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[hemo memo]

If we get more of these then the industry will bankrupt itself. The starving artist bit only lasts so long before the investor money dries up and these people are out of work. At least breaking even is absolutely pivotal if it's to be sustainable.

This isn’t new. The AAA industry needs a wake up call.

 

[Boss Mog]

Good.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

One bright spot (multiple actually) is that this game was pushed hard by games media for 2 - 3 weeks and it resulted in squat.

Their influence is negligible.

 

[MALpractice311]

It was a sequel to a game that didn't sell very well when it was first released.

The original was first released 15 years ago, so some fans of the original may not even care at this point.

Likewise, the remaster of the original didn't sell particularly well.

It's by Remedy, who sells decently, but nothing spectacularly, other than Max Payne 2 , which was like 20 years, and allegedly Control, which is a different genre.

It was not available in physical format.

It was locked to Epic Game store.

The game splits time between a new character and the titular main character, rather than focusing on the main character alone that fans might be interested in.

The game seems to have been heavily influenced by walking sims, rather than remaining true to the original's gameplay.

What exactly did they expect to happen?

 

[mayham2199]

No physical and released only on Epic. No surprise here. I really wish Remedy had the money to do the things they wanted to do instead of constantly relying on some big pub who wants to limit their games exposure.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

And spend hours listening to talking heads in your mind room.

I will get hate for this and I absolutely don’t get the critical acclaimed hype this game got…

Well we have another game like this releasing in about a month but thankfully it’ll be about 4 hours long with good visuals as well

 

[Fart Knight]

One bright spot (multiple actually) is that this game was pushed hard by games media for 2 - 3 weeks and it resulted in squat.

Their influence is negligible.

 

[rm082e]

I was shocked by how good Control turned out to be. I love metroidvanias, third person action games, and the X-Files, so it was right up my alley. I'll be very interested in another single player Control game.

But I never could get into AW back when I played it on the 360. Hearing this new one also had very little combat, and you play a bunch of the game as some other character who was retconed into the story didn't help. Hearing blowhards in games media praise it pushed me even further away from it.

 

[Puscifer]

Epic fully funded the game and they have full ability to distribute the title themselves. Why should they give Valve 30%? This wasn't a paid exclusive. They are the publisher. Just seems weird that PC gamers demand a monopoly like that.

There's no Monopoly, steam is basically a payment platform. It's been said before and I'll say it again, they do nothing and let the competition shoot themselves in the foot

 

[LordCBH]

It was on my list to play when it was announced as I love the first game. But no physical release made me wait, then I saw my buddy play the game and thought it looked awful.

 

[Sleepwalker]

Game is a 7/10 and sold as such.

 

[Stuart360]

Have any of their games post Max Payne actually made a profit?.
Their games always seem to underperform yet the studio never seems in trouble.

 

[Sushi_Combo]

Yeah I disliked control too but it had good combat and ideas.
They already knew good games. That’s max Payne 1 and 2

They've been consistently bad with their last few releases. Couldn't finish Control and this one did not peak any interest with me.

 

[Stuart360]

There's no Monopoly, steam is basically a payment platform. It's been said before and I'll say it again, they do nothing and let the competition shoot themselves in the foot

I love it when people call Steam a monopoly when they are the only company that puts almost no restrictions on games coming to Steam, doesnt have or pay for exclusives, and even allows users to buy cheap game keys elswhere and use them on Steam, even though they get nothing from it.
Steam is so popular because they arent scummy like most of the others, and basically the users are in charge.

Alo yeah Steam never has to do anything in responce to the others. Its like when Epic went all in and started giving away weekly free games, and buying up exclusivity, what did Steam do?, nothing lol. Gabe just sat back in his chair, hands behind his head, and watch the fallout lol.

 

[diffusionx]

I was shocked by how good Control turned out to be. I love metroidvanias, third person action games, and the X-Files, so it was right up my alley. I'll be very interested in another single player Control game.

But I never could get into AW back when I played it on the 360. Hearing this new one also had very little combat, and you play a bunch of the game as some other character who was retconed into the story didn't help. Hearing blowhards in games media praise it pushed me even further away from it.

Control is the best game Remedy ever made. People don't think it be like it is, but it do.

 

[MALpractice311]

Have any of their games post Max Payne actually made a profit?.
Their games always seem to underperform yet the studio never seems in trouble.

I assume they normally budget themselves properly and don't overspend on marketing or what have you. Seems like Alan Wake 2 broke that streak.

 

[rm082e]

Control is the best game Remedy ever made. People don't think it be like it is, but it do.

I concur.

 

[tmlDan]

Terrible game. I was very disappointed by the loud obnoxious jump scares, lack of combat, constant gatherering if crap with full inventory and bad puzzles. The gameplay loop consists of slow walking and puzzles. It’s barely engaging compared to other survival horror games. And the never ending Sam lake masturbation. I even liked the game before … he puts himself in every part of the game and that’s kinda almost fine. But the story is just trash. The new character is trash and the ending is trash.
And on top of that, they just port it to ps5 by slapping low on pc settings. No rt, no alternative solution, grainy war that doesn’t work and sub 30 performance with worst fsr2 this gen. And there controls are terrible on ps5. Worst dead zones and sensitivity ever.

I am usually not that critical and this game got some amazing setting, location forests and so on… but you end up pretending to be scared, pretending to be detective, pretending to be engaged. And spend hours listening to talking heads in your mind room.

I will get hate for this and I absolutely don’t get the critical acclaimed hype this game got… and I can’t sell it because it’s only on psn

You're not alone. To me, it's likely the most overrated game of last year, maybe this entire gen alongside deathloop.

 

[bender]

Control is the best game Remedy ever made. People don't think it be like it is, but it do.

It's easily better than all of their post-MP2 releases but still nowhere near it.

 

[K' Dash]

I expected it from the start. I'm glad they made it and I got to play it.

I wish they gave closure to Alan, I don't think they will have the opportunity to do another one.

 

[TintoConCasera]

Hey at least they got to dance at TGA.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Remedy is a wildly overrated studio

All their games are boring, control and AW2 are just blah

 

[Fabieter]

Hard to blame them. I don't know why consumers cheer it on honestly. Taking 1/3rd of every game on PC and going towards another yacht for Gabe (he has 6). At least Epic makes games and game engines, and they're tossing out tons of games for free. I really don't get PC gamers' mindset. If Epic Store actually grew, Valve might have to spend some of their money on something to compete.

Psst the defense force will come for you .

 

[digoutyoursoul]

Still excited to see what they do with Max Payne tho.

 

[NeverYouMind]

At least they had the best showing at Videogame Awards.

 

[JoduanER2]

Terrible game. I was very disappointed by the loud obnoxious jump scares, lack of combat, constant gatherering if crap with full inventory and bad puzzles. The gameplay loop consists of slow walking and puzzles. It’s barely engaging compared to other survival horror games. And the never ending Sam lake masturbation. I even liked the game before … he puts himself in every part of the game and that’s kinda almost fine. But the story is just trash. The new character is trash and the ending is trash.
And on top of that, they just port it to ps5 by slapping low on pc settings. No rt, no alternative solution, grainy war that doesn’t work and sub 30 performance with worst fsr2 this gen. And there controls are terrible on ps5. Worst dead zones and sensitivity ever.

I am usually not that critical and this game got some amazing setting, location forests and so on… but you end up pretending to be scared, pretending to be detective, pretending to be engaged. And spend hours listening to talking heads in your mind room.

I will get hate for this and I absolutely don’t get the critical acclaimed hype this game got… and I can’t sell it because it’s only on psn

agree with everything, sam lake's is a horrible storyteller, so pretentious... there is pages of pages of insanely ridiculous dialogue which I think he though sounded "cool" but is so stupid.

 

[Punished Miku]

Psst the defense force will come for you .

I dont care lol. They can post more Pope Gabe pics. Pretty much self explanatory.

 

[MALpractice311]

Remedy is a wildly overrated studio

All their games are boring, control and AW2 are just blah

Nailed it. Their games are competently made, but just uninteresting to play. They're all straight forward third person shooters that work properly and look good, but the gameplay just just never varies things up or evolves. Whatever you start out doing at the beginning, you'll be doing ad nauseum for another 10 to 12 hours.

They seem like they want to be known for their writing and spend all their time on that and then they ask themselves "What genre?". "I don't know. Third person shooter?"

 

[stn]

For those who played the game, is there anything story-related about the "white assholes" comment from the main character, or is it something that was basically thrown in just because.

 

[Fabieter]

I dont care lol. They can post more Pope Gabe pics. Pretty much self explanatory.

I actually like steam as well but the fandom is more of a cult tbh.

 

[MALpractice311]

For those who played the game, is there anything story-related about the "white assholes" comment from the main character, or is it something that was basically thrown in just because.

Haven't played it, but I recall other people explaining that she was possessed or hallucinating or something.

 

[HerjansEagleFeeder]

Oh my, even with the stellar writing by Sweet Baby Inc? How could this happen.

 

[NeverYouMind]

Hard to blame them. I don't know why consumers cheer it on honestly. Taking 1/3rd of every game on PC and going towards another yacht for Gabe (he has 6). At least Epic makes games and game engines, and they're tossing out tons of games for free. I really don't get PC gamers' mindset. If Epic Store actually grew, Valve might have to spend some of their money on something to compete.

There is no benefit to customers in publishers getting a bigger cut. Epic has less features and no unique policies that benefit the customer. If there is a store to support, it is GOG because its games are DRM free.

 

[Fabieter]

There is no benefit to customers in publishers getting a bigger cut. Epic has less features and no unique policies that benefit the customer. If there is a store to support, it is GOG because its games are DRM free.

Interesting that most devs dont support gog because they like DRM but its fine as long as its on steam xD.

 

[NeverYouMind]

Interesting that most devs dont support gog because they like DRM but its fine as long as its on steam xD.

I don't think devs would get the sales they want if it was exclusively on GOG. When you release on PC it just makes sense to target the storefront with the most users.

 

[SnapShot]

For those who played the game, is there anything story-related about the "white assholes" comment from the main character, or is it something that was basically thrown in just because.

It was just something randomly thrown in once near the very end of the game

Spoiler

Because she gets taken by the darkness and her dark self gets nervous and starts saying random things to try to make her doubt herself and stop her from leaving the dark place

 

[Guilty_AI]

There is no benefit to customers in publishers getting a bigger cut. Epic has less features and no unique policies that benefit the customer. If there is a store to support, it is GOG because its games are DRM free.

Its also worth mentioning that if devs want to give out a smaller cut, they can just use Itch io instead which takes even less than EGS. I honestly see no reason for EGS to exist at this point.

 

[Fabieter]

I don't think devs would get the sales they want if it was exclusively on GOG. When you release on PC it just makes sense to target the storefront with the most users.

Never talked about being exclusive to gog, but they prefer having DRM which was a main reason alot of pubs picked steam in the early days. Alot of people werent there or forgot about it tho.

 

[Guilty_AI]

Never talked about being exclusive to gog, but they prefer having DRM which was a main reason alot of pubs picked steam in the early days. Alot of people werent there or forgot about it tho.

Most steam games have no DRM tho. Steam's DRM doesn't really stops piracy either.

Very few pubs picked steam in the early days, and the ones who did were mainly interested in the digital market.

 

[Fabieter]

Most steam games have no DRM tho. Steam's DRM doesn't really stops piracy either.

Very few pubs picked steam in the early days, and the ones who did were mainly interested in the digital market.

The first benefit for having DRM is that shareholders are happy that companies try to protect their profit and yes it was definitely a main draw in the first few years for bigger pubs.

 

[S0ULZB0URNE]

No physical and EGS effect.

 

[Three]

I tried to temper expectations when people were celebrating PR of "higher digital sales than Control" for a digital only release:

It hasn't made a profit yet

Alan Wake 2 is Remedy’s fastest-selling game yet, shifting over 1.3m copies, but hasn’t made a penny of profit

Sells 50% more than Control in half the time.

www.rockpapershotgun.com

I hope they make it back soon though.

 

[devutos]

For those who played the game, is there anything story-related about the "white assholes" comment from the main character, or is it something that was basically thrown in just because.

I didn't get to that part cause the game was a bore, but there are multiple DEI-driven interactions even in the first hour or so, which have no bearing on the plot or setting whatsoever, and are clearly only there because a certain consulting company told them that the main character, as a black woman, needs to experience sexism and racism. Incredibly dumb.

As for the sales or lack thereof, no Steam, no physical release, sweet babies, Alan Wake sidelined, boring gameplay, it was a perfect storm of shit.

 

[Guilty_AI]

The first benefit for having DRM is that shareholders are happy that companies try to protect their profit and yes it was definitely a main draw in the first few years for bigger pubs.

how was it a draw when other stores and physical disks also had DRM?

 

[TGO]

Google reckons the development and marketing budget was $70m

The game cost less then Dead Space 2 did a decade ago.....and they still haven't make profit
I mean you can't knock it's production values and yet it didn't cost much compared to other games

 

[Three]

how was it a draw when other stores and physical disks also had DRM?

Physical discs don't have DRM that protect profits. For example the ability to resell a disc. No second hand market is a benefit for publishers.

 

[Kerotan]

I loved it but it's the type of game I'd only play once. Looking forward to the expansion.

 

[StereoVsn]

Alan Wake 2 Still Hasn't Earned Back Its Budget

Remedy has released its financial statement for the first quarter of 2024, and despite strong sales, Alan Wake 2 has yet to recoup its development costs.

techraptor.net

Opinion: a physical release would've helped to bring those numbers up, I'm sure.

They also basically had very low sales on PC due to EGS exclusivity.

 

[hinch7]

A sequel to a game that didn't sell well. Add in EGS exclusivity, no disk release, heavy-handed DEI, slow paced and yeah.. not so surprising.

 

[TGO]

Just release the goddamn game on Steam.

I don't think this will solve the issue.
They should have released Physically day one.
Now even if they do people ain't gonna buy it like they would have done at launch because of word of mouth.
Releasing on steam will only add a few k to their numbers