LogInRemedy blames the lack of profitability on exceeding the budget during the game's development.
On Tuesday, Remedy Entertainment, the developer behind Control, Alan Wake, and Max Payne, held a Capital Markets Day investor meeting, offering some insights on the studio's upcoming and recently released games.
Remedy
During the meeting, the company disclosed the sales figures for Alan Wake 2, revealing that the sequel has sold 1.8 million copies since its release on October 27 last year and still has not recouped its production costs.
As stated by Remedy's Communications Director Thomas Puha, the 1.8 million figure is more or less in line with what the studio's business department estimated Alan Wake 2 would achieve. Taking into consideration the game's positive reviews, Puha attributed the lack of profitability to the studio exceeding its budget during development and marketing, adding that they "aren't happy" with their spending.
Despite that, Puha continued, the team "haven't even really discounted [Alan Wake 2] seriously yet," believing that when tough market conditions and competition are taken into account, the game did quite well. He also reiterated that partnering with Epic Games as the publisher and releasing the PC version exclusively on the Epic Games Store "was the right choice," suggesting that Remedy believes Alan Wake 2 wouldn't have performed any differently in terms of sales even if Steam or physical versions were available.
Besides AW2, Remedy also shared some details about its upcoming titles – FBC Firebreak, a three-player cooperative first-person shooter, and Control 2, a sequel to the studio's acclaimed 2019 action-adventure game – both set for release in 2025.
According to Remedy, FBC Firebreak and Control 2 will need to sell 3 million and 3-4 million copies, respectively, to break even and cover the €30 million and €50 million investments in each title. It's important to note that these figures also include the "assumption of having also B2B deals in place," meaning that if such deals aren't secured, the required sales figures for a 100% ROI will need to be higher to cover the spending.
Furthermore, the studio revealed that Control 2 will feature RPG elements, making its genre slightly different from its 2019 predecessor, which was purely action-adventure.
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