Alan Wake Actually Sold Quite Well

[latenightapplepie]

Poor Alan Wake. Don't worry, I still love you.

 

[Something Amyss]

I definitely never said that.

You didn't. You didn't need to. The article did.

 

[Wolfram23]

It's also worth noting that according to Torrent Freak, Alan Wake was the second most pirated 360 title in 2010, with an estimated 1.1 million downloads. Don't be tricked into thinking pirates have good taste though, the most pirated 360 game of 2010 was EA's ham-fisted God of War knock-off Dante's Inferno.

Whoa whoa whoa, people are pirating 360 games? And here I was told to believe that only happens on PC!

Seriously though, those top 2 pirated 360 games looks like a case of uncertainty - people unsure if the game will be good pirate it first. Well, some do it anyway, but I don't think that can be helped.

But yeah, kind of goes to show - 1.1 million downloaded Alan Wake and CD Projekt Red was saying how The Witcher 2 was pirated 1.5 million times - and that game doesn't have DRM or anything. Much easier to pirate a PC game than an Xbox game, which requires a modded console (as far as I know anyway).

Now, devs (*cough*Ubisoft*cough*), if you would kindly stop trying to troll PC gamers by labeling them all as pirates, we might be able to get along.

 

[Wolfram23]

The problem for me is that if you give people a copy of the game, you can't really consider it a sold copy. Also, people may have not bought the system for the Alan Wake game at all, but for the Forza 3 game.

The problem is that there is no way to turn this into a metric for how much Alan Wake sold. And... for 5 years of development time, that is still shit numbers. They only put 1 year into each COD at this point and it sells exponentially better.

It really doesn't matter how or why they bought it, it was still bought so it counts as a purchase. They're not going to go back and discredit the sales from people who bought a copy to give to someone else, are they?

I would disagree. If it counted as a purchase then that would mean that Remedy would've gotten paid would it not? Also keep in mind that it's entirely possible that not everyone who bought a 360 with this bundle even downloaded Alan Wake.

See it does matter how the game was purchased if your dealing with sales. Alan Wake's sale isn't rung in anywhere on a cash register or shown on any receipt if you bought the bundle.

Just because Microsoft is giving the game away in a bundle doesn't mean the dev isn't getting paid for it. I'm sure it's much cheaper than retail profits, but they still get paid for every one sold - or at the least, every one downloaded with the coupon.

 

[MonkeyPunch]

I actually didn't think Dante's Inferno was as bad as people keep making it out to be :|

 

[Falseprophet]

I really, REALLY don't understand why digital downloads aren't included in many games' overall sales figures. If I bought a game for $49.99 at a retail store, or bought a game for $49.99 on Steam, why wouldn't the latter be counted? Doesn't make sense to me.

More on topic, I hope Alan Wake gets a sequel. Damn good game.

Probably because Steam doesn't publish sales figures, so nobody really knows the exact numbers unless they do the math. Even then, it's still more of an estimate.

better question why doesn't steam publish its sales firgure then.

Newell said he doesn't believe in them.

I think it's just that Steam doesn't want the indie devs knowing how well their game is selling or something. =x

I understand as a privately-held company Valve doesn't have to publicize most information that publicly-held companies do, and I guess Steam sales are covered under that. But how does Valve get away with not releasing figures to publishers whose games they sell on Steam? Surely most publishers would want to know if Steam is actually making them money, and if some of their titles sold a million copies through Steam their marketing departments would proclaim it to the heavens.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

The problem for me is that if you give people a copy of the game, you can't really consider it a sold copy. Also, people may have not bought the system for the Alan Wake game at all, but for the Forza 3 game.

The problem is that there is no way to turn this into a metric for how much Alan Wake sold. And... for 5 years of development time, that is still shit numbers. They only put 1 year into each COD at this point and it sells exponentially better.

It really doesn't matter how or why they bought it, it was still bought so it counts as a purchase. They're not going to go back and discredit the sales from people who bought a copy to give to someone else, are they?

I would disagree. If it counted as a purchase then that would mean that Remedy would've gotten paid would it not? Also keep in mind that it's entirely possible that not everyone who bought a 360 with this bundle even downloaded Alan Wake.

See it does matter how the game was purchased if your dealing with sales. Alan Wake's sale isn't rung in anywhere on a cash register or shown on any receipt if you bought the bundle.

Just because Microsoft is giving the game away in a bundle doesn't mean the dev isn't getting paid for it. I'm sure it's much cheaper than retail profits, but they still get paid for every one sold - or at the least, every one downloaded with the coupon.

I'd still say that demand for Alan Wake is a key factor here. If you bought the bundle you didn't necessarily buy it FOR Alan wake. Now buying the Xbox bundle FOR the copy of Halo Reach is much more plausible, which is why Halo Reach's download were tracked. And let's be honest, Alan Wake's interest died a long while before the Xbox Alan Wake bundle came out.

I find it odd that the developers bring this up over a year after Alan Wake's release and still say that they "can't share the numbers". Yet somehow 1.5 million has been determined.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

So, like, why is there a press release about that now?

Whatever.

That's what I'm saying. Why complain over a year and a half after your game's release? Better yet, how was 1.5 million sales determined if they said themselves that "they can't share numbers"?

 

[Strazdas]

I really, REALLY don't understand why digital downloads aren't included in many games' overall sales figures. If I bought a game for $49.99 at a retail store, or bought a game for $49.99 on Steam, why wouldn't the latter be counted? Doesn't make sense to me.

Because if they were counted, the big companies could not cry about "pc is dieing because of pirates" anymore as pc would be the top seller like it always were.

And if i would get a penny for every time some tight-a** critic goes and call movie a flop when it was clearly profitable.....

Valve get away with not releasing figures to publishers whose games they sell on Steam? Surely most publishers would want to know if Steam is actually making them money, and if some of their titles sold a million copies through Steam their marketing departments would proclaim it to the heavens.

if you know that you will get an x amount of "moneyz" for a sale of your game, and in the end of the month/year/decade/eternity you get y amount of "moneyz" for your game, it is not hard to count it now is it. now if you have more than one game and they just put it all together in thier accounting, then it can be a problem, though i doubt they would be allowed to do that.

 

[duchaked]

oh ouch that's still a lot of pirated copies, and for a console game no less

well hopefully the downloadable spin off does well then?

 

[plainlake]

Was really exited for it, but it never came for PC... If they dont want my money they have nothing to complain about.

 

[Clockwork Scarecrow.]

I really enjoyed that game personally.