IndustryGamers

The perception around Alan Wake is that it didn't sell very well. After all, it started off withonly 145,000 units sold, according to NPD. The big picture, however, reveals far greater sales for the title than anyone thought. IndustryGamers did a little digging, and here's what we found out.

The latest NPD numbers are now at 330K units, and globally we understand that number is likely in the 500K range or more (although Microsoft, which published the 360 exclusive, wouldn't confirm it for us). The most interesting part, however, is that Alan Wake saw a rather large number of digital download sales, which were never counted.

You see, last holiday season Microsoft launched a bundle for Xbox 360 that included a digital copy of Alan Wake and a physical copy of Forza 3. Microsoft did something similar this year, with a bundle that features a digital copy of Halo Reach and a physical copy of Fable III. Strangely, it would appear that the digital sales of Alan Wake weren't counted but the digital sales for Halo Reach were.

Sources have indicated to IndustryGamers that around 900K sales were never counted forAlan Wake's digital release. Remedy wouldn't give us the exact data, but Oskari Häkkinen, Head of franchise development at Remedy, told us, "Unfortunately we can't share numbers with you... The Wake bundles are substantial, in fact about half of the story - the untold story if you like. At the end of the day, we all love to follow charts, but the most important thing for Remedy really is about knowing how many people we reach and entertain – not necessarily what a measure or sales chart says."

He added, "Alan Wake's digital bundle was the first of it's kind. As a developer, we like testing new ground and when the digital opportunity was presented to us, we accepted. It's good to see more of it being done now as it reflects the success of the Wake bundle. To take a guess, I'd presume the reason the numbers haven't been registered is due to the untrodden ground we stepped on last year with the Wake digital bundle– Digital packages now seem to be part of business as usual, as are the sales. We certainly wouldn't mind seeing those sales added to the pot also though."

IndustryGamers reached out to Microsoft for comment, but the publisher did not give us any statement or further information on digital vs physical sales tracking on 360 titles.

As for Remedy, the developer isn't done with Alan Wake just yet. A standalone digital follow-up (not DLC but not Alan Wake 2) is in the works for Xbox 360. It will be revealed on December 10 at the Spike VGAs.

http://www.industrygamers.com/news/xbox-360s-alan-wake-actually-sold-close-to-15-million/

Wait... It was bundled with the DD code and Forza 900,000 times? And the total for it, with the bundles, is 1.4 Million?

It's MASSIVELY overtracked here then if they're right...

They say USA sales are at 330k, we have them at 520k. They say overseas sales of the game sit at 170k for "Global sales". We have 390k units...

If these numbers are right, the game's overtracked by about 410,000 units and only sold around 500-600k units WW. No wonder the next Alan Wake project is only a Live title.

Also, our Forza 3 numbers indicated that there were around 1.5 Million of the Forza/Alan Wake bundles, not 900k. Our F3 numbers are probably overtracked by about 500k...

The thing about this, is that it does not make Alan Wake profitable, it just expands the number of people who played the game, meaning that a second title is possible, as in theory, more people should have played the first so more people will buy the sequel

However, looking at a slightly similar promotion that Sony did with inFamous after the PSN hack, that tripled the number of players that it got, but that did not translate into greater sales of its sequel

Of course, the argument really comes down to is Alan Wake better than inFamous such that the extra free sales will convert more gamers to its cause? {Personally the answer is no, but that doesn't really matter}

what was the production cost of alan wake anyway?

I was expecting this game to sell at least 1 million of the disc version. It's a quality title that deserves to be a million seller without these helping hands. A shame it hasn't worked out that way.

Before Alan Wake was announced, Remedy worked on Max Payne 2 which released in 2003. Since then, they had ideas flowing around and eventually came up with Alan Wake. It was announced as a PC/360 game in 2005, Remedy has 40 employees (as of 2011). Probably in development for a good 6 Months - 1 Year before announcement as there was a tech demo available.

5 Years, 40 peoples wages, Microsoft cancelled the PC version after 4 Years for unknown reasons, cancelled the open world aspect after 6 Months (I think).

Alan Wake cost a lot of money to make. I think the DLC Episodes will have given a lot of profit though, despite the game itself doing (if this is true) awful.

it was originally a PS3/PC/360 open world game. then just a PC/xbox open world game.

then PC/xbox linear game, then just an Xbox linear game.

i do wonder if they made any profit.

the only thing they said that is worth considering was 330k npd. They didnt even list the source of the 900k so I don't understand how instantly its assumed more accurate then vgchartz, and their 500k total sales was just a guess they made.

And considering according to chart track alan wake sold 36k weeks in the UK first week alone, their guestimate of 170k total so far everywhere outside the United States is laughable.

I really liked Alan Wake but let's not kid ourselves, a fairly short SP title with no MP turned out - perhaps predictably - to have very little demand compared to other 360 exclusives.

Aggresive bundling (which is an MS policy that makes sense to me) has been used to try and grow interest in the IP but more or less giving the game to people via the normally discounted bundle. This is good for the IP but shouldn't be confused with native demand for the IP.

Alan Wake sold weakly for an exclusive with a long development history (although that's Remedy's problem I guess) however aggressive bundling has ensured it shows decent unit sales, however profit wise it must certainly have badly underperformed and despite the bundling I still don't think the IP has caught on much.

Shame as I did like it even with its flaws, but the facts are the facts.