Alan Wake Actually Sold Quite Well

Something Amyss

Aswyng and Amyss
Dec 3, 2008
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Fawxy said:
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.
Steam doesn't release sales figures, for one. At least, not as a whole. That makes it hard to track.

That said, NPD has a lot of exceptions and are not reliable. I've been saying this for years, but they are also kind of the best we have right now. A better metric would be awesome, but when a lot of companies don't release digital sales data, it's hard to know.
 

Something Amyss

Aswyng and Amyss
Dec 3, 2008
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DexterNorgam said:
I read in game informer that a sequel was in the works, It included a screenshot that I cant find which showed Wake (in an unfamiliar outfit) outside a gas station in the desert, trusty flashlight in one hand and a powerdrill, i think, in the other. Here's hoping, Alan Wake was one of the best games of that year.
Isn't that from the mentioned digital game that is neither a true sequel nor DLC?
 

DexterNorgam

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Zachary Amaranth said:
DexterNorgam said:
I read in game informer that a sequel was in the works, It included a screenshot that I cant find which showed Wake (in an unfamiliar outfit) outside a gas station in the desert, trusty flashlight in one hand and a powerdrill, i think, in the other. Here's hoping, Alan Wake was one of the best games of that year.
Isn't that from the mentioned digital game that is neither a true sequel nor DLC?
Could be, I've never seen a screenie from the digital. The Rag I was reading said the shot was from "the sequel" or "a sequel" to Alan Wake. It may be worth noting it was in an article about the early development work on the next generation of consoles.
 

9thRequiem

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D Moness said:
Such a shame for an interesting game. Yeah it isn't a great game but it was really fun to play. One of the few games i bought the deluxe version of and never regretted it.

To bad the low sales meant it killed the franchise.
I got the deluxe / collector's edition too, and it sits alongside Bioshock as the best special editions I own. The soundtrack was amazing (Especially the Poets of the Fall song The Poet and the Muse, which fits into the story perfectly), and the hardback book was very cool.

Alan Wake is definitely one of those games where the storyline, dialog and atmosphere outstrip the actual gameplay, but overall I really enjoyed it, and look back on it very fondly.
 

Darth Rahu

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Nov 20, 2009
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You heard them folks, download that spin-off three times each. We can't let this franchise die!!! Together m'brothers! *puts on Braveheart warpaint* For Alan Wake! For Bright Falls!! For Remedy!!!! ... I couldn't afford the horse.
 

Baresark

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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.
 

skywolfblue

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Baresark said:
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.
Exactly. I suppose it's cool to do if you want some marketing Hype, but not really an accurate reflection of how much money the developer got out of it, or how many people were buying that bundle specifically for Alan Wake.

It's a shame, t'was a damn good game. I really thought it was the perfect example of a "Game that's sorta like a Movie, about a Book" done properly.
 

Therumancer

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Nov 28, 2007
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I think people miss the point here.

The most noteworthy thing about "Alan Wake" was that it was touted to be a sandbox survival horror game. Before it's release it was revealed to have been re-envisioned as a very linear horror themed shooter with a limited bestiary and rogues gallery. This caused a lot of people to abandon their interest in the title as despite all of the cool promotions, it was NOT the game people wanted.

Now, speaking for myself I liked the idea enough where I bought it anyway, and thought it was okay, but a mere shadow of what it could have been. I also noticed that ironically someone managd to do a decent job with the sandbox horror idea through the game "Deadly Premonition" even if the technology behind that game was dated to say the least. You tack Alan Wake's technology onto Deadly Premonition and that's pretty much what we should have gotten.

Alan Wake apparently flopped because it deserved to flop, and flop hard. Console bundles might have helped the numbers, but yeah the game performed poorly, and deserved to.

The five year development time for Alan Wake is also a joke in of itself, very similar to "Duke Nuken" if you look at what they delivered you have to wonder what they did with that dev time. According to a number of rumors the answer is largely what a lot of people (like me) have been all over the industry for. The Devs (Remedy) basically took the budget and paid themselves with it (human resources being the major development expense) while doing absolutly nothing but living off the money, and then wound up two inches away from the deadline with little beyond conceptual promotional material and pretty much wound up pooping out a game as quickly as possible which was a mere shadow of what was promised. Had they been developing the game for five years chances are we could have seen the Alan Wake we were promised, but I remember speculation that they actually did most of the work over a period of about eight months.

Truthfully, I'd be willing to re-visit the franchise and it's concepts, providing they can deliver something similar to what was originally promised. I'd actually suggest they look at the basic framework of "Deadly Premonition" as an example of what can be done as a budget and develop from there with better technology entirely rooted in this generation.

... also DLC that isn't a glorified product placement gimmick might be nice... just saying.

One thing I will give them 100% praise for though is the hardback book that came with the collector's edition and expanded on the game and it's story and concepts. That was truely neat and honestly is a big part of why I say it doesn't totally blow chips. It's also why I think there was enough thought behind this whole idea that there is still franchise potential despite the first chapter being kind of a disappointment.
 

Trishbot

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9thRequiem said:
D Moness said:
Such a shame for an interesting game. Yeah it isn't a great game but it was really fun to play. One of the few games i bought the deluxe version of and never regretted it.

To bad the low sales meant it killed the franchise.
I got the deluxe / collector's edition too, and it sits alongside Bioshock as the best special editions I own. The soundtrack was amazing (Especially the Poets of the Fall song The Poet and the Muse, which fits into the story perfectly), and the hardback book was very cool.

Alan Wake is definitely one of those games where the storyline, dialog and atmosphere outstrip the actual gameplay, but overall I really enjoyed it, and look back on it very fondly.
I liked the game in SPITE of its gameplay; the story, characters, setting were all great.

But, yeah, loved the soundtrack. Holy cow, "Poet & the Muse" and "The Clicker" haunt my every waking moments.

Personally, and this is my take, given how the game and DLC ended, I would LOVE to play a sequel where you didn't play as Alan Wake... you placed as ALICE Wake.

Hear me out; Alice was the one with a fear of the dark. Imagine that challenge as you play as a woman driven to find her husband, having to confront her own dark fears, and endure a horror story he himself wrote her into. The feelings of love, of disappointment, of betrayal, of fear and anger and commitment... with her as the protagonist, it would really do wonders for the narrative, me thinks, and keep the whole "A. Wake" thing going strong.
 

Space Jawa

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So the game was copied and downloaded somewhere between more than and nearly as much as it was actually purchased?

Huh. Oh well, I'm sure it's safe to assume that nobody was actually hurt in any way by all that digital bootlegging. <___<
 

Kopikatsu

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Space Jawa said:
So the game was copied and downloaded somewhere between more than and nearly as much as it was actually purchased?

Huh. Oh well, I'm sure it's safe to assume that nobody was actually hurt in any way by all that digital bootlegging. <___<
Did you see the source? =x

Apparently PC games are pirated 4x as often as console games. Who woulda thunk it.
 

CleverCover

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Trishbot said:
Personally, and this is my take, given how the game and DLC ended, I would LOVE to play a sequel where you didn't play as Alan Wake... you placed as ALICE Wake.

Hear me out; Alice was the one with a fear of the dark. Imagine that challenge as you play as a woman driven to find her husband, having to confront her own dark fears, and endure a horror story he himself wrote her into. The feelings of love, of disappointment, of betrayal, of fear and anger and commitment... with her as the protagonist, it would really do wonders for the narrative, me thinks, and keep the whole "A. Wake" thing going strong.
If this was the sequel, I'd be all over that. It sounds like a great game if it's executed perfectly.
 

Just_A_Glitch

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Well good. I adored Alan Wake. My game of the year last year. I was so sad at the fact that it sold so poorly, so this is a nice little surprise.
 

Space Jawa

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Kopikatsu said:
Space Jawa said:
So the game was copied and downloaded somewhere between more than and nearly as much as it was actually purchased?

Huh. Oh well, I'm sure it's safe to assume that nobody was actually hurt in any way by all that digital bootlegging. <___<
Did you see the source? =x

Apparently PC games are pirated 4x as often as console games. Who woulda thunk it.
What source are you talking about?
 

Hexenwolf

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D Moness said:
Such a shame for an interesting game. Yeah it isn't a great game but it was really fun to play. One of the few games i bought the deluxe version of and never regretted it.

To bad the low sales meant it killed the franchise.
Oxymoron much?

This is actually a game I went out of my way to purchase new in order to support the developer, and I'm glad I did, I really enjoyed it :D
 

Jandau

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Dec 19, 2008
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I got two things from this article:

1. Someone somewhere didn't want Alan Wake to suceed. Hence why the digital sales figures were omitted while Reach's figures were included. Someone had a chip on his shoulder about the game and screwed it over.

2. Console piracy is thriving quite well, regardless of what publishers might say. Sure, PC is pirated more, but the argument that console piracy is minimal simply doesn't stand, as is being proven time and time again. Add to this that the consoles have the used games market (which is pretty much dead on the PC) and the "loss of sales" that the publishers like to whine about isn't much different between the PC and consoles.
 

Bat Vader

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I rented it when it came out. I thought it was pretty good. If it had come out on the PC I would have most likely bought it after I was done with the rental.
 

Sixties Spidey

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Well, just re-release the game with the DLC packs and a download code for the new XBLA spin-off. I'd pick it up in a heartbeat. Thing is that the game was released at an awful time, seeing as there were a fuck-ton of games coming out at the when it was released.
 

Sixties Spidey

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Jandau said:
I got two things from this article:

1. Someone somewhere didn't want Alan Wake to suceed. Hence why the digital sales figures were omitted while Reach's figures were included. Someone had a chip on his shoulder about the game and screwed it over.

2. Console piracy is thriving quite well, regardless of what publishers might say. Sure, PC is pirated more, but the argument that console piracy is minimal simply doesn't stand, as is being proven time and time again. Add to this that the consoles have the used games market (which is pretty much dead on the PC) and the "loss of sales" that the publishers like to whine about isn't much different between the PC and consoles.
Something else I just took from this article:

What about sales of the game that's included with Xbox 360 SKUs? How do those factor into total sales? Seeing as the retail version of the game was included with the download code for Reach, they'd have to have an impact on total sales.