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[dancrane212]

The Polygon story for Alan Wake 2 was recently updated to reflect the actual sales of Alan Wake rather than the 4.5 million that was previously used in the article (the franchise total we got a couple weeks ago). The story now mentions Alan Wake selling 3.2 million copies.

As there was a decent amount of discussion around the breakdown of Alan Wake's sales in the previous thread I thought folk may be interested in what this number gives us once combined with the data from steamspy.

Alan Wake 3.2 million
Steamspy: 1,577,045 ± 32,606
Which puts 360 around 1.6 million sold.

While steamspy does not track the DRM free copies from sites like GOG we can *infer that the sales breakdown between the 360 and PC is pretty close to 50/50 with PC most likely in the lead with those DRM free copies. Surprised to see the console game sell ~1.6 million though, I suppose it was bundled with a console for a decent amount of time which definitely helped it.

*Added clarification on the ~1.6 million on 360.

Sure, no way to track those numbers so I had to simply note it and guess that Steam made up the majority of the PC sales. There was an unconfirmed report from before the PC release (found it) of Alan Wake that the 360 version was close to 1.5 million "sold". Doesn't confirm my numbers but I felt it was close enough that I could be pretty confident of my results. The report did go on to mention that 900,000 of those sales were from the holiday bundle that the game was included in.

American Nightmare 1.3 million
Steamspy: 1,091,227 ± 27,151
Which puts 360 around 180,000 sold.

If 3.2 million of the 4.5 million was for Alan Wake than American Nightmare should be around 1.3 million with the data showing that the grand majority of those sales came from the PC. Looking back to Gamasutra's XBLA sales analysis for the month of AM's launch it certainly lines up with the steamspy data even if the leaderboard tracking was limited as the sales image states.

While the game was featured on a few XBLA sales I can't see those making any huge headway that would dispute the ~180000 copies sold the steamspy data would put the game at on 360. XBLA wasn't really lighting up the charts in 2012 if I'm remembering right.

Steamspy really is the greatest, thanks galyonkin!


*EDIT*
DocSeuss went and dug up the humble bundle data if folk wanted to see it.

That was the entire bundle, both Alan Wake and American Nightmare. There were only 286k (just looked it up) copies sold of the bundle for the average price of $2.26.

 

[thehillissilent]

So basically, the PC version should be a priority on launch instead of Xbox One having an exclusive window.

 

[Loris146]

Steam version at 1.5 ML is very good ( humble bundle doing work i think ).

 

[pizzacat]

So basically, the PC version should be a priority on launch instead of Xbox One having an exclusive window.

Well if they make the launch a humble bundle exclusive sure

 

[DarkLordMalik]

The game has been on sale numerous times and also has been in a Humble Bundle so these sales don't surprise me at all.

 

[Surface of Me]

So basically, the PC version should be a priority on launch instead of Xbox One having an exclusive window.

Unless Remedy pays for the development entirely by themselves, no. This is assuming MS or another console holder backs the sequel.

 

[Freedom = $1.05]

Those PC numbers would be much more impressive if AW wasn't in a huge humble bundle. Not to say it's not worth noting but a lot of AW was sold for very, very little.

edit: according to the interwebs, it sold 286,362 humble bundles at an average of $2.26. Not bad.

 

[OrbitalBeard]

So basically, the PC version should be a priority on launch instead of Xbox One having an exclusive window.

Many people obtained the PC version for $1, myself included. Though I paid $60 for the 360 game at launch.

 

[CassidyIzABeast]

Hard to gauge anything from the numbers when they've been practically giving the game away on PC.

 

[IXI FalcoN]

Alan Wake was included in the 2010 holiday bundle with Forza 3 I believe. Was a redeem code while Forza 3 was physical.

Many people obtained the PC version for $1, myself included. Though I paid $60 for the 360 game at launch.

There was a thread on CAG about some crazy ebay sale a few years ago where sellers were dumping tons of codes for the 360 version for around $3. This game's been given away for next to nothing so many times.

Shocked it hasn't found it's way to GWG yet.

 

[Infernostew]

I got AW bundled with AN on GOG for $5. Not all PC sales were through steam btw.

 

[deathrowrecords]

So basically, the PC version should be a priority on launch instead of Xbox One having an exclusive window.

No. Number of copies sold is irrelevant , profit is what matters. Pc sales numbers really mean nothing when u see the price people pay for those games

 

[Surface of Me]

No. Number of copies sold is irrelevant , profit is what matters. Pc sales numbers really mean nothing when u see the price people pay for those games

To be fair, a good chunk of 360 sales likely came from bundles.

 

[deathrowrecords]

To be fair, a good chunk of 360 sales likely came from bundles.

Well it sold a console for ms then who is the publisher if i m not mistaken and thats still better then a 1$ sale

 

[Psycho_Mantis]

So basically, the PC version should be a priority on launch instead of Xbox One having an exclusive window.

Not necessarily. You need to understand that its revenue that they are looking at too which may not always be tied to the more sales indicator as copies can be sold at much lower prices on PC.

There may also be incentives from MS.

 

[Phamit]

Alan Wake PC hat a Humble Bundle and had 90% Steam sales, it is actually pretty often on sale for high %

 

[ALLseeingEYE]

Hard to gauge anything from the numbers when they've been practically giving the game away on PC.

If anything, the game seems to have a really high play ratio on PC at 1.5+ million bought, 1.1+ million played according to steam spy. Even if people obtained the game for cheap or for free in many cases, it seems like they are actually playing the thing. If Alan Wake was only profitable in a minor sense, perhaps a sequel would have a huge built-in fan base, with a huge potential profit margin.

I think their biggest challenge is convincing people an Alan Wake 2 purchase has more value than an 8-12 hour campaign. Bringing the horde mode from American nightmare, and possibly making it online co-op could potentially help a lot. I would love to see an Alan Wake 2 go more open-world like American Nightmare as well, I think it worked great there.

 

[hawk2025]

Man, American Nightmare did not do well on the 360

I actually liked it better than the main game, despite some repetition (which was intrinsic to its design, so it straddled well the line between boring repetition and seeing the neat changes over time).

 

[Jomjom]

Hmmm so I'm guessing the game didn't sell all that many copies at a high price. A great portion of those sales were probably at a couple bucks. Makes sense why MS was reluctant to fund a sequel. They only like these huge hits.

 

[Hibiki Kurosawa]

What? 360 sales of AN seem too low. Did it really sell that poorly on 360?

 

[Freedom = $1.05]

What? 360 sales of AN seem too low. Did it really sell that poorly on 360?

a lot of ppl had their fill of AW during it's long ass campaign. I'm not shocked if folks didnt want to sign up for more of that.

 

[Nillansan]

There are already dubious amounts of salt in this thread.

People are either conveniently forgetful or quick to discredit how well the Alan Wake franchise was received on PC.

 

[zychi]

Does this mean anything for Remedy to release their next game on PC?

e: Talking about Quantum Break, couldn't remember the name

 

[Max_Po]

There are already dubious amounts of salt in this thread.

People are either conveniently forgetful or quick to discredit how well the Alan Wake franchise was received on PC.

The article states it made money back... but on what front? full development of porting the game from x360 to PC ?

 

[Jomjom]

Does this mean anything for Remedy to release their next game on PC?

e: Talking about Quantum Break, couldn't remember the name

Doubt it would have anything to do with that (not that I think it won't hit the PC). A huge portion of those PC sales were from Humble Bundles and who knows how many copies were sold at dirt cheap prices on Steam sales. I mean the game is clearanced out at each and every sale. I know I have 3 (or is it 4 now?) copies of both AW and AN on PC now and all of those didn't cost more than $15 together.

 

[Circinus]

So basically, the PC version should be a priority on launch instead of Xbox One having an exclusive window.

The X360 number seems just fine to me to warrant that? You have to realize that the revenue per X360 sold unit is likely quite a bit higher than the revenue per Windows PC (through Steam) sold unit. Especially considering Valve takes a ~30% cut on Steam.

American Nightmare clearly didn't do well on X360 though. :l

 

[SEGAvangelist]

Man, American Nightmare did not do well on the 360

I actually liked it better than the main game, despite some repetition (which was intrinsic to its design, so it straddled well the line between boring repetition and seeing the neat changes over time).

It wasn't a true sequel and it came off as a budget release since it was released on Xbox Live Arcade. I enjoyed it too, but I can see why it didn't sell. I imagine it sold better on PC because people bought it as a part of a bundle.

 

[Nzyme32]

While steamspy does not track the DRM free copies from sites like GOG we can infer that the sales breakdown between the 360 and PC is pretty close to 50/50 with PC most likely in the lead with those DRM free copies.

You can not infer that at all, with no knowledge of how well site like GoG etc have done in terms of Alan Wake sales. It could be a large amount, it could be a negligible amount.

 

[Hibiki Kurosawa]

a lot of ppl had their fill of AW during it's long ass campaign. I'm not shocked if folks didnt want to sign up for more of that.

Okay, but 180k is freakishly low. At least to me it is.

 

[dancrane212]

Does this mean anything for Remedy to release their next game on PC?

e: Talking about Quantum Break, couldn't remember the name

Aside from MS having data that Remedy games sell well on PC (go figure right) it's hard to tell. With Alan Wake being their property Remedy did the porting work for AW PC of their own volition (and with their own $), all Microsoft did was give the OK for them to proceed. With Quantum Break Microsoft owns the IP so it has to be worth it to them to develop a port.

With QB, as far as we know, being a single player only affair I could see MS getting Remedy to do a PC port for the Windows 10 store (not like gold members would jump ship for QB anyways). Could get some of those 1.6 million users to take a look at the shiny new Windows Marketplace, that may be enough for MS to justify a port.

 

[Oemenia]

With that much sold and the good worth-of-mouth on PC, it makes good sense to fund a sequel. If MS can advertise it well they can get it to be a system seller.

 

[napata]

The X360 number seems just fine to me to warrant that? You have to realize that the revenue per X360 sold unit is likely quite a bit higher than the revenue per Windows PC (through Steam) sold unit. Especially considering Valve takes a ~30% cut on Steam.

American Nightmare clearly didn't do well on X360 though. :l

But the cut that MS took is probably much higher than that. Might've even been 100% considering they published it.

 

[Nzyme32]

The X360 number seems just fine to me to warrant that? You have to realize that the revenue per X360 sold unit is likely quite a bit higher than the revenue per Windows PC (through Steam) sold unit. Especially considering Valve takes a ~30% cut on Steam.

American Nightmare clearly didn't do well on X360 though. :l

That isn't true. Steam has a single 30% fee (industry standard). For the 360, retail has more additional costs - distribution / packaging / platform royalty / retailer cut etc which is one of the reasons why digital is a popular push since it only has the store cut (and platform royalty on console)

Further to that the 360 numbers the OP has made are not accurate, it is a simple subtraction of SteamSpy numbers and the total known numbers overall. It neglects anything from other sources on PC / not registered via Steam - for which there is no data to understand how significant or insignificant that may be.

 

[No_Style]

What? 360 sales of AN seem too low. Did it really sell that poorly on 360?

I skipped the 360 version for the PC one. American Nightmare was awesome though. The best of Alan Wake condensed into a tidy package.

 

[BennyBlanco]

That isn't true. Steam has a single 30% fee (industry standard). For the 360, retail has more additional costs - distribution / packaging / platform royalty / retailer cut etc which is one of the reasons why digital is a popular push since it only has the store cut (and platform royalty on console)

Further to that the 360 numbers the OP has made are not accurate, it is a simple subtraction of SteamSpy numbers and the total known numbers overall. It neglects anything from other sources on PC / not registered via Steam - for which there is no data to understand how significant or insignificant that may be.

Has the GOG version ever been 90% off like the steam version?

Obviously, it's conjecture but I doubt the GOG version sold anywhere near the Steam version.

 

[SmokedMeat]

How often was American Nightmare bundled with AW during all of those PC sales? I seriously doubt those were separate purchases.

 

[dancrane212]

You can not infer that at all, with no knowledge of how well site like GoG etc have done in terms of Alan Wake sales. It could be a large amount, it could be a negligible amount.

Further to that the 360 numbers the OP has made are not accurate, it is a simple subtraction of SteamSpy numbers and the total known numbers overall. It neglects anything from other sources on PC / not registered via Steam - for which there is no data to understand how significant or insignificant that may be.

Sure, no way to track those numbers so I had to simply note it and guess that Steam made up the majority of the PC sales. There was an unconfirmed report from before the PC release (found it) of Alan Wake that the 360 version was close to 1.5 million "sold". Doesn't confirm my numbers but I felt it was close enough that I could be pretty confident of my results. The report did go on to mention that 900,000 of those sales were from the holiday bundle that the game was included in.

But yeah infer was definitely not the right choice of word there...

When I'm not on mobile I'll see if there are NPD numbers for the 360 that holiday. May help confirm the story or not.

Seems like there were 3.23 million consoles sold during November/December. No way to tell how many was that 250 gig bundle but 900k wouldn't be impossible.

 

[enzo_gt]

So basically, the PC version should be a priority on launch instead of Xbox One having an exclusive window.

And price it at whatever you want to pay, while you're at it.

 

[Nzyme32]

Has the GOG version ever been 90% off like the steam version?

Obviously, it's conjecture but I doubt the GOG version sold anywhere near the Steam version.

For sure, I'd expect it to have sold significantly less, but there is simply no info on how well GoG for example does. I'm pretty sure they have regular sales, so I also would guess it has been on sale similar to Steam and the Humble Store

 

[Nillansan]

The article states it made money back... but on what front? full development of porting the game from x360 to PC ?

They made the money back from porting the game from Xbox 360 to PC (the port job was outsourced) within the first 48 hours it was released on PC.

 

[Scientificreason]

wow game was way bigger on PC. Remedy should prioritize PC for there next release.

 

[BennyBlanco]

How often was American Nightmare bundled with AW during all of those PC sales? I seriously doubt those were separate purchases.

http://isthereanydeal.com/#/page:game/info?plain=alanwakefranchise

Many times, in fact it's 80% off right now.

http://store.steampowered.com/sub/15407/

 

[Welfare]

The article states it made money back... but on what front? full development of porting the game from x360 to PC ?

"We recouped our development and marketing expenses during the first 48 hours.

.

 

[NoMoChokeSJ]

All this AW talk makes me want to replay the game. Wasn't the original vision supposed to be a PC centric game in the first place? I thought the priority changed to the 360 after their vision of the game changed.

 

[Conduit]

Not necessarily. You need to understand that its revenue that they are looking at too which may not always be tied to the more sales indicator as copies can be sold at much lower prices on PC.

There may also be incentives from MS.

But Remedy stated they had revenue when AW was released on PC.

 

[dancrane212]

All this AW talk makes me want to replay the game. Wasn't the original vision supposed to be a PC centric game in the first place? I thought the priority changed to the 360 after their vision of the game changed.

When the game was first shown it was a far more open then what was eventually released. Remedy showed off Alan Wake's open world gameplay at X06 and then went dark, during that time they came to the conclusion that "the concept of an entirely open game world that spanned a hundred square kilometers was not conducive for telling a thriller" and retooled the game into a linear experience to be unveiled at e3 2009.

The change, at least from what Remedy says, was not technology driven.

 

[Max_Po]

They made the money back from porting the game from Xbox 360 to PC (the port job was outsourced) within the first 48 hours it was released on PC.

Thanks ... makes sense.

 

[Twin Tails]

Alan Wake 2, Pay What You Want DRM Free Launch

 

[Netrunner2k2]

I wonder what the sales would be if the PC version wasn't almost two years later. Maybe in the end it all evens out, who knows.

"NPD Group stated sales for the first two weeks reached 145,000 units.[107] According to a report, Alan Wake is the second most pirated Xbox 360 game of 2010, with more than 1.1 million downloads.[108] According to a report by IndustryGamers, sales of Alan Wake would be much higher than previously estimated, at around 1.4 million, as of December 2011. This includes the digital sales of the game during the Xbox 360 2011 Holiday bundle, which included a token to download Alan Wake, as well as a retail copy of Forza Motorsport 3."

That's interesting.

 

[dancrane212]

I wonder what the sales would be if the PC version wasn't almost two years later. Maybe in the end it all evens out, who knows.

"NPD Group stated sales for the first two weeks reached 145,000 units.[107] According to a report, Alan Wake is the second most pirated Xbox 360 game of 2010, with more than 1.1 million downloads.[108] According to a report by IndustryGamers, sales of Alan Wake would be much higher than previously estimated, at around 1.4 million, as of December 2011. This includes the digital sales of the game during the Xbox 360 2011 Holiday bundle, which included a token to download Alan Wake, as well as a retail copy of Forza Motorsport 3."

That's interesting.

Easy to forget how big piracy on 360 ended up getting. As bad as it was it even worse when games would leak out a week or two early via those means, had to work at avoiding spoilers.