Larian developer blames Alan Wake 2 sales loss on Tim Sweeney
Despite receiving strong critical acclaim and winning prestigious awards, Alan Wake 2 continues to be in the spotlight due to its failure to achieve the long-awaited commercial momentum. This situation has sparked a larger debate within the industry, not only about the game’s quality but also about the impact of distribution and platform choices on sales. This debate was recently reignited by a clear statement from Larian Studios.
Epic Games Store at the Center of the Alan Wake 2 Sales Debate
Larian Studios publishing director Michael Douse directly countered Tim Sweeney’s statements that the Epic Games Store offers developers “more options and better opportunities.” According to Douse, the fact that Alan Wake 2 is only available to PC players through the Epic Games Store has severely limited the game’s sales potential.
Douse emphasizes that the launch period is the most critical time commercially for a game. He argues that Alan Wake 2’s absence from a platform with a much larger user base like Steam during this period resulted in a loss that would be difficult to recover. According to him, even if the game were to be released on Steam today, the sales opportunity from its initial launch period has already been missed.
The fact that Epic provided financial support during the game’s development doesn’t negate this criticism. Douse implies that while such support might be helpful in the short term, a platform choice that limits sales volume in the long term can put studios in a difficult position. At this point, the idea that Alan Wake 2’s success was limited before it could reach a wider audience comes to the forefront.
Indeed, Remedy Entertainment announced that they only started recouping Alan Wake 2’s development costs towards the end of 2024. This situation once again demonstrates that Epic Games Store exclusive deals don’t yield the same results for every project and carry significant commercial risks for some games.
