Menu Close

Remedy Explains Decision To Make Alan Wake Exclusive

We call it "the game PS3 owners wish they had" and it remains one of the most engaging, innovative experiences of the generation in our eyes.

So why didn't Alan Wake come to Sony's console? Well, obviously, it's because Remedy signed an exclusivity deal with Microsoft, and the developer now admits that move was a "business risk." On the other hand, it eliminated the "technical headaches" that would go along with producing the game for both platforms; if you didn't know, the game was originally intended to come to the PS3, 360 and PC. But Remedy went with Microsoft's offer; sure, it reduces the number of potential consumers, but Remedy CTO told the crowd at GDC earlier this month that such a move "reigned in the scope of a wildly ambitious project."

"Our strategy was one of focus. That's actually a really core Remedy element, well if you forget the ambitious goals we had. We needed to be top notch in some areas, but we knew we couldn't do everything better than some developers out there. For example, this meant there was no multiplayer. That wasn't in our core set of skills and it would have been a huge effort.

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 – but that's a subject for a different talk altogether…"

Maki went on to talk about their engine selection for Alan Wake (they passed on the Unreal Engine, by the way), and it's clear they're quite satisfied with their decision. As for a sequel, that is apparently in the works and no, PS3 owners shouldn't expect it. But wait…I have more to say on this subject…

Subscribe
Notify of
guest
66 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Jawknee
Jawknee
13 years ago

They picked the wrong platform.

CrusaderForever
CrusaderForever
13 years ago

Amen brother

maxpontiac
maxpontiac
13 years ago

Agreed.

TheHighlander
TheHighlander
13 years ago

Either they took a bath on the original and don't care about it, or Microsoft wrote a check large enough to compensate them handsomely. No one produces a game that sells as poorly as Alan Wake did on 360 and then makes a sequel on the same unfriendly (the the genre) platform, unless they are being paid to.

GuyverLT
GuyverLT
13 years ago

It's sad cause it's a really great game even for the poor sales, so yeah I agree they have to be getting paid allot of money if they don't intend to go Multi-Plat this time around.

Lawless SXE
Lawless SXE
13 years ago

Alan Wake has actually now sold in excess of a million copies. It may not be as good as something like Heavy Rain, but it has been a moderate success.

TheHighlander
TheHighlander
13 years ago

Wow! A million seller eh? That's far more than I had heard anywhere. I'll retract what I said about a bath, but stand by the questioning of making a sequel on a platform that still offered lack luster sales.

Lawless SXE
Lawless SXE
13 years ago

http://gamrreview.vgchartz.com/sales/13817/alan-wake/

I know it's not the best source, but it's still information, right?

TheHighlander
TheHighlander
13 years ago

Hold on, there's a nearly 400,000 copy shortfall between the week 10 global numbers given, and the supposed lifetime sales. We're supposed to believe that 400,000 more copies sold beyond week 10? Weeks 26-28 see a sustained surge in sales of the game in the US, any idea what happened then? Was the game offered at a lower price, or bundled with a console?

Lawless SXE
Lawless SXE
13 years ago

400,000 copies in 34 weeks is hardly outside the realm of possibility, especially for a title that a lot of people would have been sleeping on, considering that it was untried. As for the bump in sales later on that timeline, it's a wonder… maybe a price drop?

Ludicrous_Liam
Ludicrous_Liam
13 years ago

Lawless,

VGcharts = big no no. Most un-reliable source you could of found 🙂

Lawless SXE
Lawless SXE
13 years ago

I know, but there has to be some truth to it… Doesn't there?

Lawless SXE
Lawless SXE
13 years ago

So basically, they took up Microsoft's offer because they thought that the PS3 was too difficult to program for? They wanted to eradicate that technological risk rather than pushing themselves to make it work? Siding with M$ was a business risk, when we all know how desperate they are for exclusivity, and the lengths that they will go to get it ($50 million for GTA:EFLC). What a joke.

On the other hand, I applaud their desire for focus. If there's one thing that annoys me, it's devs biting of more than they can chew and adding in tons of optional content at the expense of the core gameplay.
Peace.

TheHighlander
TheHighlander
13 years ago

If there's one thing that annoys me it's companies specifically going out to buy game exclusivity from third party developers – especially for established franchises that would have to switch platform to make the exclusivity happen.

I don't have a problem with a console maker offering technical assistance and such, or even a publishing partnership with good terms, but a check up front for services rendered makes the developer/publisher signing such exclusivity little more than a paid whore.

jaybiv
jaybiv
13 years ago

@highlander. Why should it matter if a company offers better terms, tech support or other compensation? Extra compensation is the overwhelming reason companies go exclusive in any industry. The developer who takes the exclusive deal is doing what they think is best for their business.

TheHighlander
TheHighlander
13 years ago

Because winning over loyalty by offering support whether the developer stays exclusive or not shows more trust in the developer than paying them a ton of money to be exclusive. I'd rather be someone's friend than their slave. Paid exclusivity locks a developer in, and they can't go beyond the limits of their exclusivity. A third party developer with a good relationship with Sony can get the same support as other Sony devs, without worrying about being strong-armed into exclusivity. If the dev chooses out of loyalty to remain exclusive, I'm sure that their loyalty is rewarded with a closer relationship, but if they do not remain exclusive, they continue to receive the same support.

Let's say you're a third party developer like Level 5 working on a new JRPG, and you choose to develope it for PS3. If you ask Sony for any help, they'll bend over backwards to give it to you. If you decide to also develop for the 360, Sony will still help you with your PS3 implementation. On the other hand let's say your working for Turncoats Enix, a long time JRPG developer fallen on hard times and you sign an exclusivity deal with Microsoft. Now there's no chance of developing those exclusive games for the PS3 platform, because your contract prevents you. Not only that, but your close relationship with Sony is disrupted because you're no longer developing for their platform. Then when you do develop for them, and agree to make something exclusive (without being paid to), Sony once again offers their usual help, and instead of accepting it and being a friend again you slap the hand back and run off the that other company that paid you for those other games so that they can have the supposedly exclusive game as well.

See, there is a difference, one way is about developing a business relationship, the other is about filling a bank account. It's the long term gain (closer relationships with console makers) vs short term gains (money in the bank). I personally prefer long term gains, but then I despise short termism and investment horizons measurable in weeks.


Last edited by TheHighlander on 3/26/2011 3:07:43 AM

GuyverLT
GuyverLT
13 years ago

I played it was pretty damn creepy at times & I throughly enjoyed it *SIGH* although it's pretty much the only game I've been playing on my 360 lately.

WorldEndsWithMe
WorldEndsWithMe
13 years ago

That was a risk that did NOT pay off. Very foolish move that could have been avoided because Sony would have been happy to help them work with the PS3 like the big boys can.

nilos95
nilos95
13 years ago

Sure it didn't pay off but back then PS3 was considered a beast to develop for and was pretty new while 360 had a userbase. I think that developing it for PS3 would pay off since even Heavy Rain did well(Alan Wake s more mainstream gameplay-wise) but at the very least, they shouldn't have dropped the PC version.

Cesar_ser_4
Cesar_ser_4
13 years ago

but come on world, god forbid third party devs make a videogame that is on par or better than the 360 version…

kraygen
kraygen
13 years ago

I watched several video's for this game and I didn't see anything that made me wish it was on ps3. It looked like a guy always wondering down a hallway styled level with nothing but a flash light, which apparently the zombies/monsters are afraid of.

The graphics looked sub-par and I just never saw anything that would explain why people think it is good.

Granted I haven't played it, but if it had been on ps3, I don't think I would have played it anyway. I watched a lot of gameplay vids and nothing ever made me feel even remotely interested.

Snaaaake
Snaaaake
13 years ago

I can't say that it's a foolish move, the video game industry is business and like he said, it was a business risk.
I think Free Radical has been a fine example of what happens when your game can't sell, especially when the publisher doesn't give you any financial support for it.

If I were in their shoes and a free check comes in I'd take it too.

Cesar_ser_4
Cesar_ser_4
13 years ago

yeah but what if that check wasnt free per say, what if it came with a dirty hand shake and an evil grin that made you think "holy sh*t what the f*ck did i just do?"

Kai200X
Kai200X
13 years ago

Good luck with that Remedy LMAO

Kiryu
Kiryu
13 years ago

There is a reason for making games PS3 Exclusives .There is no real reason for making games 360 exclusive.


Last edited by Kiryu on 3/25/2011 11:08:06 PM

main_event05
main_event05
13 years ago

Especially a game that has zero multiplayer.

maxpontiac
maxpontiac
13 years ago

Indeed.

LittleBigMidget
LittleBigMidget
13 years ago

Fanboy much?

BikerSaint
BikerSaint
13 years ago

I call BS on Remedy…You saw the Brinks truck in your driveway & MS had to lift your head out your own drool to in order to keep you from completely drowning in your pool of self-spittle.

Excelsior1
Excelsior1
13 years ago

okay, so we know the ps3 is harder to program for. they did not want that hassle. sorry, can't say i blame them. we see multplat games suffer all the time on the ps3 with lower resolutions, jaggies, and poor framerates. gta, rdr, crysis 2, ac2, acb, bayo, re5, bioshock 1and2, fear, cod series…the list goes on and on. all those games look better on the 360. as a ps3 owner, i have become conditioned to know that if is a multiplat game it will be worse on my platform of choice.

apparently, the ps3 is tough to program on using middleware. the unreal engine seems to get much better results on the 360. even the cryengine performed better on the 360.

i would like to play alan wake on my ps3, but the 1st game sold over 1 million on the 360, so it did not flop as bad as many have made it out to be. kz3 hasn't even sold 1 million copies yet, and that's triple a exclusive. i guess we are usd to those slow sales on ps3 exclusives. alan wake did perform poorly compared to other xbox exclusives,

like i said it would be great to see alan wake go to a wider audience, but if these guys don't think they have what it takes to deal with the ps3, so be it. ms published their 1st game, so it makes sense that they would have some loyalty to them.

TheHighlander
TheHighlander
13 years ago

No, actually, we know nothing of the sort. The developers that have spent the time and effort learning the platform have no problems using it to great effect. Because it has specialized hardware to accelerate certain kinds of operation you have to actually think about how to use it and learn how to optimize for it. You can't just write your code and drop it into a compiler – like you can on the 360. It's not so much that it's harder, it simply doesn't reward lazy developers.

However after 4 years of development experience the only people still complaining about the 'hard to develop for PS3' thing are the same lazy gits who signed up with MS in the early days and don't have the courage of their convictions to say "we were wrong". Heck, even Gabe Newell of Valve finally relented, and has more recently been quite upbeat about the PS3.

Stop pedaling the myth that the PS3 is hard to develop for. It's a more in depth platform to learn, but that doesn't make it harder to develop for – once learned. Again, after more than 4 years, are we still accepting excuses from developers too lazy to learn?

Lawless SXE
Lawless SXE
13 years ago

Excelsior, it's hardly fair to compare the sales of Alan Wake and KZ3 for the simple reason that one has been out for the better part of a year, while the other has been out for a month. As I wrote above, it is simply laziness on the part of Remedy. They thought that the PS3 would be difficult to develop for, so they took the easy way out and went exclusively to Microsoft without even trying.

I have a lot more respect for someone who will try something that they consider difficult, than someone who chooses to take an easier option. Why? Because at the end of it, success or failure, they will be better for having tried.
Peace.

Clamedeus
Clamedeus
13 years ago

@Highlander I agree.

@Lawless I also agree with you as well, i don't like rewarding developers who don't try. How are you going to strive to be better if you always take the easy way out of things in life? I don't get it.

Ignitus
Ignitus
13 years ago

Of course it's hard to develop on PS3, just look into KZ3 single player campain.

GG efforts went into making the game look good that they forgot (shall I say ran out of time?)to make a normal running single player campain.

If a first party studio strugles to come up with content in a AAA game title,in a given time frame, how do you think a third party developer is going to fare?

kraygen
kraygen
13 years ago

I don't think they forgot or ran out of time, it's standard fps fare to make a very short campaign and those short campaigns are only getting shorter everywhere.

Jawknee
Jawknee
13 years ago

KZ3 was short but it was a lot more fun to play and to look at then 99.99% of the shooters out on the market.

TheHighlander
TheHighlander
13 years ago

No offense to the 2 people who down voted me for saying that the PS3 isn't hard to develop for, but you don't know what you're talking about. Any decent programmer or developer will tell you that the difficulty in programming anything is not related to the platform it's related to what is being programmed, the complexity of that work. Once you learn a platform it's as easy or hard as the next one, the task is what matters. But hey, you go ahead and perpetuate the myth that the PS3 is too hard for people to work with, and I'll go on playing my SP3 exclusives that prove that to be the lie that it is.

TheHighlander
TheHighlander
13 years ago

correction:

"and I'll go on playing my SP3 exclusives that prove that to be the lie that it is."

should read

"and I'll go on playing my PS3 exclusives that prove that to be the lie that it is."

Crabba
Crabba
13 years ago

I'm not going to say you're wrong Highlander, because obviously it's possible to create really great-looking games on the PS3, and that the hardware itself is actually much more advanced and can do more than the 360 if used properly, problem is that 'used properly' part, which apparently a lot of developers are unable (or unwilling) to do, be it due to lack of effort or time… But when it all comes down to it, being different can often be the same thing as being more difficult, especially for those people used to the 'other way', aka the xbox360/PC way, which is why a lot of multiplatform games suffer on the PS3.

In the end Sony made a mistake when designing the PS3, assuming all third party developers would be willing to spend the extra time to make the PS3 version as good or better than the 360/PC versions. They could have easily put a slightly better graphics card and a little bit more memory on the PS3 and none of this would have ever happened, that's too bad…

JonahFalcon
JonahFalcon
13 years ago

Alan Wake is a great game, but I've never found myself shedding tears because a game was on one platform and not another.

CrusaderForever
CrusaderForever
13 years ago

It's important that we all realize that they didn't go multiplat because they knew they weren't going to be able to make a good port to the PS3. I am glad they didn't. It would have probably been terrible. Nothing worse than getting a game you really want but it then chugs along like a slide show and has terrible control. If they get some new PS3 talent in house and know they can produce an exceptional version of AW and AW2 it would be a D1P for me.

Excelsior1
Excelsior1
13 years ago

i agree with that 100% developer after developer has stated the unique architicture of the ps3 is a challenge. we witness it in the poor ports we have seen. yet, that's just a myth about the ps3 being difficult? i don't think so.

Clamedeus
Clamedeus
13 years ago

@Excelsior1

FF13 for example seems to be the better version because it was developed for the PS3 and then ported to 360. And look what happened to the 360 version? Same goes if the game was developed specifically for the 360 then ported to the PS3 the same things would happen on the PS3. If developers and the company helped we wouldn't have problems like this.

Taking the easy way out shouldn't be rewarded in this industry, people who work hard and willing to learn should be very successful in doing so, but people would rather have quantity than quality.

Technology changes you can't always use the same technique all the time, you have to learn the program as it gets harder or you will not know what it's capable of. There is other multiplatform games that look good and play better on PS3 than 360. Same for 360 than PS3.


Last edited by Clamedeus on 3/26/2011 7:37:18 AM

THEVERDIN
THEVERDIN
13 years ago

If they bring the second one PS3 it will no doubt be a port.

Excelsior1
Excelsior1
13 years ago

@highlander

it's more than a myth. many developers have said it. all those games i cited still look better on the 360. apparently the use of certain middleware software doesn't work so well on the ps3. a lot of 3rd party developers don't even use the spus for whatever reason. call it laziness, or maybe it's a business decision to not put the man hours into it. that's a business decision, that remedy is citing. if it were so easy to tap the power of the ps3 then we must be witnessing the greatest conspiracy in the world. countless multiplat games that don't measure up.


Last edited by Excelsior1 on 3/26/2011 5:16:14 AM

___________
___________
13 years ago

hope they do another alan wake game, but a prequel this time.
show us the events leading up to the game, show us how the darkness originated, show us how the lady of light lost her marbles!
thats one thing allot of games are seriously lacking these days!
your thrown into a situation without it being explained why, or any background history.
homefront for example, your dropped into the middle of a war.
why?
why are the koreans taking over the country?
what happened to the US army?
your walking the streets and civilians are getting executed on the spot.
what the hell happened to the soldiers!?
you dont feel like a soldier sent out to fight a war, you feel like a soldier sent out to cleanup after the war!
you feel like youve arrived at the end, what the hell happened here?
the only reason why ME2 has such a good story, and won so many awards is not because its plot is good, its crap and cliche, how many times has the world being overtaken by aliens been done?
its won all those awards because its the only game out there that has some substance behind it!
some history!
ME is the only game ive ever played that actually feels real, it feels like you could hop on a ship tomorrow and find Sheppard and his shenanigans!
storys in games are seriously lacking, but the history behind the game is even more lacking!
to have a unique story is one thing, but to really escalate it and take it to the next level you need a little history!
like KZ3, i thought it actually had a decent story.
but like everything else, theres just no substance, no history!

Excelsior1
Excelsior1
13 years ago

that is one of your best posts blankline. maybe the reason me feels so real is the time you spend with the game developing relationships that fill out the story. it's kind of hard to do that in a 5hr game like kz3, or homefront.

Excelsior1
Excelsior1
13 years ago

oops, didn't mean to post here.


Last edited by Excelsior1 on 3/26/2011 4:34:29 PM

Lairfan
Lairfan
13 years ago

So basically you're asking for every game to offer up exposition every other dialogue just so you can know exactly what happened before? I believe the idea most of the time is that you use your own damn imagination, THINK about it, and you'll realize what happened.

For instance, look at Homefront. Why do we need a reason for the Koreans to invade? They invaded because they thought the US was a threat. If you paid any attention to the news you would know that they actually do think that. As for our army being gone, it was pretty conclusive that they kicked our asses, and I don't want to be exposited to for 20 hours about how the army got its ass kicked.

As for Mass Effect 2, the game's story is pretty good, but I gotta say that it has WAY too much exposition. And judging by how you think the game is a masterpiece of having "history" (whilst saying the story is cliche because its about an alien invasion, even though that's not really what its about), I can tell that you really don't know what a good plot is. Good day sir.

Excelsior1
Excelsior1
13 years ago

even kaz himself has been qouted stating that it is hard to program for in an opm article. he goes on to say that while many view at as negative thing he sees at as a positive giving the platform more longevity. that may be true, but what's the use of this powerful platform if so few can really tap its full potential? i think it's a great system, but i just wish it was better at 3rd party games. i don't like the resolution hits, jaggies, and chugging framerates we see in a lot of mutiplat games. i think the poor multiplats have really hurt the ps3, sony has said they have learned their lesson, and are consulting developers on future systems. that's a good thing.

66
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x