No, the time set is the time it starts. otherwise someone who joins would see the game was a few more hours and goes offline til then, if the game stared automatically that person wouldn't know.

what game is it?

its the game you are in, Living on the Edge.
Well ive played a few live games before, and there were like 30 min still left on the clock, but right when someone joined, the cycle moved downt o 5 min and the game started. also when i create games, i still have like a day left on the clock, but when the 7th person joins the game just starts ...

Most games start when they get 7, live ones wait on the clock.

oh, is there an option to make it wait on the clock or not?
or when the phase time is 5 min, the system automatically knows to wait on the clock

oh, so it is

I'm not positive, but I think I remember reading something about games starting earlier if everyone is online.

It used to be that all games started when there were 7 players. It was found that for live games this caused problems because people would join a live game and then would have to check ever 2 minutes or so to see if it had started to avoid missing the first phase. So Kestas changed live games to only start at the appointed time. This can cause the reverse problem, which you have been hit by, but overall is probably better once you know the way it works. Non-live games still start as soon as 7 players have joined.

oh okay thanks Alderian, that makes a lot of sense. yea i was sure i was in a live game that started early on me before.
well atleast i know for next time