Remedy Entertainment, the developer behind Alan Wake 2, revealed the Sweet Baby Inc. influenced game has not recouped its budget.
A screenshot from Alan Wake II (2023), Remedy Entertainment
In the company’s most recent Business Review for January to March 2024, it shared, “In February 2024, Remedy announced that Alan Wake 2 had sold 1.3 million units as of the beginning of February. Alan Wake 2 sales have continued with a high average price. At the end of the first quarter, the game had recouped a significant part of the development and marketing expenses.”
It added, “During the first quarter, the team focused on working on the downloadable content (DLC) that will extend Alan Wake 2.”
As noted by Remedy, it has not recouped all of its development and marketing expenses. The company also shared that it does plan to attempt to generate royalty revenue from the game, but has not done so yet.
A screenshot from Alan Wake II (2023), Remedy
READ: Remedy Reveals 2023 Revenue Declined By 24% In Fourth Quarter Despite ‘Alan Wake 2’ Release
Remedy also did not reveal what the game’s sales were at in this new report, which likely means they have not increased significantly since the beginning of February.
The company had previously shared that the game’s sales had reached over one million by the end of December, and as noted above 1.3 million by the beginning of February, meaning sales increased 30% in January.
A screenshot from Alan Wake II (2023), Remedy
This report comes in the wake of the company’s CEO Tero Virtala making a similar statement as part of the company’s 2023 financial statements. He said, “The sales of Alan Wake 2 started well despite a competitive launch window and an overall exceptional number of great game launches throughout the year. Alan Wake 2, as a digital only release, had sold over 1 million units by the end of the fourth quarter of 2023 making it the fastest selling Remedy game. I want to thank the development team for their incredible effort in getting Alan Wake 2 done.”
However, he then revealed, “As Control proved, a great quality game can have excellent longtail sales and we expect this to be the case with Alan Wake 2 as well. Alan Wake 2 has already recouped a significant part of the investments made by Epic Games Publishing, and we expect the game to be a meaningful revenue and profitability driver for the year.”
A screenshot from Alan Wake II (2023), Remedy
Virtala also revealed the costs for the game seemingly ballooned at the end of the game’s development, which impacted other projects in their development stages.
He said, “Alan Wake 2 is the largest and most ambitious project undertaken by Remedy. Finalizing the game with a high quality was a priority and required more personnel during the year than originally planned, which in turn delayed our other projects moving to the next development stages. The successful launch of Alan Wake 2 freed up talents for other game projects, resulting in improved development velocity.”
A screenshot from Alan Wake II (2023), Remedy
Virtala also noted the company’s plan was to move forward with Alan Wake and Control. He explained, “With Alan Wake and Control we now have two established franchises, and our ambition is to grow them into franchises that have high brand recognition, steadily growing user base, more regular cadence of sequels and an ability to generate revenues and profits at a high level.”
To this end, the company claims expanding their Alan Wake franchise as well as Control are key for the company’s future. The report states, “We have two established own franchises, Control and Alan Wake, which are linked through the Remedy Connected Universe. Growing and expanding these franchises will be a key part of our future. In addition, we work with a partner franchise Max Payne that was originally created by Remedy.”
This was reiterated in the most recent report, “We have two established own franchises, Control and Alan Wake, which are linked through the Remedy Connected Universe. Growing and expanding these franchises will be a key part of our future. In addition, we work with a partner franchise Max Payne that was originally created by Remedy.”
A screenshot from Alan Wake II (2023), Remedy
What do you make of Alan Wake 2 still not recouping its development and marketing costs?
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It’s a shame when selling over a million copies of your game isn’t enough to make it profitable. It’s also a shame that a normally quality dev hired such a cancer on the game industry.
I hope they lose money.