't buy the game (like a business meeting or the loo, without their credit card in reach :P ) and they desperately hope that the sale will go on until they're ready. ;)

Edit: Ah, ninja'd and proven wrong by an "offender" by conviction. :D

People do. Keep an eye on the banner and every x seconds you see + or - seconds.
Plus is green text, minus is white text.

Ah, ok, but the + seconds are also caused by purchases, aren't they? So it's hard to tell if someone actually pushed the button, unless the number of + votes can't be divided by 3. EDIT: Which seems to happen quite a lot, so I guess you're right.

I could turn that around and say: People who may have to go away to work or elsewhere soon get to see less games because people just keep adding seconds.

I think it's somewhat of a pointless feature.

This sale certainly lacks the excitement of the Fall Insomnia one.

I think -/+5 seconds per vote and +3 per purchase would work a lot better.

it's the boobs. more seconds are added as punishment for every second someone stares at them.

By "those who aren't", you mean you ?

I'm frightened by the egocentrism of all these "i've seen the sale, skip it SKIP IT NOW IT HAS SERVED ITS FUNCTION AS I MYSELF HAVE SEEN IT".

I add a second to games that deserve to be displayed longer, to reduce (of, omg, one second) the chance of someone interested missing it. But yeah I get your point. I hope next sale will have a vote button, that allows to end the offer if more than 5 people (or maybe just you) have no interest in it. That would hopefully minimise your agony.

But it's much healthier for our sanity... and the servers, it seems. As it is now 20 people buying a game now expand a deal by a minute *for everyone*. 200 expand it by ten minutes, 1200 purchases already by a whole hour. It sounds like a decent balance between keeping a popular deal up and keeping things moving.

Edit: Oh, I misread it, I thought you meant it should be 5 seconds per purchase, not vote. Well, I'm glad purchases have a bigger impact because they are more honest feedback than votes. :P

People who are sleeping see less games because people just keep downvoting less popular games. Some of these titles didn't even get half of their allotted time.

Personally, I'm not a fan of sales with such short timeframes - it's too easy to miss games you want. At least this one has a mechanic for extending them, unlike the Insomnia sale.

The tactic employed by Valve during Summer Sales etc. - 8 hours per sale - seems to be a much better choice, since far more people get a chance to see it - but I will give GOG some credit for trying something different.

I'm not the only one, others increase the staying time of games they think deserves more visibility, and it's perfectly fine.

And no, it's not a good point : a blink-and-you'll-miss-it offer has less chances to be seen and benefitted from than one that stays for a little while. These "RAARHHH SKIP THE GAME THAT I'VE ALREADY SEEN" come from people who happen to be at the right place in the right minute (to see the offer and its "what's next"), and can't think or care about people who aren't.

They basically want a 30-sales-in-one-hour promo run, and of course, assume that it would happen during that hour where they're in front of the screen.

Yeah, it's well thought-out actually. The deals stay up roughly as long as the average person sleeps so barely anyone will miss a deal due to having a healthy amount of sleep. :P