Lots of great games like Enslaved and Alan Wake didn't get their dues and others just didn't measure up. We look at why their devs shouldn't throw in the towel.
Choosing Epic over Steam and antagonizing the entire physical media fanbase, it's no wonder the masterpiece Alan Wake 2 didn't make a profit.
I asked for this game as a gift. My wife couldn't find it at Gamestop, Amazon, or anywhere else.
I didn't realize it was digital only, I just figured it sold out because of the reviews and how good it looks.
Most consumers don't read gaming news daily, how would they know it's digital only?
Plus, outside of seeing it on Jackfrags YouTube channel, I hadn't seen much in the way of marketing.
It's a really good game. I platted this one on the PS5. Well worth your time exploring this universe.
Unfortunately Remedy has become a bit of a nasty studio over this past decade, You just need to look at their business decisions and other projects they attempted. They are not pro consumer at all.
Yea, people are kind of dumb. I mean, no offense to @Jingsing up there, I know that’s blunt but it reminds me of Bayonetta 2 when that got announced and it was a Nintendo exclusive. It’s exclusive because f*cking Nintendo funded the development. But people were all like f*ck Sega for sh*tting on their fans when in actuality the game never would’ve gotten made if Nintendo didn’t straight up pay for the development.
Alan Wake 1 was not a massive seller. In fact, correct me if I’m wrong, but it underperformed and that’s why a proper sequel never got made until now where Epic literally paid for the game to be developed… but you got people saying, Remedy isn’t pro consumer because this game is Epic exclusive 🤦♂️
Will be interesting to see if they try the same thing for the Max Payne remake(s). You'd think they won't but people continue to surprise me.
I think they could do some kind of special edition physical release. This way the crowd that has been with this game since the beginning would have the option to buy a physical disk. They would sell more too.
@anast No, it needs a normal physical release.....not some bullshit 'special edition' physical release. This way we will be able to easily get a physical copy for if we want, instead of having to mission to own some kind of limited version. That's not actually gonna boost physical sales now is it?
I wonder if they've learned their lesson? Who am I kidding, of course no gaming company does at this point. Keep making those mistakes.
Following the closure of 4 studios, many are now worried for the future of Ninja Theory once Hellblade 2 is released.
Meant better to sell the studio and not closing it 🤦🏻 not to sell more games….
and games are sold anyways, you can buy it on xbox (not recommended if you got gamepass) but many pc gamers prefer to buy on steam than deal with the xbox app or pc gamepass!
On a side note to OP, the sales of studios wont happen though, especially when they want to retain the IPs, and well nobody is gonna buy a studios without its IPs; the other publishers that want a certain dev from the studio that are closing on their team can try to grab them as soon as they see they notice of the studio.
@Sephiroushin
Well hypothetically speaking, Ninja Theory can be sold to Sony at a lower rate sans the Hellblade IP.
Sony can then welcome them to work on the Heavenly Sword IP, which they still own.
Will be a nice proposition for Sony who can continue to offer a God of War-like hack n slash in their portfolio via Heavenly Sword 2, whilst Cory Barlog & co. decides to take a break from the God of War IP & venture some other genres.
On top of that, Ninja Theory was also interested in a sequel to Enslaved: Odyssey to the West and such Sony can come to a deal with Namco Bandai regarding the Enslaved IP.
selling the studio wouldn't be an attractive offer unless they come with their IPs. MS wants to keep these IPs, so even if MS is selling just the studio, no one would wants them
Because they're next come next year. HB2 won't hit some impossible metric within MS so they're getting axed in 2025. Leave gaming now MS.
Every xbox studio is in danger now because there’s just no way they’re gonna rake in big money from game sales because of gamepass, even CoD was rumored to not come to gamepass because it would canibalize their sales number.
If they are smart they don’t put COD on GP day one. It’s one of the best selling games on yearly basis
Satya will make sure that doesnt happen. As you rightly put it; why kill the cash cow?
But then again, it is MS after all.....
I agree and disagree. They should not put it on GP, but CoD makes real money from the overpriced MTX that people buy for over a year. They also have it all linked up to the Mobile CoD, which will incentivize Twitch spending from consumers.
Software
That’s true but keep in mind COD is the best selling or top 3 selling game every year. So yes micro transactions money is there but so are billions more
They should have tiers of GP subscriptions and the higher end tier received AAA games while everyone else gets them in 60 days
Wouldn't putting it on Gamepass be smarter? Cod is typically played, I believe, for far longer than 6 months.. if you get everyone playing the game for a year, on Gamepass, you've essentially doubled your profit. $10 a month for a year $120 compared to selling the game once for $60.
Not to mention MT's, on top of it. Sell on PS5, PC and Switch, keep it on Gamepass for Xbox and PC. Much smarter in my opinion..
Also if you punish a studio for releasing a great critically acclaimed game which won some awards then what chance does anyone have
After this mess, I highly doubt the next installment of COD will be on Gamepass day one. It'll probably land on Gamepass 6 months after release date.
Like I said earlier, I wouldn't even mind. There's a good selection of games on GP already, and it gives me time to play my backlog of games while allowing the games that need to sell millions of copies to make a profit a chance to succeed, a win win scenario.
not putting CoD on GP is sort of a violation of their own marketing though. they said ALL MS 1st party games will be on GP day 1, not some. CoD is 1st party, so to not put it on GP day 1 would be considered as false marketing.
Ninja theory games were never big sellers. I could be wrong, but I doubt hellblade 2 will sell millions. I would rather they go independent and make heavenly sword 2.
heavenly sword is Sony owned IP. this will never happen as original didn't sell enough...
Wikipedia: "In 2008, it was reported that a sequel to Heavenly Sword was in-development at SCE Studio Cambridge, but was canceled due to Sony no longer seeing it as a commercially viable product"
I remember. I feel like the amount of time & technology that has passed would make a sequel a big seller now. The game has enough legacy recognition to build hype.
Remedy has released its financial statement for the first quarter of 2024, and despite strong sales, Alan Wake 2 has yet to recoup its development costs.
Exactly.
With every article like this, I becomr more convinced that an announcement is inevitable. Hoping for something around the time of the game's 1-year anniversary.
I want to believe they are just hanging on to try and get the last drop out of the digital market but another part of me thinks it’s just spite at this point, not wanting to admit their business move was a f***** terrible decision
They made out it was because they wanted to offer it cheaper to us but me and others would have gladly paid the standard for physical. Even a collectors edition would have been nice to buy.
Absolutely. What would the harm have been? Offer the digital version at the lower price they want, and a "Collector's Edition" with some fairly naff additions for 50% more. I'd have gone for it without question.
Bringing it to Steam would definitely help too. Although I suspect getting a physical release is probably more likely, and even that doesn't look good.
Waiting on steam release otherwise no buy. And I would double dip to get physical for ps5 or XSX but remedy have to first admit there is a problem before a solution is made available
definitely waiting for steam version, I never buy a game on another storefront at all.. even gamepass games I'd just try for a bit then buy the steam version if I like it.
Not sure at this point a physical release makes sense. Would you even recoup enough lost money on the costs to get the game released physically. Mots who wanted to play the game did not sure you would sell enough copies to recoup the costs to get the game out physically.
Exclusive games.... The cancer of modern gaming. Only corporate friendly husks root for exclusive games as a model.
What were they expecting.. release digital only and make there money back, come on! they shot themselves in the foot alienating all the fans of physical media.. now the hype has gone down it will be difficult to shift copies now even if they do release disks. Only way of making extra $ release on ps plus
Blows my mind someone would pass on obtaining a game they wanted to play just so you can have the case and a game disc that is already out of date to the current live version. The boxes upon boxes and totes full of game and game related accs and hardware when I moved made me grateful for all the digital stuff I had.
Alan Wake 2 is also just not that good. Its the sequel to a good but not great game to begin with and the case board "gameplay" was terrible and there wasn't enough combat. Also the live action stuff looks really cheap and Sam Lake didn't need to put himself into alan wake 2 for no reason.
Lol. I imagine there's still alot of people that buy physicals. Or atleast see what kind of new games are out by what they see in real stores. This is on them. Idda paid 70 day one physical. Now I won't pay more then 15 for it
I'd imagine significantly more than 40% of PC gamers also only buy games on Steam.
Maybe a crazy remastered Steam release will launch alongside the RTX 6070 or something once the Epic Store's gone for good. EGS is basically a Fortnite launcher that also sells games with an unreasonably amount of missing features. Alan Wake and Fortnite have absolutely nothing in common either. I can't imagine this sold well and there's no way Epic would ever fund something this big ever again. Basically though; when Fort dies, EGS dies and I hope a Steam release will come after so this game can get the audience it deserves.
I bought a 360 for AW1 and have been waiting years to play AW2 but I just haven't had the ability to buy it yet. I was gonna "steal" it but I just felt too terrible about it half way through the intro. I've since just stopped caring. I'm patient
Good read, anything is possible.
Games are not cheap to make. Sometimes they have no choice.
Seriously. Rockstar once made an unholy Austin Powers game for the GBC. Now they've got Red Dead Redemption, GTA, Bully and soon LA Noire. Even Rome lost a couple wars in its early days.
Who the hell planted the idea that Alan Wake was not succesful.... vgchartz? remedy announced lots of time ago they surpassed the 1M mark and it's still selling strong, I understand we all were too busy buying Red Dead Redemption at the time of its release but surely many bought AA later, especially in the very very dry christmas season
Alan Wake 2 was announced for the 360 as exclusive are these guys slow.