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Shame it didn’t do well, I thought it was great.
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Part of the reason why it hasn’t done great is because its an Epic exclusive right? If they would have released on Steam they’d make tons more sales
Unfortunately, it’s not just an Epic Games exclusive, it’s actually published by Epic Games. Which means it probably won’t ever come to Steam.
The rest of the Alan Wake franchise (and the Control franchise, including the upcoming Control 2) are published by 505 Games or Remedy themselves, so those all get Steam releases.
The Alan Wake 1 remaster is also published by Epic
It sucks because i’d love to get my hands on the Alan Wake remaster and Alan Wake II on steam if they put it on there, if only so i can have easier integration with Steam’s QOL features. Maybe one day Remedy will pull what they did with the OG Alan Wake when they bought the publishing rights from Microsoft and buy the Publishing rights to Alan Wake II from Epic
Yep, I’m waiting for the eventual steam release
Extremely unlikely. AW2 was funded by Epic, not just paid off to be a timed exclusive like Control (which was published by 505).
That means Epic decides where it gets distributed.
Oh lame. Guesd I’m never getting to play it.
I would think it would still do most of it’s business on console regardless of which PC store it launched on.
Lack of a physical release probably hurt more than not being on Steam. When you go pure digital, you miss out on those impulse purchases.
What? Surely seeing something popping up on steam and buying it happens far more than someone spontaneously buying a game in a store when walking around town/ a mall.
Maybe I’m a recluse, but I can’t remember last time I went into a store that stocks a meaningful amount of games other than second hand shops. Are physical games really that large of a margin anymore?
I really really hope they don’t get discouraged. They would have done so much better had it only been on Steam, please Remedy don’t change your ways.
Also it should have been GotY last year, fight me.
They wont.
Remedy games have been “underperforming” despite rave reviews for a while. Yet they’ve been chugging along doing what they think is neat, instead of caving into the current money-making models.
And in this case, the Epic partnership definitely hurt the game. And they know it did. Before AW2, it was microsoft putting the breaks of Quantum Break despite it being great.
Control was the first time since Max Payne I felt they truly achieved the success that their level of quality deserves (and even then it was a timed epic exclusive).
Now Remedy has set themselves up to finally self-publish the follow-up to Control. I can’t wait.
Remedy has fans, but something always seems to get in the way.
Didn’t they just announce a live service shooter? Isn’t that caving into current money-making models?
We know one of their WIP titles is a PvE multiplayer game set in their connected universe. Aside from that, nothing more is known, except for your generic corporate “we’re excited about our future projects with Remedy” statements from 505.
I’d be very suprised if Remedy turns around and makes it overtly exploitative.
Whether it’s any more exploitative than any other game, it’s still got all of the same baggage. It’s always online and will one day be unplayable, and it’s relying on continual revenue to support it rather than just selling it for an up front price and letting it rock, which both encourage exploitative monetization anyway.
Ok. Unfortunately it sounds like you’re asking me to stop liking a studio that I like, based on speculation about how a future title of theirs might work. That’s not an actionable argument.
Nothing about a multiplayer title requires it be made in a way that will break whenever the official servers go down. You are assuming this one will work that way, and I’ll grant you it likely will.
But the change we both want isn’t going to come from voting with our wallets, but even harder.
It’ll come from something like this.
I’m not asking you to stop liking a studio you like, but I am asking you to take them off of the pedestal you put them on. If you care about the SKG campaign, that new shooter of theirs is at odds with it.
…
That pedestal being, that they keep making games that are just plain good, despite at the same time being involved with shit industry practices by working with Microsoft and Epic?
I think that particular pedestal is pretty fucking deserved. And one that looks their faults in the eyes.
They keep making good stuff, while marred by the bullshit that allows them to fund the studio.
Why do you think I’m specifically excited for them to finally do something fully self-published, so they can make something I can enjoy with no fucking strings attached?
Hopefully it’ll come out on steam next year or something as a single complete edition, just like Control.
It’s published by Epic (Control was published by 505). Unless Epic significantly compromises on their insistence of pushing the Epic store, it wont happen.
Ever.
I thought it won game of the year as well as a bunch of other awards?
BG3 got GotY, though there are debates to be had I suppose over the legitimacy of an “official” game of the year.
Not with how unanimous BG3’s award was at basically every outlet.
I was referring to The Game Awards and their claim on crowning the “Game of the Year”.
I know, but this past year in particular, there wasn’t much contention over what the game of the year was.
I think going by overall mainstream appeal and zeitgeist it’s correct. Everybody was talking about BG3 that year, even people who are usually not fans of the genre. So in that sense I agree that 2023 was the year of BG3.
On the games’ merit alone as standalone pieces of art abstracted from context I think Alan Wake 2 puts up a good fight.
Yeah, last year was not a weak year. There was a new highly-regarded Zelda game as well, which is easy to forget when Baldur’s Gate 3 won every award so unanimously.
Went would it have done better if it were only on steam?
Bit of awkward phrasing, but the commentator was not talking about Steam exclusivity - rather having it available on Steam (in addition to wherever else it was available).
Clearer wording may be “if only it had been on Steam”.
Ooh, I misunderstood, cheers.
Good shout, I did fumble my word order.
AAA title Published by Epic Games, doesn’t use unreal engine, mega-chad move.
I can see them in the future publishing it on steam as it has no integration into epic in any technical way. Epic will want to recoup their costs though by optimizing the release window for steam so expect it (if at all) to have a steam release when control 2 lands.
Probably not, unless Remedy buys the publishing rights back from Epic, which they did for Alan Wake 1, from Microsoft.
I found the pacing of the first few chapters in the first Alan Wake sublime, in terms of storytelling. The gameplay frustrated me on the other hand, became quickly monotonous and tedious for me. So I only played like a third of the game, much as I liked the story and was curious to see where it went. Then Control I was left completely unmoved by. So I’ve been hesitating to take up the second Alan Wake, basically because I didn’t much like the first iteration, or Control, which I’ve heard is somehow connected. Maybe I’m missing out. Or maybe these games appeal only to a certain audience.
I thought the story of Control was just ok but the gameplay was awesome.
It didnt land on my Top 25 list BUT…that one level (people who played it know exactly which I mean) was easily one of the best sequences I’ve ever played. I have no idea how they made it feel like you were still in control (hehe) as everything around you went crazy.
Unfortunately that level is very late in the game otherwise I’d implore you to stick it out to see it. But since you quit so early because you weren’t having fun, you probably will continue to not have fun until that part.
Hey thanks, both AW1 and Control are games I might pick up again. Didn’t hate them, they just didn’t really hook me.
I probably wouldn’t have kept playing it if a friend didn’t buy it for me and insist so I get it!
Another great game ruined by gamers’ insistence on dick riding Gabe Newell and always giving Valve a 30% cut, no matter what.
Will anyone self reflect on whether they’re being a dumbass and hurting the entire gaming industry by insisting on only using Steam cause that’s all they’ve ever used?
No. They’ll yell at Epic and Remedy for not wanting to give 30% of their revenue to Valve.
Maybe more people would be willing to use Steam competitors if they weren’t all absolute garbage.
I can barely run steam and the games I bought on steam at the same time, which is required for most games. Steam disabled certain features and bloated the software – their launcher takes more resources than actual games. AAA games. (From a decade ago, but still.)
Other launchers might be garbage but the bar seems to be pretty low. Only thing anyone can say is “get a better computer” because in their mind that is a great rebuttal to “why is a game tied to a launcher which takes up 4x as many resources as my entire OS?”
If I buy the game on Epic, I’m given no assurance that the game will continue to work for me on Linux. Others will have different issues with the service that Epic offers. I’m not going to buy from Epic just because Valve has reached some threshold of market saturation.
Respectfully, using Epic means using yet another platform. I have games spread across Steam, GOG, itch, Amazon, Ubisoft, and probably at least one more. If I buy a game on Epic, chances are I’ll forget about it, so I don’t bother.
This isn’t to mention that the one game I do have on Epic, GTA V, has 3 different launchers when used through Epic (when it wants to actually open). It doesn’t do anything Steam doesn’t and doesn’t do many of the things Steam does. I don’t even really love Steam either, because it crashes constantly on Debian for me, but I already have 500+ games there and it’s got ~20 years on Epic. I’m also a Linux user, so Proton is essentially one of the only ways I can reliably play most of my library.
Platform lock-in should be a consideration for companies, even though it sucks, because it’s an objective reflection of the reality of the games industry. Remedy knew that they would have fewer players going Epic-exclusive but seemed to underestimate to what degree that might hurt sales; this past couple of years have been sort of bad for the average person, so maybe they used previous sales data that didn’t really account for lower levels of consumer spending.
The game wouldn’t have been a massive success even with 30% more money than what they ended up earning. They didn’t want to pay the fee so they didn’t, that’s their choice and they were free to make it; the result isn’t Valve’s fault, they weren’t involved at all. When it’s on GOG or Steam, maybe I’ll buy it on sale, but at this point there’s no reason to lock myself into another janky platform. I did this with Control: the GOG version of Control is great and I don’t have to use Epic.
I hear what you’re saying, but gamers in this thread (and every thread), are demanding that it come out on Steam, not on GOG, which makes them a huge part of the problem.
Lock in exists partially because gamers have lionized Valve for throwing them trinkets and refuse to use anything else, while Valve has designed their platform around a mandatory launcher and done what they can to lock players into it.
If you check this list and this list, many games on Steam will actually launch without Steam running.
I don’t think I can say the same for a lot of other platforms, excluding GOG and itch, of course.I don’t disagree with you about why it exists and that it’s bad, but the fact remains that it does exist and Remedy and Epic, as companies, need to face that when making these decisions and factor that into sales projections accordingly. They should have known what they were getting into, and forcing people into using Epic isn’t really the answer to the lock-in problem anyway.
Edit: Turns out a bunch of other platforms have DRM-free games too, TIL.
I don’t want to use Windows, but play on my Linux Gaming PC. This works really nice because of the work, Valve does on Proton and gives back to Wine. GoG is cool, but they don’t help in regards to this. The Epic fucks (hehe) are actually hostile towards Linux, so before I would buy there, I would pirate their games or just not play the game at all.
When the Steam enshittification starts, I will be one of the first to say fuck them, too.
