Remedy Blames Stiff Competition for Poor Alan Wake Sales

[Logan Westbrook]

Remedy Blames Stiff Competition for Poor Alan Wake Sales

Remedy's Head of Franchise Development Oskari Hakkinen says that there is still life in Alan Wake [http://www.amazon.com/Alan-Wake-Xbox-360/dp/B0010AYJXI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1279019232&sr=8-1], despite disappointing first month sales.

Alan Wake didn't exactly fly off the shelves when it was released back in May, and according to NPD figures, sold just 145,000 copies in the US. Hakkinen blames these lackluster figures on what he calls a "competitive launch window" and "extremely aggressive marketing" for games like Red Dead Redemption and Super Mario Galaxy 2 which were also released that month.

He insists that the Alan Wake franchise is still viable, however, and says that interest in the game continues to grow thanks to positive word of mouth. "This breath of fresh air for gamers seems to now be working to our advantage," he said. "As those that have already enjoyed Wake are clearly inspired to talk more about the game and tell their fellow gamers to try it also."

Despite Hakkinen's optimism, the future for Alan Wake remains unclear. Whether Alan Wake will get shelved like Alpha Protocol [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/101891-Low-Sales-Kill-Alpha-Protocol-Sequel], or it will be a slow burning success like DJ Hero [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/101937-DJ-Hero-Defies-Flop-Label-Sells-a-Million], remains to be seen. Microsoft seems to be proceeding with caution [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/101586-Remedy-Confident-of-Alan-Wake-Sequel], and is pushing for more DLC rather than a full sequel, which suggests that it wants to get a more complete idea of the game's appeal before it makes its decision.

Source: VG247 [http://www.vg247.com/2010/07/12/remedy-blames-very-competitive-window-for-wake-figures-insists-ip-has-legs/]


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[Onyx Oblivion]

Shame. I quite enjoyed it. Enough to do pretty much 2 playthroughs in a row. (One playthrough, then a whole lot of replaying certain episodes to find manuscript pages)

What the hell were they thinking, putting it out next to R* and Mario?

 

[The Lost Big Boss]

Wow, that game really bombed... I was going to get it on the PC, but then they canceled that. Then I was going to get it for the Xbox, then my Xbox died.

 

[SalamanderJoe]

I blame a poor game for poor Alan Wake sales. I was sooo looking forward to this for years (literatly) and then all I did was run round forests for a few hours whilst avoiding axes being thrown at me by villagers. I might as well bought Resident Evil 4 again.

EDIT: What I said plus Red Dead Redemption did come out. And in all fairness, you CANNOT defeat a Rockstar title in sales.

 

[UnravThreads]

Dear Remedy,
If you want sales, don't shaft your customers by dropping a whole platform close to release.
Thank you.

 

[wastaz]

I can't believe it didn't sell better than that. I'd have thought that this game would sell -really- well, because it is -really- good and I enjoyed it _a lot_. This is easily one of those games on my "give me a sequel to this or I will go postal"-list....

It was a long time since I laughed as much at a game as I did

Spoiler

when Barry was waving the cardboard cutout around and imitating Alan outside the viking-brothers barn of awesomeness.

It was epic. This game deserves a sequel. Everybody buy it so I can get my sequel damn you!

 

[Spaceman_Spiff]

Well, at least they aren't blaming the recession...yet

 

[rabidmidget]

I'm probably going to get it if I can find it cheap.

 

[Tears of Blood]

Everyone! Tell everybody about Alan Wake! It pwns! D:

Don't let it die!

 

[Booze Zombie]

Hopefully, it'll go DJ Hero as opposed to Big Rigs... then again, it's sold more than 100 copies, so it's already beaten Big Rigs.

 

[Skops]

Well, I for one was turned off by the fact that there was more commercials for the mini-series prologue of Bright Falls rather than the actual game. Then, there's the other problem that word around the internet travels quite fast, that is, all the negatives do and very little of the positives. How many web comics and articles were written about how horrifically uninteresting the story is? It's a giant mess of a plot revolving around a writer writing about a writer who wrote about another.. you know, I can't even say it. it's that redundant. It's as bad if not worse than trying to explain WHAT REALLY happened at the end of MGS2 before MGS4 explained it.

Overall though, My first warning signs was the TV mini-series. Kinda like when I heard there was going to be a Dark Void movie in the works when the game wasn't even released yet.

 

[Xersues]

Dear Remedy,
If you want sales, don't shaft your customers by dropping a whole platform close to release.
Thank you.

Exactly. Who in turn bought 1m+ copies of Heavy Rain, and probably enjoyed themselves much more.

 

[Jezzascmezza]

Yeah, that sounds about right.
If they released it at a better time I reckon it would've sold great.

 

[Scobie]

DELETED

 

[Woodsey]

They shouldn't have dropped the PC version, and they shouldn't have gone 5 years before releasing in the same month as a Rockstar game.

Hopefully they'll still go with a sequel, because the first game was very good. I'll punch a child if I need to go through another forest though.

Dear Remedy,
If you want sales, don't shaft your customers by dropping a whole platform close to release.
Thank you.

Exactly. Who in turn bought 1m+ copies of Heavy Rain, and probably enjoyed themselves much more.

It was never going to be on the PS3, he's talking about the PC. And Heavy Rain was released in February.

 

[tehroc]

I enjoyed Alan Wake quite a bit, sure it was kinda repetitive but gameplay isn't the star of this game. Fact of the matter though, is Alan Wake lacked any replay value and is rental title.