Alan Wake Rockets Into the Black

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Andy Chalk

One Flag, One Fleet, One Cat
Nov 12, 2002
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Alan Wake Rockets Into the Black


The PC version of Alan Wake recovered its complete development and marketing budget in just 48 hours.

Things are looking good for the PC version of Alan Wake, which finally turned up on Steam a few days ago. Despite the game being around on the Xbox 360 [http://www.amazon.com/Alan-Wake-Xbox-360/dp/B0010AYJXI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1329770610&sr=8-1] for the past couple of years, PC gamers leaped at the chance to play it on their platform of choice, dragging the game to the top of the Steam charts and, more importantly, into profitability in just two days.

"We are very happy with the sales and hitting #1 on Steam at launch was nothing short of amazing," Remedy Executive Vice President Aki Järvilehto wrote on the Alan Wake forums [http://forum.alanwake.com/showthread.php?p=141586#post141586]. "We recouped our development and marketing expenses during the first 48 hours. And yes, we're certainly very excited about PC."

The cost of bringing the game to the PC was naturally less than that of the original development for the Xbox 360 but still far from inconsequential. It took a team of eight nearly five months to complete the job, which included improvements to the visuals, interface, and getting everything to "feel right in the PC environment," and the work is ongoing.

"We are closely monitoring, following, and are in dialogue in our forums as well as the Steam forums to see any problems people might be having," said Oskari Häkkinen, Remedy's head of franchise development. "Whilst the reception has been wonderful and there are no known major issues, we are already responding to some wanted requests and working on our first title update."

It's exciting to see things going well for the PC version of the game, but Häkkinen cautioned that it doesn't necessarily signal a sea of change at Remedy. "With this project we got the blessing from Microsoft to go ahead and create the PC experience and we of course jumped at that opportunity - it felt like it was kind of our promise to the PC gamers," he said. "Really, it was more of a decision from the heart than a commercial one but of course it's nice to see it doing well."

Alan Wake is available now on Steam [http://store.steampowered.com/app/108710/], while a retail collector's edition is scheduled to come out on March 2.


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spectrenihlus

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Feb 4, 2010
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Bought the collectors edition for the 360, loved every second of it. I want more children of the elder god!!!
 

therandombear

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Sep 28, 2009
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Nice...temped too buy it, but not sure if I can run it. And system requirements haven't updated Alan Wake on their site yet. >.<
 

DaxStrife

Late Reviewer
Nov 29, 2007
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Hopefully other companies hear about this success and port over their console-exclusive titles as well. Maybe we'll even see "Brutal Legend" ported? Oh wait, that's Activision; we'll never see it again.
 

therandombear

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Sep 28, 2009
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TheKasp said:
therandombear said:
Nice...temped too buy it, but not sure if I can run it. And system requirements haven't updated Alan Wake on their site yet. >.<
Check out the steam store page, the system requirements are there:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/108710
Ya...but I never really understood all the numbers and shit. It's why I like system requirements, since they scan the computer too check if you can indeed run it. And tell you how good you can run it. :p
 

Yopaz

Sarcastic overlord
Jun 3, 2009
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I feel like I did my part. I now got both the PC and the 360 version. Only thing I miss in the PC version is the ability to adjust the flashlight to just aim rather than boost and waste battery. I guess both versions have their merits in this case. I don't regret buying either version and I am glad to see that it turned profitable. Hopefully this will mean we get the new Alan Wake games for PC and hopefully an actual sequel.
 

Mr. Omega

ANTI-LIFE JUSTIFIES MY HATE!
Jul 1, 2010
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So a game that has been out for a while and has had time to get exposed and got a good following released on a new system... and it did well? What a shock!

Still, nice to see Alan Wake doing well. And hopefully American Nightmare has the same success.
 

Bat Vader

Elite Member
Mar 11, 2009
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Hopefully this means if they make a sequel to Alan Wake it will be available for PC on launch day instead of waiting a few years to port it.
 

Sniper Team 4

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Apr 28, 2010
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Good. Hopefully this means we'll be getting at least more Alan Wake after American Nightmare, and preferably a full-blown sequel game. The interest is there. Just please don't cut out us 360 users Remedy. I still want to play the game.
 

Li Mu

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Oct 17, 2011
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well this can't be true because as we all know, EVERY GAME on the PC is pirated and nobody actually buys anything. This is the reason nobody should EVER make games for the PC.

What the article SHOULD read is this:

"The PC version of Alan Wake was pirated so much in 48 hours that the development company has exploded and caused Greece to become bankrupt."
 

Callate

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Dec 5, 2008
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I'm glad it's doing well. But it shouldn't have taken years. Especially not from @#$%ing Microsoft. #$%&ing "Oh we're all about supporting Windows as a gaming platform, ha ha, just jerking your chain" Microsoft.

I can get waiting a few weeks or months to release the PC version; I acknowledge piracy is a real problem and the PC is often the easiest version to pirate. But two years? It's hard to feel a huge surplus of goodwill that the thing finally came out at all.
 

ph0b0s123

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Jul 7, 2010
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I wish more companies released details like this. You don't have to give 'privileged' numbers.

It would be interesting to see if others also saw their investment returned as quickly, but just did not make as much profit as they wanted, due to non-realistic expectations. There blamed the issue on piracy instead of admitting that they were expecting too much to their investors. I don't think I have heard of many if any AAA PC games that did not break even, it is the profit vs 'profit expectation', I think, that is causing the issue. Also profit expectations inflated by console title profits, does not help....

Looking forward to picking this game up.
 

omicron1

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Mar 26, 2008
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Every day a new PC victory. Friends, this is our finest hour. Let us see it and take heart: The PC swells with power and enthusiasm, with commercial success and indie accomplishments; it is once more taking its rightful place alongside the other major systems in the eyes of gamers and game makers alike. And once publishers get the message, all will be well with the world.
 

Sight Unseen

The North Remembers
Nov 18, 2009
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DaxStrife said:
Hopefully other companies hear about this success and port over their console-exclusive titles as well. Maybe we'll even see "Brutal Legend" ported? Oh wait, that's Activision; we'll never see it again.

Just thought I'd jump in here and say that Brutal Legend was actually published by EA. Even though Activision initially owned the rights, they basically blew double fine off and said they weren't going to launch their game, so double fine went to EA instead. Which means that even if EA did make a PC port of it, it'd probably be Origin exclusive and therefore suck.
 

TheAmazingHobo

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Oct 26, 2010
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I feel that their chosen price point really contributed to this success.
Instead of just blindly charging the same 40-50 bucks everyone does, they actually realized that digital distribution allows for much more aggresive pricing AND they included the Collector´s Edition from the start.
I know it´s "just" a port of an older game, but I still feel 30 bucks is a much more reasonable price for a download than 50.
 

Woodsey

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Aug 9, 2009
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therandombear said:
Nice...temped too buy it, but not sure if I can run it. And system requirements haven't updated Alan Wake on their site yet. >.<
What are your system specs?

therandombear said:
And tell you how good you can run it. :p
Eh, theoretically.