When the countdown ends, its too early for americans and too early for europeans, and the population is first splitted into multiple instances of haven, after which population is, hopefully somewhat evenly, split between few cities. So the timing + haven instances might help with the initial queue and crashes. After that, for example next weekend, cities like Fab will be crowded af
not to mention theres been zero advertising from SV outside the steam wishlist, email list, etc, so they are counting much on getting to the steams most wanted/sold -lists.