Remedy: Alan Wake's Xbox Exclusivity Was a "Business Risk" - News
by VGChartz Staff , posted on 26 March 2011 / 4,065 Views
Remedy, the developer of Alan Wake, has recently disclosed in an an interview with CVG that being Xbox exclusive was a "business risk". This is coming off a talk given by Remedy during GDC that noted signing with Microsoft helped to focus the large project, amid some concerns of a reduced consumer base.
"[Focus is] actually a really core Remedy element, well if you forget the ambitious goals we had," said Remedy CTO Markus Maki. "We needed to be top notch in some areas, but we knew we couldn't do everything better than some developers out there... We also took the approach to license middleware that made sense, even when we didn't end up using it all for one reason or another. And then, the big deal - to go with Microsoft and take one big technological effort, the PS3, out of the equation. That then changed the technology risk to a business risk."
Remedy developed the Alan Wake engine in-house with only eight programmers, resisting temptation from Epic's Unreal Engine.
"At that point, we didn't dare commit to shipping a game on third-party tech until the developers of that tech had shipped a game on each of those platforms," said Maki. "Five years later, [I'll admit] that the reasoning wasn't solid because these guys beat us to the punch easily."
But now that it's done, Remedy is happy with their engine and look to use it for future projects, unless "good reasons appear" for them to work on something else. Remedy is taking the lessons learned through developing their own engine and putting them – and the engine – to good use.
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Even though Alan Wake didn't sell quiet as good as it could have it's still a good game. Also it not like this is Remedy first set back. Max Payne 2 sold a lot less then the first one even though it was a better game in all aspects.
Yeah...you are right, but where is Alan wake 2 mother f**?
by the way,Alan wake is much better than Heavy rain and No one said that...
@Chris Hu, you just contradicted your earlier comments. If Alan Wake was being developed for the PS3 exclusively, Sony would have supported them and the game would have sold more going by Sony's history. Of course not even Sony is perfect, the totally messed up with Demon's Souls.
@aussie
they still got money from both games, and a crap load at that. that was my point. they are swimming in cash from GT5. so even withits larger budget it was a success.
@Chris
i was just saying they werent very successful because of what happened during development.
Alan Wake was only a failure because it was expected to sell about 4 mil. Demon's Souls was considered an incredible success when it sold less than 1 mil because it was considered too extreme to market and sell.
@osamanobama GT is a proven franchise that goes back to the PS1 and Polyphony always had the backing and large financial support of Sony. Remedy is a small developer the never got a lot of financial backing of a large company like Sony. Remedy did good with Max Payne but Max Payne 2 sold less even though it was a better game. Alan Wake is still a step in the right direction especially if it gets a sequel and the can use the games engine on other projects.
@MonstaMack I think MS realised their mistake hence bundling like hell with the downloadable version to not upset Remedy imo
I bet that without the Xbox fans supporting it because it was exclusive, the game would have sold less.
OsamaObama you cant count GT5p and GT5 sales in the same breath most people would be overlapping buyers no doubt
The sales are disappointing but decent. MS didn't give them enough advertisement and releasing near Red Dead Redemption was not a sound choice.
As long as we see a sequel and that sequel has It's own week or two of sale time against nothing big then I'll be happy.
gran turismo psp is definitely an original title, it had a new engine and everything, and needed new car models for psp, but i will give you GT5p.
but still just between GT% and GT5p they sold 12 million so far. and even without factoring in the other games. they made a shit load of money
@osamanobama The only truly original game Polyphony Digital released between Gran Turismo 4 and 5 is Tourist Trophy. Gran Turismo 5 prologue is pretty much a underdeveloped version of the main game and Gran Turismo PSP is Gran Turismo 2 with more cars slightly better graphics and less features it also took forever to develop so I doubt they had over 30 people working on it.
@chris hu
polyphony also released Tourist trophy, Gran turismo 5 prologue, Gran Turismo psp in that time frame, and now GT5. with combined sales of more than 15 million
if by focus, they mean go from ps3, pc, and xbox, to pc and xbox, then just to xbox, and then from open world to linear, then yeah they had a focused aproach
@Areym About it not belonging on 360 because it's not a FPS?
Doesn't sound like much of a point to me.
@Chris Hu: and what benefit Remedy would have counting pirated versions to have more people buying their game than Heavy Rain??
By the way just bought HR to play with my new move, i hope i like it =]
@ chris hu
It MAY have sold just as much as Heavy Rain if you included all of those sales, but its still doesn't change the fact that half, if not more, of those sales were after price cuts. The first cut came ~ 5 weeks of its release, and knocked off $20. And for a while now you could get it for ~ $20. For comparison's sake, Heavy Rain didn't get a price cut til ~ 28 weeks after launching. Which means the vast majority of its sales were for $60. And the official price cut was only to $50. A few weeks later, some sites like Amazon lowered it to $40. And just a month ago it was lowered to $30.
I will agree that the 5 year cycle isn't too long for such a small studio. But still, that work they lost by going from multi-plat open world to 360 exclusive and linear must have cost them quite a bit of time and money.
@oni-link
Hate to admit but he has a point.
GT5 pretty much had a 6 year development cycle and Polyphony Digital has three times as many employes as Remedy not to mention that GT5 had a much bigger budget. With a bigger budget and more employes Remedy could have developed Allan Wake in less then 3 years.
How about, though, we consider the size of the development team and project when we consider it a sales success or not. Sounds like it was VERY small and that likely kept cost down, which means they wouldn't have to pay out a large amount to a staff of, say, 60-200 like most big first party exclusives.
But again, we don't know how much it cost to develop or market, so who knows if it is a financial success for Remedy and MGS ...
abhiram trolling the 360 once again I see!!!
this game would have sold more on the ps3
this game does not belong on 360 cause it ain FPS
@thismeintiel when you add the digital copies that came with the Forza 3/Allan Wake holiday bundle and the copies sold on XBox Live games on demand Allan Wake sold just as many copies as Heavy Rain. Also Allan Wake was one of the most torrented titles of 2010 when you include the illegal downloads to the legal downloads and physical copies bought Allan Wake moved more copies then Heavy Rain. Remedy is a very small developer employing only around 50 people so the 5 year development cycle really isn't that long.
Alan Wake is one of my favorite games of last year. It's a real gem that everyone with an Xbox 360 should play even if they only rent it.
I guess it was a risk that didn't exactly pay off. It just recently was able to cross 1 mil copies sold, which wouldn't seem too bad, except for the fact that this game took ~ 5 years to develop. A development cycle that started with 3 platforms: PC, 360, and PS3. Then after about a year, it switched to PC and 360 only, and even later dropped to only 360 and dropped its open world exploration. That's quite a bit of work lost. Then you have to take in consideration that half or more of those sales happened after subsequent price cuts. It also looks kinda bad when you had 360 fans promoting that it would look better than Heavy Rain and sell more copies than HR, as well.
@fattyDingDong ... Exactly what my first thought always is when I think of Alan Wake. Red Dead Redemption turned out to be a HUGE success and garnered almost ALL of the media attention, at the same exact time Alan Wake was released. Thus Wake was lost in the background. Though, it was DoA from the start. Lofty expectations, over hyped graphics, and it didn't meet anyones expectations.
At this point the only exclusives that can still stand alone. Mostly are Nintendo, Halo, RockStar games and maybe Gran Trusimo series. Everything else would do so much better it they were on multiple consoles.
Alan Wake didnt do great because of Red Dead Redemption.
