ARGs and similar types of viral marketing can be a novel way to engage customers into your brand, but at the same time you run the risk of it leaving a worse im

ARGs and similar types of viral marketing can be a novel way to engage customers into your brand, but at the same time you run the risk of it leaving a worse impression of your brand if at the end they feel it was a waste of time and nothing more than a roundabout way to say "Be sure to drink your Ovaltine". People immediately cried foul citing contractual agreements with retailers not to break the street date and thus saying that Valve cannot release no earlier than midnight on original launch date, and once users had data about the fill rate of the progress bars, it was calculated that at best a 6am Tuesday release would be shorted by a few hours. It felt like an unwinnable situation to those in the know. While Valve is a company known for experimenting on its customer base, and everyone that complained still bought the game anyway, it does seem a bit cruel to lead your fanbase on a wild goose chase that ended in essentially a ransom to release the game. In the end it boiled down to "Pay us $X or else you'll have to wait to play the game you've already paid for, oh, and you'll still have to wait 90% of the time anyway."