Remedy defends poor Alan Wake sales

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 13 July, 2010

IP has "legs" to continue.

Alan Wake has the "legs" to continue despite poor sales, creator Remedy has insisted.

Alan Wake, which scored 7/10 in Eurogamer's review, sold just 145,000 units during the month of May in the US. The heavily marketed Xbox 360 exclusive finished eighth overall on the software chart. The game had been on sale for exactly two weeks when the numbers were collected.

"Overall we have been very pleased with the reception of Alan Wake with both the press and the fans alike," head of franchise development Oskari Hakkinen told VG247. "People compliment the story first and foremost, but love the characters, the combat and, of course, the setting.

"There is no doubt that Alan Wake hit the shelves during a very competitive launch window, with some games dominating with extremely aggressive marketing.

"However, we’ve always tried to stay unique and do something new and different in videogames."

So, what's next for Remedy? Alan Wake's poor sales suggest a sequel is unlikely. Remedy, however, is optimistic.

"This breath of fresh air for gamers seems to now be working to our advantage, 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," Hakkinen said.

"The word of mouth phenomenon is very apparent with Alan Wake. There has been a growing interest in the title and it certainly seems to have legs to sustain."

Alan Wake wasn't the only game that suffered in May. Split/Second: Velocity notched just 86,000 sales during the two-week period. Worse were numbers for Bizarre and Activision's racer Blur, which sold 31,000 units. Even Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands struggled, managing to shift only 100,000 units across five platforms in two weeks.

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (69) Latest comment 2 years ago

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  • iHAZaCHEEZ3burger #1 2 years ago

    Please Microsoft just let them release a sequel no matter what they sell.

  • the_sas_man #2 2 years ago

    "Alan Wake has the "legs" to continue despite poor sales, creator Remedy has insisted."

    The legs can carry you anywhere, but if the body is overweight, you're still gonna finish last.

  • Dizzy #3 2 years ago

    I am sure they will hit 1 million. The game seemed to do well in Europe.

  • Eraysor #4 2 years ago

    Has RDR single-handedly killed off a few sequels then?

  • midnight_walker #5 2 years ago

    It seemed like devs had finally seen sense and started releasing stuff outside the crowded Christmas period. I hope they don't now see that they aren't selling anything during May BECAUSE THEY CREATED A NEW CROWDED PERIOD and go back to releasing everything at Christmas.

  • metalangel #6 2 years ago

    I enjoyed the Bright Falls episodes and would prefer a game like that than a bear wanking blastfest.

  • enfilade #7 2 years ago

    Does anyone know if there was an EG review that received more comments than Alan Wake? Current total stands at 838, most of which seemed to be whining about the game's score by people who'd never played it but enjoyed watching the PR campaign.

    I would've been interested (I've now sold my XBox), but all this talk of 'revolutionary' approaches to light in gaming had me a bit sceptical seeing as it didn't seem to introduce much that Alone in the Dark hadn't done eight years ago.

  • LHH #8 2 years ago

    Up to Episode 6. I'm loving this game, and those flare guns.

  • Bealsy #9 2 years ago

    It's £20 in Game at the minute. Got it at the weekend. Bargainous.

  • zcrisis2 #10 2 years ago

    For 5 years in the making I didn't feel like this game stood up to much. More crawling than standing on those legs. That's why it didn't make much revenue after release, nothing to do with any crowded periods.

  • DrunkenKillfish #11 2 years ago

    @Enfilade

    MGS4 got 2341 comments!

  • enfilade #12 2 years ago

    @DrunkenKillFish

    Wow. I guess I haven't been around long enough!

  • andywilkie35 #13 2 years ago

    Shithouse, this game deserves a sequel.

  • muscleblade #14 2 years ago

    I loved it. Great atmosphere and the gameplay was better than people give it credit for.

  • kangarootoo #15 2 years ago

    I think on the whole this game was better than it's sales suggest, but I think the PR with AW went a bit wrong. We saw quite a bit of marketing ages ago, then nothing for quite a long time. By the time the game surfaced, the way it was viewed by many had changed. If you antipation peaks and then abates, it is very hard to reach that peak again. I was interested in this a year or so ago, but by the time the reviews came, I'd sort of mentally "moved on".

  • LHH #16 2 years ago

    poor man's silent hill

    No, that would be any Silent Hill after 4

  • enfilade #17 2 years ago

    @Trebell

    Oh, I certainly would be playing Alan Wake now had I not sold it (I'm a recent graduate short of cash, it wasn't an act of defiance against MS or anything.) My earlier, rather unpopular, post was intended to lance the preposterous comments some of the designers made before the game was released. I remember one guy telling journalists that at no point did the designers and writers use video games as a reference point. So, no Alone in the Dark, Silent Hill, Resident Evil etc. in there at all? I dunno.

    I'm regularly sceptical about games, often more so with those I've really been looking forward to. And I love to proven wrong :)
    Edited by enfilade at 13/07/10 @ 09:46

  • Vanmunt #18 2 years ago

    winter game released in the summer........

  • Jonathan_Fakenham #19 2 years ago

    I'm guessing lots of people have noted this game, and plan to pick it up when it gets dark and murky in the fall.

    I picked it up at release, but I haven't played it yet.

  • Haerger #20 2 years ago

    Got it for £19.99 last weekend.

    Nice game but the screen tearing is terrible.

  • miiiguel #21 2 years ago

    enfilade is somehow right, it might not be the game which has more comments but I'm guessing it is the game with most comments by ppl who never played it, for the fact they "sold their 360", or something out of spite like that. It does tell us something about it, if one thinks about it.
    Edited by miiiguel at 13/07/10 @ 10:01

  • DiamondIce #22 2 years ago

    @metalangel

    Bear wanking?!?!? I must have took a different route through the game. Oh wait, I get it, the unfunny comment in the review about car engines...

    I am looking forward to the DLC coming at the end of the month. It is a great idea for a game which admittedly could have been better in places. I would have liked more interactive psychological elements. AW is still a lot better than some people made it out to be and one of the gaming highlights of 2010 for me.

  • Raznilof #23 2 years ago

    I really enjoyed the game, was furiously against the EG review until I played it to the end.

    I loved the opening two episodes more than the last two because at the end the game lost its "danger" and became to easy.

    I really, really hope remedy has a chance to build a (much cheaper) sequel, those guys know how to create a mood and must have learned a lot from making this. Also wished they had kept it open world.

    Although you won't really be helping remedy probably, it's on sale for 20 euro's at zavvi.com today. Also Metro 2033 (which I am also finding very enjoyable).

  • Octoroc #24 2 years ago

    Come back Fishy! Come back!

  • Markitron #25 2 years ago

    Loved Alan wake, I feel I was sensible enough not to be caught up in the Hype tho as I never thought it would be the be all and end all. With these numbers a sequel is unlikely but they promised they wouldnt finish the story in the 2 sets of DLCs which take place after the game (guess now they HAVE to)

  • ParanoidZombie #26 2 years ago

    What kind of sales were they expecting? A new IP by a small finnish developer, a "psychological horror" game inspired by twin peaks, you play a writer, there's no multiplayer, there's no PC version and RDR was on everybody's mind... I don't think Microsoft was planning on selling more than 1M lifetime - just like NG2 or Lost Odyssey or banjo+kazooie, it's a niche game that's meant to appeal to a small chunk of the gaming community.

  • Z101 #27 2 years ago

    Alan Wake is not a shooter. What sales did they expected for a game like this on xbox360? Perhaps they should make a Wii and a PS3-Version for better sales.

  • bad09 #28 2 years ago

    Well if it came out on PC like it was supposed to I would of bought it Remedy. The PC may be "intimate" but we PC gamers also have money....and some of us even have large screens!

  • Haloboy #29 2 years ago

    Better make some spare room on my PC based HDD then. Then again with textures that low it won't take much anyway.

  • BillyBrush #30 2 years ago

    I thought it was great, much preferred to RDR personally.

    ICO didn't sell particularly well when that came out.

    Whilst sales are important, when a publisher can tell the difference between real quality (this) and something genuinely pap (something like too human). Then they can make good calls. I think a sequel or not will tell us whether MS have an aquired taste in games, something i often wonder about.

    All in all, this strikes me as one game that has a good chance of continuing despite less than stellar numbers, because it was a great game.

  • bluebird #31 2 years ago

    Absolutely loved this game. Actually am playing it the second time round now, on a harder level. I really hope they will bring out a sequel, and I hope they'll be able to make it accomplish the original ambitions the second time around (open world etc).

  • bodypopper #32 2 years ago

    I found RE4 a scarier and a more satisfying action horror game to be honest.
    Had they not wasted time making it open world (a linear path is always better in horror games) and released it three years ago, its mix of faux-King horror and repetitive combat might have been easier to swallow.
    Also, sunny May was not the month to release a game like Alan Wake.
    Edited by bodypopper at 13/07/10 @ 11:13

  • MeBrains #33 2 years ago

    @miiiguel: it might not be the game which has more comments but I'm guessing it is the game with most comments by ppl who never played it.

    i guess that honor goes to MGS4 as well. With its 2000+ comments at a moment when the world only just started waking up to PS3.

  • FogHeart #34 2 years ago

    Dead Space, Mirror's Edge.

    Give it time.


    By the way, I was surprised not to see any TV ads for it. Did I miss them?

  • Darren #35 2 years ago

    Isn't Alan Wake a six hour single player game with little or no replayability and no multiplayer (unlike Red Dead Redemption)? If so then it's no wonder it didn't sell very well because it doesn't strike me as being very good value at £40. The developers also started talking about the DLC straight after the game had launched which, again, would make me think I'd bought an intentionally incomplete game so the publishers could sell the rest of it post-release.

    I never bought the game because I didn't think it sounded all that great but I was originally going to buy it on the PC. I may well have bought the PC version actually because on that platform the game would have been much cheaper and would have ran better without the dreadful screen tearing. It would probably have been better value anyway at £25 or less than £40 IMO.

  • macmurphy #36 2 years ago

    Like a few posters have said, it didn't grab me by the balls enough to warrant a full price purchase but it's definitely on the to do list.

    Hopefully some high quality dlc will make some cash back for them. I also think a sequel is a logical choice as it's a chance to build on a solid engine. Most people who comment only have nice things to say too, which is another reason I'll buy.

  • Lunastra78 #37 2 years ago

    Sadly, it seems like survival horror games aren't selling like they used to. If I ever get a 360 this will be one of the first games I buy for it.

  • StooMonster #38 2 years ago

    @Darren: I've played through four episodes so far, one in each sitting, and they've taken two to three hours each. It's on the default setting, and it's a bit too easy, maybe an old lag like me should've set it to a more difficult challenge.

  • Lee_Morris #39 2 years ago

    First 2 weeks on sale IN AMERICA ONLY = worldwide lifetime sales

    That's about right, isn't it?

  • Monkey_Puncher #40 2 years ago

    All you people who didn't buy this and are waiting for it to come down in price should be ashamed of yourselves!

    If I don't get a sequel I'm going to cry :(

  • DiamondIce #41 2 years ago

    @Darren

    I have got 2 playthroughs out of the game. One on normal and the other on nightmare. Playing through again helped me to come up with more theories as to what it is all about so I would say a 2nd playthrough is possible for most people.

    Collecting flasks was a bit tedious as they do not add anything to the story but the manuscripts are worthwhile as a reason to play again.

    Edit:

    The length of the game is down to how much you want to explore. I didn't really time my playthroughs but I did spend a while going off the direct route to find things.

    I think the average is around 8 hours if you do some exploration.
    Edited by DiamondIce at 13/07/10 @ 11:33

  • gamerBOB #42 2 years ago

    Does anyone know the figures for outside the US? Ya know, just for laughs

  • mingster #43 2 years ago

    Good it was rubbish didn't deserve to sell well.

  • Spook #44 2 years ago

    So let's get this right, Alan Wake sold more then the following games Split/Second by 59,000, Prince of Peria by 45,000 (and that was over 5 formats) Blur by 114,000 units. It was up against a game like RDR which everyone knew was going to sell bucket loads on Rockstar's and GTA's rep alone (that's before you add that RDR is an amzing game, far better then GTA 4 in my humble opinion). I would say that it did really well, it was only released on one format and the stats are only for the first two weeks sales in American only. Like Assassin's Creed and Mass effect, both good games but not perfect, just needing fan feedback to iron out the few niggles. They returned with 2 amazing sequels and i hope (with fingers crossed) that Alan wake follows suit.

  • MrNyarlathotep #45 2 years ago

    @miiiguel
    enfilade is somehow right, it might not be the game which has more comments but I'm guessing it is the game with most comments by ppl who never played it, for the fact they "sold their 360", or something out of spite like that. It does tell us something about it, if one thinks about it.

    Funny, I remember that comments thread for mostly being full of people (who had also never played it) slating Ellie with particularly personal attacks for not automatically giving it a 9/10 or higher and questioning her entire aptitude for her profession, with more than a few openly misogynistic undertones to the comments.

    EDIT:
    Which does indeed tell us something about it if one thinks about it.
    Edited by MrNyarlathotep at 13/07/10 @ 12:10

  • makeamazing #46 2 years ago

    I agree, I think MS would be stupid to trash not only an IP but also the tech that has the potential to do great things in the future, just because of poor sales at a quiet time. I would personally look at a quicker turnaround, utilise the tech and build on the game.

    Seems like a waste of 5 years if MS suddenly dont have the bottle to continue, i mean look at Dead Space, pretty sure version 2 of that will sell great, considering that it didnt do brilliant to start with. MS dont have a lot of AAA exclusives at the moment, and getting rid of this game would really lessen their range of genres.

  • lockload #47 2 years ago

    It wasnt heavily marketed at all the only adverts were online

  • GooseUK #48 2 years ago

    good game. I felt the graphics were lacking because of the low, low resolution - but when you realise how old the xbox is now they did fantastically well to get all those dynamic shadows and the whole lighting engine running at such a solid framerate

    a technical masterpiece

  • madjim #49 2 years ago

    I don't understand. Why good games don't always sell? I mean, Alan Wake wasn't just a good game, it was a brilliant one, IMO. Yet the huge 360 userbase preferred not to try it. Same thing happened with another excellent horror game, Shaterred Memories for Wii. Amazing game, the best Wii controls ever and still didn't sell. Maybe the horror genre is losing its fans, who knows...

  • waggy79 #50 2 years ago

    Currently playing through this and loving every second. Any comments about it being ugly or low-res are complete BS, its a beauty.
    Ive heard playtime is around the 10 hour mark which is ample and looking forward to the free DLC at the end of the month. A sequel would be a definite buy from me.

  • muscleblade #51 2 years ago

    @madjim

    I think RDR can be blamed quite a bit for AWs poor sales. I bought AW and skipped RDR. I think i made the right decision for me personally. People are like sheep, they do what everybody else do. Im not like that. I follow my instincts and that usually works better.

    I will buy Vanguish instead of Black Ops too. The sales number will tell us that most gamers will do the opposite.
    Edited by muscleblade at 13/07/10 @ 13:26

  • SpaceMidget75 Verified Senior Software Developer, Minerva Computer Services #52 2 years ago

    I cancelled my eagerly anticipated pre-order of Alan Wake to get RDR while the multiplayer was still hot. I've now bought Alan Wake for £20. That should tell you something as to why sales were poor.

    Have to say, I'm loving it and it is definately not a 7/10 game.

    I'd sacrifice resolution for better effects everytime and the lighting and smoke effects are fantastic. This is NOT the shoddy looking game everyone made out. The combat is fresh as you often find yourself having to juggle between gun, torch, flare and dodge just to kill 3 enemies.

    The story is far from tired and overused, just some of the characters are, but this is no different from 90% of movies released. The episodic nature of the game has hardly been overused yet and works great.

    I said it before but it seems to me that Ellie was on the wrong foot for this game as soon as she saw (and mentioned in the review) the fact that Alan had to protect the poor helpless wife who was scared of the dark. It was a proper phobia that she had and they made sure they made a point of showing this. I have a friend in the marines who's scared of spiders for christ sake. That comment had no place in the review.

    Downsides to the game were some of the facial expressions were poor, some of the voice acting wasn't great and it needed a bit of polish around things like characters talking then getting cut off by cutscenes without warning. Some more animations would have been nice too. All these things could be improved in a sequel and it could by another Uncharted/Uncharted 2.

  • Spydy #53 2 years ago

    I got to the end of chapter 3 and couldn't go on. The facial animations are laughable, it's cheap in that I kept getting axed in the back without warning, the animation in general was poor and while the graphics are good, it was rinse, wash and repeat.

    A game that was in development hell for 5 years should tell you all you need to know. Obviously, they were undecided on which direction to take the game and instead went with a story driven linear adventure late in the cycle, but failed on almost all levels apart from the graphics.

    If the game was anywhere near what Remedy / MS originally promised, it would have sold better, I'm sure.
    Edited by Spydy at 13/07/10 @ 13:44

  • Calgon #54 2 years ago


    Seems like a waste of 5 years if MS suddenly dont have the bottle to continue, i mean look at Dead Space, pretty sure version 2 of that will sell great, considering that it didnt do brilliant to start with. MS dont have a lot of AAA exclusives at the moment, and getting rid of this game would really lessen their range of genres.

    I think you have a point there, its not like an FPS with and online multi component where you have to have it right away or face being "pwned" because you waited too long, the target audience is also probably more mature having more patience... they will probably pick it up in their own time.

    I also see more and more people are siding on the"way better than the EG made out" side of the fence(it does seem to me Ellie simply was the wrong person to choose to review this game, I dont think anyone was saying every point she made was wrong but it was clear from the moment she picked it up she decided there was no way the game could please her) so word of mouth will get through and I expect we should see a steady flow sales(some games sell fast at launch and just die out... because the sequel that looks better and plays the same wont be far off)... Well those who actually bought it and not just played a one night session after pirating it off bit-torrent or where ever and gave up after an hour because something frustrated them, seem to like it alot on the whole. :/

    Im thinking there will be a sequel personally, hopefully they can acheive their original vision on that one or perhaps better it, who knows?
    Edited by Calgon at 13/07/10 @ 15:08

  • El-Dev #55 2 years ago

    I'm guessing it has legs because it's £20ish most places now, less of a gamble for that price for a game that failed to live up to the hype some placed on it.

  • Andee #56 2 years ago

    Hopefully for a sequel they could make it open world like the game was originally supposed to be.

  • mkreku #57 2 years ago

    I am actually playing through Alan Wake right now (somewhere in Chapter 6), and I fully agree with Ellie's review (and score).

    It starts out fantastic, as a mystery with a really great story that you really want to follow. But then the combat starts, and the game becomes the same situation in slightly different milieus over and over again. You enter a "room" in the corridor-like levels (by room, I mean the door you just entered through mysteriously and illogically locks itself behind you, and the door in front of you is locked until you kill an arbitrary number of shadows) and fight until you can move on.

    I had of course read that the game would be linear, but this kind of linear is the worst I've ever seen! The game makes a habit of locking you off from previously visited areas, so if you ever go through the wrong door/trigger the wrong cut-scene, you're bound to miss a manuscript/thermos and you'll have to play the game through again to get them! Incredibly annoying.

    Another repetitive thing: "Let's meet at X!", *something unexpected happens and blocks your easy path*, "Alan, you're on your own, let's meet at Y instead after you've walked in mile-long circles to get past that three foot obstacle!". This happens All. The. Time. Also incredibly annoying.

    It might just be me (since I expected this to be open-world until.. oh, about a month ago), but it's physically painful to be restricted to these corridors in a world that's so obviously much bigger and lovingly crafted! You can see out of your little fenced off area and it really shows that there's an entire world out there that you're bound to not see. Argh.

    Oh, and about the bear wanking: the cars really do sound ridiculous. Unless you're going full speed all the time, because as soon as you let up on the accelerator, Alan seems to hit gear number one and the car revs up to a ridiculous number. It sounds like wwwwrrrrr-IIIIIHHHHH-wwwwrrrrr-IIIIIHHHHH and so on.

  • Yossarian #58 2 years ago

    If you liked RDR more than Alan Wake, you're probably a bad person.

  • DirectAim #59 2 years ago

    Alan Wake is out?

    You can add one more sale to their figures, can't beleive I didn't know it was out! WTF!

  • ronuds #60 2 years ago

    I never knew 150k in sales was considered that bad! Were people expecting millions?

  • Kami #61 2 years ago

    I think it's just some of the "fans" don't want to hear any criticism of their baby. It's okay, every game has them. I don't let people get to me personally any more because, well, fanboys will be fanboys. It's really hard to have a debate with someone who automatically thinks they are entitled to win the argument.

    I don't think Alan Wake is a BAD game, far from it actually - I've never said it's a bad game, it's just not an original game - it has a lot of ideas and concepts from the survival horror genre of the past decade and that's great if you can make them your own. Alan Wake can't. I've said it before, Alan Wake has glimpses of absolute genius which hints of a longer, deeper and much more wide-spanning game having been the intention. But it's been cemented over with too many outside ideas really, and for me - personally - it's a bit confusing to be reeling off a list of other games when you're playing a new one. (I fully accept as a serious fan of the survival horror genre this is probably an issue limited only to me but still, it's an issue.)

    I love horror games, therefore by token I enjoyed immensely the trip through Alan Wake - but I did so in the end fully accepting that it is a covers album, and not an original masterpiece. It's not the best, it's not the worst, it's somewhere in the upper regions of the genre and that's normally okay, but it's probably amplified by market problems right now which make it a slightly more complicated scenario.

    Just don't have a go at people who didn't thoroughly enjoy it - Alan Wake is perhaps an aquired taste even for a genre that is an aquired taste, and this probably explains why the sales are a little on the poor side. I'm sure the winter months will see AW take off a little more, but Remedy can't really blame anyone but themselves for this one. Alan Wake is a GOOD game, I admit it and won't say otherwise. It is not, however, a GREAT game and in a time when we are seeing some great games, those that aren't up to snuff - even if they're good - won't compete.

    This is natural selection in progress people, enjoy AW - but don't be surprised if we never see the poor sod again.

  • waggy79 #62 2 years ago

    @Kami

    I actually agree with alot of your post, I just hope that the franchise is given a second chance as games in general (unlike films), usually benefit from a sequel. Where would we be if devs had stopped at Street Fighter or Mario Bros?
    There's potential for sure...

  • Unclebaby #63 2 years ago

    Yes please?!

  • IneptPercy #64 2 years ago

    I to would have bought it on the PC.

    Its not to late release it now and I will forgive you.

  • Rubarack #65 2 years ago

    I'm another one of those who had loads to play at the time and picked it up for £18 recently. Hopefully the long tale will see it right because I'm glad it was made and it would be a shame if it proved a cautionary tale.

  • davisorle #66 2 years ago

    Post deleted at 20:44:35 16-04-2012

  • Nephirion #67 2 years ago

    Heres a concept that might work, try selling it at a cheaper price?

  • Ace_McCloud #68 2 years ago

    Not helped by the shit name.

  • GratefulGhoul #69 2 years ago

    I don't subscribe to the whole something is only good if it sells by the bucket load, if that were true Westlife are the best band in the UK.

    Loved Alan Wake and think it is a extremely under rated and offered something a little different making it a contender for my game of the year.

    If you have missed this game, give it a go you won't be disapointed.