Saturday 29 November 2014

Black Friday 2014 analysis

Black Friday has landed! The pandemonium sweeping the globe is being replicated in Restaurant Story, where a large assortment of items have been brought back for a short time at discounted prices.

As usual on Black Friday, there's a 40% off gems sale to tempt your palette.

Limited time 40% off gems offer

This was the ideal opportunity if you planned to buy gems, as this sale doesn't usually happen at any other time of year (with the possible exception of Cyber Monday). The sale is now gone, although some of the items up for grabs are still in the market following something of a fiasco. Before we get to that, let's take a look at the 20 strong list of decorations included in the Black Friday bonanza, with the prices they had for the majority of Black Friday:

Black Friday 2014 sale items

And with some extra details, here's one of my famous tables:

Item Cost Notes
Giant Snowman* 14 gems Limited time offer in Dec 2011
Pink Tree* 3 gems Originally available in Dec 2011
Holiday Fireplace* 7 gems Originally available in Dec 2012
Holiday Cake Display 13 gems Originally available in Dec 2012
Robot Waiter 10 gems Limited time offer in Apr 2012
Pirate Fountain 17 gems Limited time offer in Aug 2013
Grandma's Kitchen 28 gems Limited time offer in Dec 2013
Festive Frenchie 5 gems Originally available in Dec 2013
New Year Party 24 gems Limited time offer in Jan 2014
Curvy Kitchen 26 gems Limited time offer in Jan 2014
Mother's Day Bear 8 gems Limited time offer in May 2012
Cider Bar 27 gems Limited time offer in Sep 2013
Thanksgiving Dinner 24 gems Limited time offer in Nov 2013
Autumn Cupcake Stand 11 gems Limited time offer in Nov 2012
Zen Garden 24 gems Discounted (normally 34 gems)
Sandwich Display 14 gems Discounted (normally 20 gems)
Spring Lunch 25 gems Limited time offer in Mar 2014
Baroque Column 7 gems Limited time offer in Aug 2012
Holiday Train 28 gems Limited time offer in Dec 2013
Pumpkin Counter 6 gems Originally available in Dec 2013

(*) This item is available for a longer period as part of the most recent weekly update, but at a higher price.

This is a distinctly different sale from the ones that have been available in previous years. In particular there are no box items have been released to purchase. Only limited time offers of the past and content which has been removed at some stage are making an appearance. And another alteration is the theme of the decorations in the sale. Usually there's a wide range of different seasons and concepts covered by the available items, but this time round there is a slight emphasis on Christmas themed stuff.

Unfortunately my feelings on all of this are not good. I hesitate to complain about the contents of a sale since TeamLava aren't under any obligation to do them at all, but nevertheless I can't hide my disappointment. The freely available box items are one of the great attractions of Black Friday for me, perhaps even more so than limited time offers, since the first prizes in the boxes tend to be of such high quality.

As for the Christmas outlook, I can only speak for myself when I say that I've got plenty of festive decorations anyway, and with more new stuff presumably coming in December I'd have preferred the focus to be more general. On the other hand, at least Christmas content is going to be useful right now rather than months down the line as is the case with a lot of other pieces.

So, let's get down to it with some thoughts on individual items. I said on Wednesday that the Holiday Fireplace was a steal for 10 gems, so for it to be reduced down to 7 gems now makes it an absolute must. I already have one so don't need to buy it here, but it's definitely a decoration which will be popping up in a lot of restaurants this Christmas.

Two other items from the update during the week have also had further discounts applied. The Giant Snowman was 24 gems up until yesterday, but has had its price slashed. I listed it a while back as a re-release request, so almost felt obliged to purchase it! I have done, and it will play an important part in my outdoor section next month. The Pink Tree is also reduced again which means it has now been on the market for four different prices! When originally released in 2011 it was 10 gems and was available for 7 gems on Black Friday last year. Then it of course came back for 4 gems on Wednesday only to now be offered for 3 gems! I've bought two of them since they're not exactly a heavy investment, and for the same reason have gone ahead and spent 8 gems on two of the Blue Trees.

Moving forward from Christmas, the New Year Party is back. I had an internal struggle last year when it popped up, so it was inevitable I'd have similar ponderings this time too. It's a really jazzy item with lots of little details to look at, but the fact that it's only really relevant for a couple of weeks of the year means I struggle to justify the expenditure. Oh who cares! I went ahead and splurged on it and will try to incorporate it into my Christmas designs when the time comes!

One decoration I didn't take anywhere near as long to make my mind up about was the Holiday Train. I admired it upon release in 2013 but couldn't afford it for the extortionate fee of 41 gems having blown my fortune on Black Friday the week before. So 51 weeks later I'm finally capturing it for a much more healthy 28 gems! It's not the biggest but has those vibrant and jolly colours that are so representative of the festive season.

And that my friends, is where my Black Friday spending ended. Five unique items in my shopping bag, which is less than I expected. But nothing else managed to pull me in quite enough. It wasn't for a lack of trying though.

The Pirate Fountain is a bargain at 17 gems. A monstrous 4x4 piece, I came very close to the decisive double tap. But there isn't a lot of other pirate themed content on the market other than a dodgy box, which made it a difficult call. Another option would be to utilise it as a little feature at the shore when I bring out my beach theme in the Summer months. But I've got plenty of significant stuff like the Pier Fishing and Riverboat Ride which can fill the space so I ultimately turned the fountain down.

Another tough decision was the Grandma's Kitchen. It's another that I gave longing looks to first time around, and it would make a fine substitute for my Swedish Kitchen throughout December. But would it? Looking closer, Grandma's Kitchen is only 3x3 (the Swedish Kitchen is 4x4) and the scale of the hobs and pan Grandma is using is off. Hmm. So the result is that I've had to persuade the Swedes to work over Christmas!

Among the remainder of the Black Friday offers, I think the Cider Bar and Spring Lunch are probably the two most universally loved by the players. I bought them for inflated deals when each was first released so they were of no interest to me here, but I do know of several others who have longed for their return so that was nice to see.

Now, did anyone spot that the Zen Garden (not to be confused with the Indoor Zen Garden from the Asian Fusion Chest) and Sandwich Display are items which are freely available in the market anyway? Both are heavily discounted but this sits uneasily with me. A lot of players won't realise this and might buy them thinking they are going to be removed completely following the end of the sale. Could this be construed as false advertising? It's certainly murky waters...

And those waters are also about to get rather choppy as we try and make sense of the mass confusion which has cast a dark shadow (or a black shadow if you so wish!) over the proceedings. If you visited this blog on Thursday you may have seen a countdown clock I added chiming down to reset time on Black Friday, the time I expected the sales to commence. That is 8am GMT. But when I opened my game on Friday morning at 7.30am GMT, I discovered that the sale was already in full swing! It turns out that the deals began at around 4am GMT which is four hours before reset time. Here is a screenshot I took of an LTO notification shortly before 1pm GMT:

Autumn Cupcake Stand limited time offer

Doing the maths, this indicates that the sale was to conclude at reset time on Saturday morning. With the time remaining under each item in the market blocked by a sale tag, the only way of knowing the time left was through this notification, which you only get once a day!

Now is where things get crazy. The sale ended at around 4am GMT on Saturday, four hours sooner than was advertised. Just to add to the confusion, the gem sale didn't disappear prematurely, but at reset time as expected.

And it appears that shortly after everything had been wiped a number of the decorations returned at higher prices. This is exactly what happened last year, except that this time with everyone thinking the sale still had four hours to run (until reset time) not everyone had done their business! Cue lots of angry typists over on the TeamLava Forum, not least because if you made your buys shortly before their initial removal, it seems that they were taken away and the gems refunded!

The situation was soon resolved with all the deals being brought back, and at their original sale prices. Time to take a breath? Not quite! Because in the long process of writing this post, the sale has finished again, with only a small number of pieces staying, and at the higher prices they were at for a short window during the night. The drama is endless! Now the sale tags are gone (after all there ain't no sale in this town any more!), revealing that the inflated sale will conclude at 4am GMT on Sunday!

Much like in 2013, I predict that a different selection of the Black Friday items will then go on sale at higher prices for 24 hours, meaning we'll be done and dusted at 4am GMT on Monday. Unless there are goodies to be had then because it's of course Cyber Monday! The game's developers have form for giving a 40% off gems sale on this day too, so there will be another opportunity then if you missed out yesterday. However considering this debacle and the fact that you'll probably have missed out on all the offers, I wouldn't dare open my wallet!

So Black Friday 2014 wasn't the glorious experience I - and so many others - were expecting. The shambles with timings was the serious problem, although the choice of content to make available has also left me underwhelmed. All that mastery of recipes and I ended up spending less than half of my banked gems! That's not a big issue though as it just means I've got lots to spend over Christmas and beyond!

I'm off for a lie down. Thanks very much to Black Pepper, Nibble and Noms (aka Whipped Cream), The Red Chair and numerous members of the TeamLava Forum for their help in trying to piece together the madness of the last 24 hours!

16 comments:

  1. I appreciate the analysis after the sale is over. I also wouldn't have known to increase my gem count in anticipation of the Black Friday sales so thanks for the heads up! That fireplace for 7 gems was great. Keep up the good work on the blog. I'm moving on to your suggestion archives now.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I was kinda disappointed too with the sale. And I had been running a cooking marathon to save up on gems for the sale. Since I'm sadly not really into Christmas theme, I did not feel the need to purchase any items for this theme. I was looking or some Asian theme items but the only one was the Zen garden and I had got it already.
    Anyway, I ended up buying only Autumn Cupcake Stand (for the aumtum theme going on in my restaurant) and Spring Lunch which hopefully I can somehow cooperate with the zen garden for the outdoor.
    Thanks so much for your heads-up on the Black Friday. It was my first. Love your blog. I always visit your blog every time a goal comes up!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's nice to hear! Thanks for reading!

      I'm relieved that there are plenty of others out there like yourself who found the sale a disappointment. When you've worked so hard to earn a lot of gems in preparation and the whole thing's a damp squib it's a real let down.

      The best thing you can do now (except tread very carefully to avoid gem traps!) is just wait for some of the LTOs and box discounts which have been coming our way a lot recently. If you're lucky the Asian Fusion Chest or Action Chef Box might even go on offer! :)

      Delete
  3. Thanks very much for your report :)

    Sadly, I was at the receiving end of a lot of the shambles that ensued when the timer ran out prematurely. It looks like they were brought back for a period of 4 hours afterward, but I wish that had been done sooner because I was asleep when that happened! >:(

    At the end of the day, it's just a game, and thankfully I had not bought gems when the deals reshuffled so I technically didn't lose anything. But I think the situation could have been handled much better, and this experience has really made me lose faith in how TL operates.

    So, now I'm sitting on a pile of gems I'd been saving up intending to spend this weekend. I went ahead and bought the NY Party at the increased (but still reasonable, I think) price, so as to at least get something I would have liked, but the showings today are just sad. Only four items? But it's still one more than Bakery has.

    I hope the other items will come back tomorrow or Cyber Monday for purchase. For the most part, I think their original prices are still reasonable and I wouldn't mind paying a few more gems to be able to get them.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You've taken the chaos better than most!

      If last year's pattern is repeated, I'd fully expect another collection of yesterday's items to return at higher prices tomorrow. Hopefully there will be something among them that you fancy and isn't too expensive.

      At the end of the day, gems in the bank are still something to look forward to. Especially if you want to go big on Christmas and New Year content. Just tread carefully to avoid gem traps! :)

      Delete
    2. I hope you're right, and that we do see some more of Friday's offerings tomorrow on Sunday. I'm not sure if your Black Friday analysis from last year included the weekend, but your comment makes me hopeful :)

      Of Friday's offerings, I'd chiefly like to see the Thanksgiving Dinner and the Spring Lunch return. I'm not sure about the former, considering the holiday's just behind us, but the latter I should think is popular enough to bring it out another time :)

      As for gems in the bank: I agree they're good to have, especially in December if your posts from last year are any indication, so I planned ahead to make sure I'd have a nice contingency after BFS for winter LTOs. Obviously, that contingency is now much higher than I expected! Maybe TL will want to take some gems off my hands if they offer what I want tomorrow? ;)

      Also, to correct a statement made in my previous comment: it appears Bakery has five items on offer today, but only three are floor decorations. So, looking purely at BFS exclusives, Bakery has the more items on sale - but only one more!

      Delete
    3. And, if the same pattern holds true for Bakery as well, then I'd love to see the Kids Sync back ;)

      Delete
  4. It looks like the pattern is holding! A few items from Friday are back for Sunday's sales :) No sign of the Spring Lunch, but hopefully it will be back for Monday. In the meantime, I'm snatching up the Thanksgiving Dinner (after some deliberation, of course)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thank you for the wonderful post! I have only been playing the game for 4 months, but after reading your blog posts about Black Friday last year, I saved loads of gems and hoped for the best. When it rolled out I was utterly disappointed (like many others). I actually saw the BF items before the game reset and thought they were too expensive to be the actual BF sale. I was hoping for some big items for 13 gems like prior years!

    Anyway, I got over it and still managed to spend A LOT of gems. I was pretty happy to pick up some x-mas items since I have nothing from prior years and was feeling ready to decorate. And I'm a sucker for bears, so I got Mother's Day Bear and currently have shorty working the host stand - he can barely see the list. I completely agree about Grandma's Kitchen. I bought it and after placing it in my restaurant regretted it. It should be 25% bigger to match up with the rest of our appliances and counters. What were they thinking?

    I love the pirate fountain and had to have it. I agree that there is not enough content for a pirate theme, but I plan to incorporate it into a beach or pool area in the summer. I'm also in love with the Holiday Train, Holiday Fireplace, Blue Tree and Festive Frenchie. At least not all was lost!

    I had posted that I thought some characters looked funny. What I meant by that is that RS characters usually have nice big round plump heads. LOL In some items like Spring Picnic, I thought their heads looked kind of smashed and deformed - not plump and round. Maybe I'm crazy? Or maybe it's because it's an old decoration and I'm pretty new to the game.

    Thanks again for the wonderful review. I love your blog :)

    -Laura AKA The Red Chair

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I hadn't noticed the Mother's Day Bear playing the role of host - adorable!

      I'm glad you saw fit to purchase a fair few decorations even if the content and pricing wasn't great. It means that Black Friday wasn't a total waste for you!

      I'm still not getting this thing with the heads! I presume the example you are referring to is the 'Spring Lunch'? I'm not seeing the mess up there although maybe I'm not looking hard enough! :)

      Delete
  6. Sadly, the Spring Lunch has not made a reappearance for Cyber Monday :( I'm tempted to add a 'yet' to that statement, but I doubt it will show up later in the day.

    Any chance it might be in the Christmas sale, if TL decides to have one, you think?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You never know, but the odds are very much against it. First of all you have to hope that there is a Christmas sale. Since there wasn't one last year that's very much up in the air. And then there's the small matter of the Spring Lunch appearing. Overall you'll need a hell of a lot of luck I think!

      What could be more likely is that it gets a re-release in the early months of 2015 as an LTO. But that's obviously a longer wait and probably won't involve a discounted price. :)

      Delete
  7. I've been checking all day and don't think I've seen any new items for Cyber Monday.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Just to wrap things up, there were no new items offered on Cyber Monday. Yesterday's deals were of the same nature as those we had on Saturday and Sunday - selected content from Black Friday at higher prices.

      And (somewhat surprisingly in my view) there was no gem sale on Cyber Monday either. :)

      Delete