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Is Alan Wake II destined to be a sales flop?

Black_Stride

do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
What fucking bothers me most, and I'm waiting for a Steam release, is that this probably means we'll see Alan Wake 3 in 2045.
You are probably gonna be waiting a very long time for a Steam release.
The publishing company is Epic Games Publishing.
Digital only release makes this feel like a AA game that can be skipped until it's on sale. Want high sales figures? Back your game properly.
Well it is a AA game.
Remedy are just very good with their technology that the game looks good.
Control had a budget under 30 million dollars.
I imagine this game isnt much higher.....that puts it firmly in AA territory if not much much lower considering AAA games cost ~200 million to make these days.
 

Roni

Gold Member
You are probably gonna be waiting a very long time for a Steam release.
The publishing company is Epic Games Publishing.

Well it is a AA game.
Remedy are just very good with their technology that the game looks good.
Control had a budget under 30 million dollars.
I imagine this game isnt much higher.....that puts it firmly in AA territory if not much much lower considering AAA games cost ~200 million to make these days.
It is what it is, like I said in another thread: I've already waited 13 years, what's a couple more at this point?
 

Kupfer

Member
Always thought there’s a risky cost to retailing and less % of overall earnings compared to going digital, where I thought there’s a bigger share of profits for devs and less costs to make it happen (=less risk). I could’ve got it wrong… but the trend seems to confirm it being more convenient nowadays
I think it's an experiment.

As far as I know, it's impossible to say exactly how much money a retail game will generate for the developer/publisher.

At a price of 60€ in the case of Alan Wake, Sony will pocket 30%, which means 42€ will go into the pockets of Remedy Entertainment.

In the case of a physical release, 60€ minus the retail store cut, licensing fee and manufacturing, would probably be around30€, so 50%.

The question is how many potential buyers does that scare away? How many buyers who prefer to buy physical will migrate to digital and how many won't buy at all; 30€ would still be better than 0€.

But well, that's the gamble they decided to make. I won't buy it for that reason alone and won't be persuaded by a future sale of the digital version. I want to be able to own my games.
 

OmegaSupreme

advanced basic bitch
I'm buying it. The OG is top ten for me. I've enjoyed everything Remedy has made. I have no doubts this will be another banger in a year full of them. A lot of objectively great games don't sell gangbusters. Just like lots of good movies/music don't sell huge.
 

NickFire

Member
The preview videos l saw looked really pretty and eerie. If this came out during a slower period I'd be interested. Might still get it one day, but right now my backlog is overfilled and I'm still waiting for Black Friday sales to get Ragnarok.
 
Lol at that Jim Ryan comment. PlayStation games are marketed really well. They just don't bother market them really far out anymore.

Horizon, Spiderman and GOW were everywhere.

Alan Wake II will flop because you can't walk into somewhere and buy it and most PCs can't run it. Limiting the audience that much will hurt it.
 

Black_Stride

do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
Alan Wake II will flop because you can't walk into somewhere and buy it and most PCs can't run it. Limiting the audience that much will hurt it.

More than 90% of Controls sales were digital in 2020+.
Remedy clearly have the telemetry that the sales they lose from not having physical is made up for in cash from not needing to do distribution/printing of disks.

Digital games are taking over......the pandemic conditioned people to it.
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I imagine the split is probably something like 30/70 in favor of Digital overall.


As for "most" PCs cant play it.
Of the target market id say "most" people have DX12U compatible GPUs by now.
Wo5x8ZQ.png


I think the only people hurting are 1070+ and 5600XT+ owners, all 5% of them.
Everyone who is well below spec were never the target market, people with the horsepower but not the compatibility, are such a small number who gives a shit.
 

Arsic

Loves his juicy stink trail scent
I'm buying it. The OG is top ten for me. I've enjoyed everything Remedy has made. I have no doubts this will be another banger in a year full of them. A lot of objectively great games don't sell gangbusters. Just like lots of good movies/music don't sell huge.
13 Sentinels, Nier Automata, and Deadly Premonition agree.

I’ll support the title as long as the performance is there. If it’s another rush job game with stutter , bugs , crashes etc at 20fps then why bother ?
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
13 Sentinels, Nier Automata, and Deadly Premonition agree.

I’ll support the title as long as the performance is there. If it’s another rush job game with stutter , bugs , crashes etc at 20fps then why bother ?
Its unhealthy to think game can only be successful if they do COD numbers, no. Some game just dont have mass appeal but it doesn't mean they shouldn't exist.

People forget games Demons Souls started as niche game then later found success, same way Armored Core VI did recently.

Niche what game gaming interesting, it only "mainstream" games allowed to exist then gaming industry would have been boring as fuck.
 

Holammer

Member
Didn't the first one bomb and Microsoft refused to greenlight a sequel?
It had initial poor sales but it's said to have picked up and the PC version pushed a few copies.
However, there was 9 years of development and it was meant to be an open world game with day and night cycles, but it was chopped up into manageable bits by making the story linear.
Original release also had lots of product placement that irked players and the recent remaster (which removed the ads) did not do that well either afaik.

2005 prototype.
 

Trunim

Member
For me, Alan Wake was boring because it was too much action and bang bang. So the second one being more survival horror sounds more up my alley.
 

Trunim

Member
Can someone explain to me what the big deal about EGS is about? Far as I'm concerned its clicking something that isn't Steam to open your game? OH NOES THE HORROR. So I'm clearly missing something as that many people can't be that bothered about clicking a different fucking icon.
Yeah I really don't understand it either. Steam has been such a dominant player for a long time. It's refreshing to see competition fight it out and the customer is the winner. Maybe without Epic there wouldn't have been another Alan Wake.
 
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Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
Are we getting live action launch trailer for this game? In this case it actually fits the game perfectly.
 

Housh

Member
I just saw the Xbox showcase announcement mentioning Alan Wake 2. I'm going to hold off until tomorrow before preordering the PC version just in case it's on PC gamepass.
 

Mortisfacio

Member

Launcher is terrible. Store is clunky. It's not Steam. Most importantly, keeping 3rd party games away from other storefronts is not consumer friendly. You want to make your own game and make it available only there, cool, but buying rights to 3rd parties to sell exclusively there sucks. Don't buy exclusivity. Build a better product. I hate it when Xbox does it. I hate it when Sony does it. My opinion of disdain for that practice doesn't change when it's between Steam vs EGS.
 
It had initial poor sales but it's said to have picked up and the PC version pushed a few copies.
However, there was 9 years of development and it was meant to be an open world game with day and night cycles, but it was chopped up into manageable bits by making the story linear.
Original release also had lots of product placement that irked players and the recent remaster (which removed the ads) did not do that well either afaik.

2005 prototype.

Oh yeah for the record I liked the game and even bought the steel book release.

But quality does not equal sales unfortunately.
 

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
Again this coming from someone who never played games on PC but why games on PC need launcher? Can PC themselves launch the game once you download it?
Yeah of course. In the old days you put in cd, install the game and go.
You can do that with gog games, itch.io and plenty of stuff.

But vast majority require a store like steam which in most cases install your game and needs to run
 

lh032

I cry about Xbox and hate PlayStation.
I think the only people hurting are 1070+ and 5600XT+ owners, all 5% of them.
Everyone who is well below spec were never the target market, people with the horsepower but not the compatibility, are such a small number who gives a shit.
pretty optimistic to think the game will run well even on high end hardware ; )
 

TGO

Hype Train conductor. Works harder than it steams.
Well I ain't buying it until there's a physical release or heavily discounted.
 

Black_Stride

do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
pretty optimistic to think the game will run well even on high end hardware ; )
Its Remedy using an engine they are quite comfortable with.
Im not particularly worried about it running well, im more worried about do I have the horsepower to see it in all its glory.
Only aiming for 1440p60(DLSS) with a min/max of settings with RT and PT on.
 
EGS exclusive.
~1/3 of the PC market excluded due the lack of a vertax shader path
Digital Only

They're certainly stacking the odds against themselves but I'm assuming someone ran the numbers and they determined that this was the optimal approach for them. If it fails, they'll have no one to blame but themselves.
Most people that play AAA games on PC have a half a decade old RTX 20 series card or better. The most popular card by a massive margin on Steam is the much more modern 3060 not the 5 year old 2070 or 2060.
 
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