No, piracy isnt responsable for that.

They dont have money to buy original, then they pirate. If the game cant be pirated, they dont buy and pirate another game. :)

It is a fine game, well executed, and high quality.  However, people don't play a game just because it is well executed and high quality.  It has to appeal to enough people to give them a reason to buy it, in what it is about, so it is intrinsically appealing.  One can argue that it was on the short side, and also the enemy mix wasn't as varied.  It is also possible to think the horror genre, or whatever else people want to consider Alan Wake to be part of, doesn't have a huge draw.  Because it became ammo in a console war used by XBox partisans who set the bar real high, doesn't mean the game would have millions and millions of sales.

Plenty of reasons it's sold poorly.

-Advertising (was there any?)

-Launching next to Red Dead a 7 million selling juggernaut.

-It's critical reception, many had it pegged as AAA and it ended up getting much lower scores then people expected.

-It's genre.

-A new IP.

-Apathy over 5 years of announcements.

I know many posters already posted this, just summarizing.

I think had Remedy got the title to market faster, perhaps focusing less on the engine, had MS backed the title with some solid advertising and had it launched in a better release window in an even quieter part of the year it could be sitting on 2m sales right now.

It does remind me a little of Uncharted: DF though, a solid game with all the foundations that could potentially have an amazing sequel.

Alan Wake was bundled (along with Forza 3) over the holidays in the US. The numbers for AW are probably getting closer to 2 million by now. Since the included "game" was not the actual disc (like Forza), only a download token to download the full game from XBL. The sales were not included as VGC doesn't track digital downloads. Forza 3 sales were included though.

I made a thread about it awhile back:

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=120626

Humm, so the number  can be near 2M, considering bundles and LIVE Downloads? Nice.

Legit sales - 1 mill
Stinky cheap pirates - 1.2 mill
Bundled - 500k - 1 mill
Used ?? - 200 - 500k??

a good 3 plus million people have played Alan Wake, I only hope at least 2/3rds of those pick up AW2

It has probably shipped well over a million by now and considering other games use that as their "sales" numbers why not with Alan Wake?

One of the most pirated games of 2010.

It's also on games on demand, so I'm sure it's sold over a million if you count that.

One could also hope all the pack in download cards that people got will inspire them to pay for the DLC as well.

Heres hoping to Alan W 2 by 2014.

It should slowly creep it's way up to ok sales. But if I didn't research the game the name  Alan Wake does not sound exciting at all. It should have been called night terrors or something more something more conventional and scary sounding.

Yeah does suggest a loss from reality and suggests a macabre atmosphere. The title of a game should do a better job of letting people know what kind of game it really is especially for a psuedo-survival horror game.