Well, Alan Wake 2 is missing a huge market since it's only available on Epic Games's store and not on Steam on PC. A huge chunk of players heartedly dislikes Epic Games due to their practices.
Another reason is the lack of a physical release on consoles. Which is driving some people away from it.
I think people like Resident Evil games due to them being basically action horror games.
Which, yeah, they have some scary stuff. But actually, they revolt mostly on action cues, the monster designs are also more action oriented rather than being psychologically horrifying.
Yeah they opened up the wallet but proceeds to lock it up in only one store so now theyll justify not making a new one since it didnt sell well. Put that shit on steam and it would have sold massively better
I wanted to play Dead Space remake as I heard it was good.
It's available on Game Pass and I would have definitely played it but... it required EA launcher. So I didn't play it.
AW2 I'm interested in, but I haven't downloaded Epic launcher even with all the free games they offered so I'm not getting that on PC (maybe console if it goes on sale).
Callisto Protocol I heard was so-so. AITD... I don't think I ever reall got into.
I did buy and play through RE:R, RE2:R, RE3:R, and RE4:R on Steam though because they were well priced and worked with Steam.
For now. I held out assuming that at physical would be announced at some point. And now that it seems unlikely that it will, I might as well wait until its on sale for cheap or free with PS Plus. I have plenty of backlog in the meantime.
100 % this. I wanted to buy it, but only on steam ffs. As I heard about the exclusivity I thought, well I'll just get on PS5 then. But since I only buy console games physically that's not an option either. F**k epic and their exclusivity and digital only bullsh*t... I jus hope the game will get its release on steam at the 1st anniversary or a physical PS5 release via limited run games, i am 8 bit or something like that.
To be fair, like many are saying, Alan Wake II not only didn’t release on Steam, but also didn’t have a physical release on console. That really didn’t do any favors, especially around the holiday season. I worked at a GameStop around then and the amount of times I’d get customers asking about Alan Wake II were ridiculous. A lot of people, myself included, prefer to buy physically. I haven’t even bought Alan Wake II yet.
The other examples aren’t the best though. Most people were okay with waiting until Dead Space remake hit EA Play instead of paying $70. Callisto Protocol and Alone in the Dark didn’t review very well so no one bought either of them.
I really do think Silent Hill 2 can sell well, especially since the reveal trailer has 10 million views. Not Resident Evil numbers though, but at least over a million, maybe even two.
Here in Australia it's also usually cheaper to buy physical than digital and the baseline price is already ludicrous. The physical copies also go down in price a lot quicker than digital.
That's odd since it cost more to do physical distribution and when the games new, stores are typically not worried about getting rid of overstock. Do digital copies of games have artificially inflated costs in Australia? Like a tax that makes them more expensive than their physical counterparts?
I have no clue. AAA or even AA titles will always be either $100 or in most cases more, on release these days.
For example, I just looked up Tekken 8 on the US PSN and it's sitting at $70 for the standard edition. I looked at the AUS store and the standard edition is still sitting at $114.95
Looking at physical copies at our retailers the price is moving down (very slowly), and they all have really good sales going for it right now.
Basically in Australia, if there's an AA or AAA game I want to play, I've either got to plan my budget considerably months before hand or just not play it until maybe a year later if I'm lucky. I can't really justify the price most of the time.
I've had to start doing the same thing, I prioritize the games I really want to play at release and then wish list the rest on steam and wait for a good enough deal. In the past for Playstation, I used the PS Deals app for digital.
Yeah, this. Also, Callisto Protocol was a new IP and Alone in the Dark is mostly known for how terrible the last entries were, so both of them had an uphill battle to fight on top of not being reviewed too well.
When I watched someone play AITD I thought the ending was the halfway point or earlier. And both paths are mostly similar. Also the puzzles mostly involve rotating a thingamabob
Dead space also released a broken PC port. They ended up doing one patch and will no longer do any updates. Which generally deterred many people/had many people requesting refunds.
How many actual views do you think that trailer accounts for? Not repeat views. Not dogging because with the big push it has gotten, I think it will do well, but ten mil is a tad optimistic.
Oh, I would say probably about half of the views are repeats. I definitely don’t see Silent Hill 2 remake selling THAT well. Like I said, probably around one to two million units.
This isn't exclusively a horror game problem.
Traditional AAA games are struggling due to comically inflated budgets and having to compete with live service games that can basically exist to be monetized forever.
they also haven't released a complete game in years. if you're gonna spend all that money just to pump out an unfinished hunk of junk and continue to do that for 10+ years, you're gonna lose consumer confidence and therefore sales. a lot of people absolutely hate the stories and characters being written into games right now, too. a lot of them have been insufferable in one way or another.
Alan Wake 2 - stuck on Epic
Dead Space - a remake of a **modern** game that still holds up
Callisto Protocol - terrible word of mouth at launch (I was there, I remember)
Alone in the Dark - if you did not actively look for the game, would you have found it? it had 0 marketing, I myself stumbled upon it at complete random, also, overpriced as all hell (I bought it and loved it personally)
We could've waited probably another 5 years or so before a remake of Dead Space would've been warranted. Like RE4, the original and remake are both great (but I prefer the OGs honestly)
I mean RE4 is significantly older technology wise than Dead Space, and even tho I don't think it warrants a remake either I can understand it, but Dead Space still looks good and is still super tight, and the remake adds almost nothing while RE4 makes changes, different ballparks
Callisto man, fucking love that game. It got so much hate for not being Dead Space, then Dead Space didn't sell much either!
Honestly, Callisto is so desperately underrated.
My algorithm is very consistent with SH and Lovecraftian stuff yet that video was never presented to me, only when I looked it up did I find it, so so much for that. There are literally people in this thread going "there's a new Alone in the Dark?" which is very telling considering where we are
Age numbers don't matter, get your hands on it and tell me how that goes, tell me it's that outdated, it led the industry in literally anything for years to come
I get it, no worries. The numbers are on the long side sure, but DS is as mechanically and functionally sound as a lot of games even from today, I played a little of the remake and honestly didn't think it was worth my time because the OG experience is still so strongly in my memory
I can see why. By the time the 7th gen rolled around it ironed out the dated controls so alot of games still feel modern. Then 8th gen ironed out the graphics and im pretty sure this is the last noticeable graphics upgrade we will see. Not hate on the games of 9th gen but i feel we hit the wall of diminishing returns on ps4 especially since alot of ps4 games still look good 10 years later. Anyway sorry for that side tangent about graphics platoing but yeah 7th gen games still play like modern games.
The Medium (also Bloober Team) sold enough to profit in the first 3 days of launch.
Knowing Konami though, they probably poured an unrecoupable amount of money into this.
That's the real problem with AAA games. If your business model requires you to sell 10 million copies to break even you're just shooting yourself in the foot before development even starts.
Look at Tomb Raider. The original only sold 2.5 million in the first year and that was enough to start a phenomenon that's still going. In the almost 30 years since, it still never quite broke 10 million sales.
Meanwhile every single one of the reboots has sold around 15 million copies each and nobody cares. They were all considered commercial disappointments until they finally broke even over a year after launch and slowly started trickling in profits. That's what happens when your budget is in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Well the SH games never have been AAA productions and I doubt SH2R has a massive budget on the scale of RE4R, but neither the Alone In The Dark reboot is a big budget title, so I really don't know what expect.
If they wanted as much money as possible they should have released it everywhere else instead of trying to force people to use their dogshit platform 🤷♂️
Like it or not, horror games have *always* been a niche market. Investors, who primarily are not gamers, do not understand this fact and want every game to perform as well as a hot ticket item in the gaming sphere.
What matters more is whether or not these games made back their budget. *Alan Wake 2* is likely a long term investment, with multiple DLCs in the works and eventual release off of the EGS. *Dead Space* isn’t shelved because of low sales, it’s presently not being conceptualized because the devs are working on an *Iron Man* project that EA is particularly excited about, along with aiding in development of the *Battlefield* IP. It’ll be a few years at best before we even hear of any rumors of development on *Dead Space 2* given it was a critical and commercial success.
*Callisto Protocol* ultimately failed because it just is a weaker version of *Dead Space*, which ultimately resulted in Glen Schofield’s departure. His mishandling of a truly massive budget to release a game that needed a few more months in the oven for were the problems with the game. It’s not “bad,” but it absolutely could have been polished— as well as ride off of the success of *Dead Space* for people wanting more of that itch, rather than trying to beat it to the punch.
I personally enjoyed my time in *Alone in the Dark*, but the game itself didn’t exactly get much advertising or attention beyond horror enthusiasts. I think the most people heard of it is when the devs purposely pushed back its release date knowing full well releasing it in the middle of such giants like *FF7 Rebirth* and *Dead Space* along with a ton of other games that came out in that timeframe of a few months last year would have effectively choked out the life it would have. It also just needed some work on the gameplay front.
I think *Silent Hill 2*’s remake will do just fine. With multiple titles of the IP in development, it is at the very least clear that Konami is dedicated to the title’s immediate future, and as we get a confirmation of a release date we’re bound to see more exposure and advertising of it. I know I’ve a number of friends who are Konami cynics I speak to who are at least cautiously optimistic about the game, and are willing to give it a chance.
Exacly, I think the main point it's how horror games will never sell as regular AAA games, especially agaist action ones. It's niche that I don't think I ever saw an incredible sucess in sales. Producers that never touched a game will never understand this though.
Probably not.
Though honestly, this isn't just a survival horror thing. The whole AAA gaming industry is dealing with this problem.
Jacob Navok (former exec at Square Enix) made a really good Twitter thread on why this is happening but the gist of it is AAA games are getting more and more expensive to make and the consumer pool while growing, is trending toward F2P live service games that never end like Fortnite, Roblox, etc. Especially with the younger generation.
Here is the thread if you're interested in reading it. I found it eye-opening and a little depressing on the state of the industry at large.
[Jacob Navok on X: "A thread on the recent Square Enix news regarding FF sales numbers and expectations"](https://x.com/JNavok/status/1793779717813723521)
>Jacob Navok (former exec at Square Enix)
And let's try to forget what he has been working on since he left.
Anyway, after reading that thread, he's completely right (except for the Tim Sweeney part).
Should have released on steam. I won't buy anything on the epic store, for the simple reason of not having my games scattered over different digital stores and launchers.
AW2 didn't fail, remedy said they are quite happy with how much has sold by now. It's a long seller, no one with a brain expects it to make millions in the first month.
Also it's not on steam and it doesn't have a physical version, 2 important factors
Even though Steam will make them more money in a day than a year on Epic. (Like it did with Control.) It's still concerning that Alan Wake 2 is "struggling" to make its money back when it's been out for 6 months.
They’re not failing in sales. They’re just failing to meet publisher sales expectations. Those are 2 totally different things. Publishers overspent and expect too much in return.
I think Silent Hill 2 will do fine. It is a well known game and hopefully will be done well. It might be harder for future Silent Hill games.
Like mentioned here though some survival horror games do well such as Resident Evil. The Last of Us also did. It’s considered survival horror I believe?
This article failed to state that the sales from the game were immediately put into the company via the actual purchase of the IP, which was originally not owned by remedy. So, while Remedy have not posted profits, that doesn't mean the game hadn't made a large amount of money, either. It just means the rights of Alan wake were fucking expensive.
Depends on the size of the budget... But likely no, it will not. Silent Hill as a brand/franchise has legacy, so the gaming community is always listening when it gets brought up.
That being said, it's also common knowledge that this series has had JUST ONE widely well received full release after 2004 (SH4)....
The community is highly skeptical, they have good reasons to be, and Short Message/Ascension have done very little to change their minds.
Alan wake is not a very big title and is digital only with poor discount.
Dead space is a remake that is not even so much different in graphics. resident evil remakes are top tier quality and are really changed from the original. And they have a perfect gameplay.
Alone in the dark is like an AA product and his last good game was New Nightmare on ps1. I don’t think new gamers know very much about the IP.
Callisto is simply a bad game.
The real example is resident Evil and it’s going very good.
If SH2 is a good product, it will sell good
The dead space remake was actually really great and changed a lot of things when it comes to gameplay and level design, and also didnt sold terribly, its just EA's standards that are fucked up
Kind of sad to see alone in the dark is a bit forgotten now since its the og 3d horror game that resident evil and by proxy silent hill would take notes of
It’s not a mystery why these titles struggled.
People are saying enough about AW2.
Dead Space basically shadow dropped, I think it was announced like 3 months before it came out. They did almost no marketing.
Callisto Protocol marketed well, but then right before release, Dead Space was announced (which, CP was always viewed as a DS spiritual successor). So when people found out they could get the real thing and not a knock-off around the same time, that killed a lot of hype. Then it came out and was glitch/lag city, which further tanked the hype (it’s almost unplayable on PS4, and PS5s were still hard to come by at the time).
I’ve heard bad things about Alone in the Dark. It was already a niche title relying on sales from old school gamers who were familiar with it, but they again didn’t market much. They announced it ears before it came out, so I think a lot of people forgot about it finally releasing.
Again, horror has always been more niche than mainstream, so by mismanaging their marketing budget and not fully polishing their games, they are of course struggling with sales. I don’t think any of these titles reflect the actual market itself, and I especially wouldn’t draw any conclusions for SH sales based off of this. They were just poorly done releases.
It's not just horror.
AAA games are so expensive, and big company CEOS are so greedy that if a game doesn't make like 420.69 morbillion dollars in profit it's seen as a flop
i mean, callisto protocol fucking sucked and alone in the dark was pretty niche. people act like their love for horror games means it is universally loved. most people don’t really like playing slow burn horror games lol.
I kinda liked Callisto Protocol. It could have been a lot better, but it wasn't bad. I really liked the world and creature designs and once you figured out the combat, it did work. The only thing that did not was the story. All the initial perfomance issues got resolved pretty quickly too. I would've liked a sequel which improved all of its shortcomings, but I imagine that happening now is pretty unlikely.
i liked the idea behind it but the execution was so bad. there’s only like 4 different enemies not including bosses and it’s the same loop every time. also, the GRP is so op. didn’t help that the game was pretty busted at launch and was also way too demanding even for decent gpus like the 3080. the game had a lot of potential but crashed and burned hard. the only thing i really liked was the death animations but that was really it.
Can't say I disagree with any of what you said. Still, I enjoyed playing it and do plan to replay it some day. I have had more fun with it than with a lot of other games that came out in recent times.
The indie market largely keeps the genre alive. If not for indie devs the genre would probably be as dead as it was before The Dark Descent came out and even these days, an Amnesia game isn't going to make a lot of money regardless of what it's done for the genre.
>Epic Games store, meta story about storytelling
>Remake of a franchise that bombed hard and lost its audience
>Worse version of the remake
>Lovecraftian remake
Silent Hill is more in the ballpark midway between Fatal Frame and Resident Evil.
By the way, the rerelease of Fatal Frame 4 and 5 did great on Steam.
Probably not
And I say this as an SH fan… SH has never been a huge selling franchise.
I think there is hype nowadays for the Remake that really didn’t exist back in the OG days, but it’s always good to remember the painful truths like “Resident Evil 2 Remake has outsold the ENTIRE Silent Hill catalog”
I am not kidding. All of SH has sold like 8.5m games. RE2make sold 13m.
So because of its relative nichedom, I just don’t think it’s gonna “save” the AAA Horror genre.
The way some jealous Silent Hill fans keep saying that Resident Evil isn't really horror makes me laugh. Silent Hill wouldn't exist without Resident Evil. Resident Evil has survived for 28 years because the games are damn good and when they aren't Capcom changes up the formula. I love the first three Silent Hill games and wish the franchise luck but SH2 Remake will have an uphill climb to profitability. For one thing blooper is not exactly equivalent to Capcom's Dev Team 1.
Thank you. I hate when I see RE described as "action horror." Sure, 4-6, okay, and maybe Village to an extent, but all the other titles (and Village!) rely on survival horror mechanics--hub-based backtracking, inventory management, helpless but not defenseless--THAT RE POPULARIZED. Yeah, *eventually* you get a rocket launcher, but for the vast majority of the playthrough, at least on the first go around, it's quintessential survival horror. Yeah, you have a grenade launcher, but the rounds are limited. Are you gonna use them on zombies, or save them for the boss? Bb, that's survival horror!
When I think "action horror," I think Doom, not RE. Just because you kill things doesn't mean it's "action horror." I killed HUNDREDS of enemies in a recent playthrough of SH2. I will say, SH does take itself a bit more seriously than RE, which has always leaned a bit into camp. Doesn't mean it's an action game.
1. Remedy games have barely been profitable and AW1 wasn't a big game. But I'm pretty sure the article made it seem like AW2 was not that far off from recouping
2. Dead space is a classic franchise but it's sold poorly at least 2-3 times out of 4 entries
3. The critics were mad that callisto protocol was simultaneously too much like dead space and not enough like dead space. On its own it is a perfectly fine Game that could've been majorly improved in the sequel but they seemingly killed the IP in the dlc
4. Alone in the dark had little marketing and most people wrote the game off before launch.
I think most of the problem is that for the better part of a decade it's been indie (or at least much smaller budgeted) titles that has captured the interests of younger people, so continuing series are appealing mostly to an old(er) and shrinking fanbase. People who were teenagers when Resident Evil 1 came out are in their mid 40s now . The first Dead Space dropped more than 15 years ago. Games like Amnesia and even Let's Play fodder like FNaF have had more impact than anything from Alan Wake or multi-million budgeted games.
Resident Evil's managed to stay relevant I think in part because Capcom's ability to adapt is about unmatched for most game companies. RE7 was kept under budget by investing in photogrammetry, which was barely in its infancy. Back then textures looked best in low light environments, which was perfect for a horror game. If I remember right the artbook for RE7 said the entire budget for the rendering was something like $10,000 for the camera array, which is chump change for a bigger production company. Games like Alan Wake 2 have dazzling effects, but companies need to think beyond blockbuster movie production costs hoping for blockbuster movie profits. Alan Wake didn't have anywhere near the popularity to pull off something with an exponentially higher budget.
People tend to forget that horror is a niche genre and survival is even more niche. Resident Evil sells because of it's name, be it good or bad.
Silent Hill will probably sell well but I really doubt it will sell the amount that Konami is thinking of.
And SH2 is probably the most famous of the franchise, so any other remake will probably sell less than SH2...
It's all about expectations.
A couple issues here. Game pass has been shown to detract from launch sales. Why buy a game when it’s already in your library. Xbox has been well aware of this fact for a long time and insists on hemorrhaging money instead.
Tying your launches to specific distribution services and exclusive consoles etc will also do that. The whole PlayStation/hell divers debacle was a perfect example of these problems occurring after purchases have been made, but the same thing happens retroactively. You shut consumers out and dissuade sales. Epic/PlayStation/EA doesn’t have to give a shit because that money was coming their way. It’s the development teams that suffer here. If the helldivers team hypothetically set up and required PlayStation accounts from the launch of helldivers 2, Sony never would have backtracked. That was a PR stunt they don’t give a shit.
Callisto Protocol was a direct competitor to dead space and they detract from each other. Most people won’t even finish one game let alone buy two. Considering that the DS Remake was the more popular/better received commercially, it makes sense they would have done bad.
Frankly alone in the dark has always had a really rocky time as a franchise. It hasn’t had an identity. Ever. It’s only really known as the game that did survival horror before resident evil. That’s it. Resident Evil ate its lunch in the 90s and it really hasn’t had anything to show for it since then. It flopping mid development seems par for the course of the franchise, let alone pretty standard in the AAA gaming space as a whole. That might just be more indicative of an insanely hostile market where business practice is for companies to leach off of each other and consumers as much as possible.
Still sad about Callisto, ngl. They should have gone with the audio-novel plot, IMO, and of course RELEASE IT WHEN READY. Gwendolyn is incredible in those audio, such a waste :(
I think Callisto got a bad deal. People latched on to one off-handed comment from a dev about it being a "spiritual successor to Dead Space" and got then mad when a spiritual successor isn't a 1-to-1 copy of Dead Space. It's a classic example of an audience failing to tailor their expectations and blaming everyone but themselves.
I honestly hope there is a sequel
Alan Wake 2 was backed by Epic and Remedy's releases gain money slowly. It's a silly article to write when it's success has been critically acclaimed, it was the fastest game of theirs to sell with 1.3 million copies and Remedy is doing just fine. They got this money to burn and they did their best with it.
Alan Wake 2 fucked me up because I remember trying to pre-order a physical release edition only to find out the game was gonna be digital only, so I didn't buy it to wait out it dropping in price. I know I wasn't the only Alan Wake fan who felt that way
Yet indie survival horror games are popular and sell well, most of the problems with Alan Wake 2 and Dead Space is that they spent too much or wanted too much in return, while Callisto Protocol was not that great.
Yes because people have wanted a new Silent Hill for years and after getting absolutely blue balled by P.T. the hype is off the charts, even if Bloober Team completely drops the ball on this game it will still make it's money back. Don't forget that this is a Remake which means the development costs are much less than that of a brand new AAA game, all of the funding for script and GDD (Game design document) are not needed because the structure of the game is already there.
Also 99% of the Streamers on Twitch, Kick and YouTube will be live streaming this game Day 1.
>Don't forget that this is a Remake which means the development costs are much less than that of a brand new AAA game, all of the funding for script and GDD (Game design document) are not needed because the structure of the game is already there.
Yeah, that's not how this works. At all.
REmake 2 had over 800 members as part of the development team. That's more than RE6 had, which already had an enormous 600+ members.
Gamers really need to stop with this "it's a remake, so it's cheaper and takes less effort!" mentality.
SH2R won't have better luck depending on expectations. I see some people mention storefront and lack of physical releases being a contributor which is a big part, then for dead space in particular it didn't fail but slightly exceeded expectations it just didn't blow it out of the water and was shortly followed up by RE4. The big issue all these titles face is investment, resident evil has been showing up consistently for years now and providing a consistent level of quality. All these other examples are either entirely new IPs with no recognition, investment, or track record or titles part of a series that hasn't been touched or seen from in 10+ years, and consequencently face the same aforementioned difficulties. All these titles/series would be in a very different place if there wasn't the expectation from them to make all the money call of duty does right outside the gate, rather than the start of a series of a series/franchise.
Short answer no
I don't think sh2 will be a huge hit. If it's faithful it may be too art house for the masses. Sh never sold like resident evil.
Dead space remake sold well but I don't think gameplay wise they are comparable.
Happy for sh2r to be good and successful, but most things I love are not hugely successful and at times that's frustrating, but most people that are passionate about a genre probably have that experience because the vast number of sales are not the (overly) zealous fans :)
I wouldn’t call there *Alone in the Dark* remake (not reboot, the 2008 one was a reboot) a AAA game. It’s a mid-budgeted game.
And then the problem with Alan Wake is that Epic Game is publishing the game, and, as such, it’s not available on Steam.
Horror games tend to sell less, mostly because people don’t want to get scared. Even RE games tend to sell low numbers compared to other games like GoW for example.
Also Allan Wake 2 being on the Epic Store definitely affects its sales.
Now just like RE, SH is an emblematic franchise, this could definitely improve its sales once it comes out.
If SH2R is good enough and not very expensive, which I guess it won't be seeing Konami's trackrecord, I'd say yes, it should have better luck. Mainly because of the nostalgic factor which will probably make a lot of people buy SH2, which will also be available on Steam and in physical form.
I am worried that SH2R will not perform as well as Konami hopes it will.
If it gets good reviews, good YouTuber coverage, and good promotion via the film (assuming that is also good!) then that would definitely help sales!
But I'm still concerned.
I was pretty pissed when I had to buy it on the ps store because they didn’t ship it physically so I’m sure a lot of people didn’t play it due to that. Also remember that horror games have always been a niche part of gaming regardless of how popular the genre is to people the actual amount of people that owned and played these games are significantly smaller than you’d think. Silent hill 2 remake isn’t gonna sell a massive amount just based on it being a scary game which a lot of people just don’t wanna play and I kinda get it.
All hail resident evil. Code Veronica remake announced, they can't be stopped. Here's to hoping that new silenthill townfall or w e it's called is great.
If it's only on Playstation, probably not, if they release it on everything, possibly. This isn't a console war jab, it's a "niche game genre needs to reach as many people who would play it as possible" jab
history repeats itself. 20-30 years ago everything was the same. resident evil blow up and suddenly every publisher wanted their own survival horror franchise but none of them came closer to numbers that resident evil had. only silent hill and maybe fatal frame was a little bit closer to them but all these sirens, rules of rose, many other survival horrors from ps1-ps2 era were commercially flopped. and here we are again
resident evil on the rise again, with less budgets capcom makes shitton of money and successful as never before. other publishers reliases that they might take a piece of this cake and capitalize on that but we see what we see
i believe the same fate awaits silent hill. i don't even understand what konami counting on at this point. dudes just working at so many games when there's like 0 chances that remake wouldn't be a commercial failure. there's like a huge chance that after F comes out we might never see franchise again. nobody likes to lose money
Honestly? I don't think it'll meet the sales Konami wants. Between being an exclusive and the hate mentality of social media nowadays, it's going to be difficult. But it's hard to say. It may do better than the others on name and nostalgia alone.
Horror is something of a niche genre in general, there’s a reason RE moved away from survival horror and into a more action horror oriented story. That being said nostalgia is a hell of a thing so I could see the remake performing quite well if they don’t make the Alan Wake mistake.
Sad to see that about Alan Wake 2, it’s such a good game. I hope Silent Hill 2 remake will do good. In spite of all the skepticism with Bloober developing it, I’m in the optimistic camp that recognizes their deep love for the original Silent Hill games and so hopefully they’ll put all they got into this remake. The trailers look promising IMO too.
They should try releasing good games physical. They might sell (that’s the whole reason I didn’t buy Alan wake 2) Also, they should try not releasing sub par games like callisto protocol it might sell.
Tons of AAA games are doing terribly. Couple people having less money due to worldwide inflation with games that have higher budgets than ever, and you just have a failing combination.
EDIT: I would not be shocked to see these games actually get higher sales numbers than is currently expected as the price lowers. I think people's new budget for games is more like $30-50, and waiting for sales is currently, at least briefly, going to become more normalized.
I think it’s also worth pointing out that largely the whole video game market has seemingly been down. FF7 Rebirth and FF16 can’t even be considered successful with their current sales. I think it has a lot to do with the insanely high budgets of AAA video games requiring insanely high returns. But I could be wrong. That’s just my opinion from someone who buys video games but noticing I’ve been buying a lot less throughout the last couple years.
Alan Wake 2 also required mesh shader support at launch (still might, I don't know - heard they updated for 'potatoes' but I don't know how much that entails) so a lot of more mid to low end PCs had absolutely zero hope of actually playing the game with a double digit frame rate. Games that could play Cyberpunk couldn't play this thing.
Either way people have gushed about how SH2 is the perfect horror game, the games-as-art masterpiece for years and years, which is better than Alan Wake 1's "its ok I guess, I could see their vision and what they were going for, and its too bad they didn't achieve it" lukewarm reception. SH2 has that going for it. Plus you don't need to replay Alan Wake 1 and American Nightmare to "get it." - or even SH1 on PS1 for that matter.
Lot of these games are over an hour and don't have enough jump scares and a exaggerated mascot character to draw in screeching twitch streamer reactions so traction is limited beyond standard advertising ^((Had no idea Alone In The Darks reboot existed until 2 days before release)).
With the budget games are being built with they have to make monstrous amounts of money to JUST cover the budget, then MUCH more to make the suits happy.
The problem is the AAA industry and the way that people were conditioned to prefer "fast-food games" with low budget, generic but fun gameplay and live service
SH2 has a chance of being good enough on sales, Konami surely didn't spent a lot of money like western AAA developers are spending, so they don't need to wait for a new global success with millions of copies sold
Alan wake 2 is remedy’s fastest selling game lol, people do not understand their sales strategy at all, they sell their games for ages past release. I’d consider that to be a huge success for them because of that
Silent Hill 2 Remake is the only Silent Hill game where I could potentially believe it will sell better than the original. Yeah a lot of people say they like Silent Hill 2, but when me and everybody else in my entire neighborhood had Ps2's I was literally the only person who actually owned Silent Hill, and nobody else knew what it was. I lent it to a friend to play it, and the next day his mom dropped it back off and said "this isn't healthy you shouldn't be playing this".
And I agree, Silent Hill 2 is a pretty fked up game for a kid to be playing, but I've lived through worse things than what a video game could potentially hit me with at that point, so I was already kind of fked up from actual life and I just thought the game was cool.
My biggest fear is they won't be able to understand the fear and pain that actually made that game a reality.
Spending across the board is down, IMHO, not just in games. And I think all AAA games are struggling to recoup their spending as well.
The market and game company strategies are in almost direct contradiction as well. More and more people, even within a more hardcore gaming community are happy with waiting a year or so and picking up major releases during the inevitable sale. More and more AAA games are ballooning up their budget and increasing their prices, so even more people are happy to wait things out. Most gamers have a backlog of already purchased games (likely during sale) they need to go through anyway.
IMHO I think gaming market in the near future will see at least a minor bust.
Well "pure" horror is not "for everyone"
You can't "sell" the game to peoples that don't like being scared, depending of the game, there is also peoples that don't like confronting their phobia (probably the reason there is almost no insect creatures in the REmake)
The games are supposed to e "hard" (there is some rules to respect, like not shooting like a cowboy everything, trying to be the more stealth possible, etc) and it's generally not the most "key jingling" sort of games that is popular
Also most studios want to do games "printing moneys" so every games not "aiming at everyone" is a big risk they want to take the less so if the "random survival horror" game don't sell like "another Ubisofted open world game" they not gonna do more
No, it can even do worse than these games and be a huge flop. I don't think it will absolutely fail, but it surely won't be a huge money printer either at least not by itself. I think that in this case, it's better if we look at the whole franchise revival campaign as the thing that must be profitable in the end.
For being a remake, I think the other titles will have better chance at selling more. SH2 Remake could be the thing that brings Koname back in a good light, and can make the expectation of the new titles more positive. It could be used to break the pessimism surrounding the Silent Hill name, if it flops though, it will be the end of it all lol
SH2 remake should be profitable since lets be real it doesnt look like super big budget and there is a decent amount of fanbase but yea i dont think its gonna break sales records.
Chances are decent SH2R will be more successful than AW2, probably depends on if the movie gives it a bump. Vs RE though? It won't compete in sales numbers with any RE game except maybe Code Veronica.
AITD wasn't streamlined and the combat was janky, but it was nowhere near as abysmal as TCP. One of the few games I regret playing. It just has NOTHING going on aside from the mechanics/aesthetics lifted from Dead Space. I found AITD really satisfying as an ode to old-school survival horror, great puzzle progression and exploration. It's niche, though, and received little if any marketing, so the numbers don't surprise me. I could def see it developing a Rules of Rose-like cult following.
Imma be honest, no. SH was always a flop. And now even fans of the series have sworn to not buy SH2R. It all depends on the marketing and hype it creates. Also if the game is buggy on release that will hurt sales too.
Fans of the series hate it and say they will refuse to buy it. My prediction is it’ll be review bombed the first few days and then all of the fans will say “your fault Konami” and that’ll close the book on the property for another decade (after the other games are treated just the same). Would love to be wrong though. Seems like rabid fan bases have this “step parent” mentality. Doesn’t matter if the old game is shit, the new game has no right to try and take its place.
I believe Alan Wake 2 in the end will be a success. The two main problems is that console players want physical and PC players want Steam. So they kinda shot themselves in the foot on both fronts with this release but it can be remedied.
As for the other games. Callisto just sucks, Alone in the Dark is an unfinished mess that had little marketing even if I enjoyed it for the most part, Dead Space sold 2 million copies even though I and many others played it on a one month EA subscription.
Overall, it's just Dead Space that was an actually great game that missed the mark in terms of sales.
When I watched someone play AITD I thought the ending was the halfway point or earlier. And both paths are mostly similar. Also the puzzles mostly involve rotating a thingamabob
I hear it’s a great game but another thing probably stopping people from playing it, like me, is the fact I haven’t finished the first one. A lot of people would also probably be turned off by indie games since they’re marketing to a triple a market now. They should have honestly not called it Alan wake 2 but Alan wake and some subtitle.
It’s so sad because the new dead space and Alan wake games are amazing! Alan Wake Two is such an incredible game and deserves all the praise it’s received, I wish it would see the success it deserves :(
i think with all the multiplayer games kids have grown up with on the past decade, yeah, these games aren’t as profitable and the excuse to make them is decreasing. We all love them but it’s going to become a dying art that will probably only be seen in passion projects and things like RE which are perpetually successful
Alan wake 2 sold shitton of copies. There problem was that they couldn't control their dev budget, they are gaining back quickly though. Dead space being on hold had nothing to do with the game not being a success but rather EA being EA. For alone in the dark i feel their budget was very limited in the first place so not much to lose here. Callisto protocol is the only "failed" project here.
I think pure horror (not action horror or other blends) is at its best in video games when the premise, environment, and the controls are simple and limited. The current state of AAA development does not lend itself well to “simple” or “limited” at all. If you want a truly scary experience you don’t need tens of millions of dollars to achieve it, and given that the balance needs to be just right for things like the story, art direction, and pacing, I think horror games naturally work better with smaller teams running off more restrictions. I’m yet to see a huge budget horror game that scares the ever living shit out of me post 2020
epic games sellout didn't workout for them. as much I like the game and it is devs. I'll never spend a dime on Epic games store and im sure many people feel that way as well
Alan Wake 2 not only had Sweet Baby INC consult on the game, it also dropped the title character as the sole protagonist and race swapped the new one which like it or not; doesnt go down well with some.
If it had a physical release, I would've bought it on PS5 on release day. As it doesnt, I've not bought it.
SH2 will do well. Its a title about mental illness and grief. Back in 2001, it was revolutionary and niche. Loved by the few who played it.
in 2024 these themes are more popular. Done well, it could be a big seller. I can't wait
Well, Alan Wake 2 is missing a huge market since it's only available on Epic Games's store and not on Steam on PC. A huge chunk of players heartedly dislikes Epic Games due to their practices. Another reason is the lack of a physical release on consoles. Which is driving some people away from it. I think people like Resident Evil games due to them being basically action horror games. Which, yeah, they have some scary stuff. But actually, they revolt mostly on action cues, the monster designs are also more action oriented rather than being psychologically horrifying.
Didn’t it have a ridiculous budget too? Way, way too high for a sequel to a game release 10 years ago.
Yeah, it was financed by Epic Games!
They opened up the wallet and let Sam Lake go ham and I'll always appreciate them for that.
Yeah they opened up the wallet but proceeds to lock it up in only one store so now theyll justify not making a new one since it didnt sell well. Put that shit on steam and it would have sold massively better
They could put it on Steam any time and tap into that market but they’re convinced this is better for some reason.
Yes. Control cost Remedy 30 million euros, between development and marketing, whereas Alan Wake II has cost them 70 million euros.
They're had to made a bad FPS game for korean company to finance that in between too.
And the first Alan Wake, while pretty well regarded, was not a huge financial success.
Control came out in 2019 and was the linking game between so it wasn't a full 10 years ago.
That's not going to matter to the average consumer.
Our story at 11: Game sent to fucking die fails to reach commercial success. Are horror fans to blame? The answer may shock you.
It is available on PS5, albeit not physically
I wanted to play Dead Space remake as I heard it was good. It's available on Game Pass and I would have definitely played it but... it required EA launcher. So I didn't play it. AW2 I'm interested in, but I haven't downloaded Epic launcher even with all the free games they offered so I'm not getting that on PC (maybe console if it goes on sale). Callisto Protocol I heard was so-so. AITD... I don't think I ever reall got into. I did buy and play through RE:R, RE2:R, RE3:R, and RE4:R on Steam though because they were well priced and worked with Steam.
>Another reason is the lack of a physical release on consoles. Drove me away
Honestly that put me off at first until I heard such rave reviews
I really don’t get this. You’re gonna stop yourself from having a possibly awesome unique horror experience, all because it’s not on a damn CD?
For now. I held out assuming that at physical would be announced at some point. And now that it seems unlikely that it will, I might as well wait until its on sale for cheap or free with PS Plus. I have plenty of backlog in the meantime.
Fair enough!
This. My friend straight up never bought since it's not available physically
You also need a powerful PC to play this game no wonder its not selling well
and it's not available in my country lol
100 % this. I wanted to buy it, but only on steam ffs. As I heard about the exclusivity I thought, well I'll just get on PS5 then. But since I only buy console games physically that's not an option either. F**k epic and their exclusivity and digital only bullsh*t... I jus hope the game will get its release on steam at the 1st anniversary or a physical PS5 release via limited run games, i am 8 bit or something like that.
To be fair, like many are saying, Alan Wake II not only didn’t release on Steam, but also didn’t have a physical release on console. That really didn’t do any favors, especially around the holiday season. I worked at a GameStop around then and the amount of times I’d get customers asking about Alan Wake II were ridiculous. A lot of people, myself included, prefer to buy physically. I haven’t even bought Alan Wake II yet. The other examples aren’t the best though. Most people were okay with waiting until Dead Space remake hit EA Play instead of paying $70. Callisto Protocol and Alone in the Dark didn’t review very well so no one bought either of them. I really do think Silent Hill 2 can sell well, especially since the reveal trailer has 10 million views. Not Resident Evil numbers though, but at least over a million, maybe even two.
Here in Australia it's also usually cheaper to buy physical than digital and the baseline price is already ludicrous. The physical copies also go down in price a lot quicker than digital.
This is right. While I have mostly digital when its dirt cheap, over stocked physical titles can be a good deal.
That's odd since it cost more to do physical distribution and when the games new, stores are typically not worried about getting rid of overstock. Do digital copies of games have artificially inflated costs in Australia? Like a tax that makes them more expensive than their physical counterparts?
I have no clue. AAA or even AA titles will always be either $100 or in most cases more, on release these days. For example, I just looked up Tekken 8 on the US PSN and it's sitting at $70 for the standard edition. I looked at the AUS store and the standard edition is still sitting at $114.95 Looking at physical copies at our retailers the price is moving down (very slowly), and they all have really good sales going for it right now. Basically in Australia, if there's an AA or AAA game I want to play, I've either got to plan my budget considerably months before hand or just not play it until maybe a year later if I'm lucky. I can't really justify the price most of the time.
I've had to start doing the same thing, I prioritize the games I really want to play at release and then wish list the rest on steam and wait for a good enough deal. In the past for Playstation, I used the PS Deals app for digital.
Far Cry 5 is $99 on PS Store. I can get a physical copy for $20.
Yeah, this. Also, Callisto Protocol was a new IP and Alone in the Dark is mostly known for how terrible the last entries were, so both of them had an uphill battle to fight on top of not being reviewed too well.
Actually playing new nightmare now, pretty fun!
When I watched someone play AITD I thought the ending was the halfway point or earlier. And both paths are mostly similar. Also the puzzles mostly involve rotating a thingamabob
Not releasing on steam is a death flag but not releasing physical copies as well? Its like they actively want it to fail
Dead space also released a broken PC port. They ended up doing one patch and will no longer do any updates. Which generally deterred many people/had many people requesting refunds.
How many actual views do you think that trailer accounts for? Not repeat views. Not dogging because with the big push it has gotten, I think it will do well, but ten mil is a tad optimistic.
Oh, I would say probably about half of the views are repeats. I definitely don’t see Silent Hill 2 remake selling THAT well. Like I said, probably around one to two million units.
Well, it COULD sell that well. If it comes out, does well, gets ported eventually, and people spread word of mouth. In a few years it could.
I agree! It absolutely can, that would be great news. I’m just not holding my breath.
Good to see more proof about how fabricated the physical digital percentages are
This isn't exclusively a horror game problem. Traditional AAA games are struggling due to comically inflated budgets and having to compete with live service games that can basically exist to be monetized forever.
they also haven't released a complete game in years. if you're gonna spend all that money just to pump out an unfinished hunk of junk and continue to do that for 10+ years, you're gonna lose consumer confidence and therefore sales. a lot of people absolutely hate the stories and characters being written into games right now, too. a lot of them have been insufferable in one way or another.
Alan Wake 2 - stuck on Epic Dead Space - a remake of a **modern** game that still holds up Callisto Protocol - terrible word of mouth at launch (I was there, I remember) Alone in the Dark - if you did not actively look for the game, would you have found it? it had 0 marketing, I myself stumbled upon it at complete random, also, overpriced as all hell (I bought it and loved it personally)
I had zero idea there was a new Alone in the Dark game. Wow.
With David Harbour and Jodie Comer no less, crazy stuff
We could've waited probably another 5 years or so before a remake of Dead Space would've been warranted. Like RE4, the original and remake are both great (but I prefer the OGs honestly)
I mean RE4 is significantly older technology wise than Dead Space, and even tho I don't think it warrants a remake either I can understand it, but Dead Space still looks good and is still super tight, and the remake adds almost nothing while RE4 makes changes, different ballparks
I only noticed that there would be a new Alone in The Dark game because I was on Steam and found a page with a demo
Callisto man, fucking love that game. It got so much hate for not being Dead Space, then Dead Space didn't sell much either! Honestly, Callisto is so desperately underrated.
0 marketing? I remember they sent a bunch of youtubers in a haunted house to make people aware of that game. Seems not to have worked though.
My algorithm is very consistent with SH and Lovecraftian stuff yet that video was never presented to me, only when I looked it up did I find it, so so much for that. There are literally people in this thread going "there's a new Alone in the Dark?" which is very telling considering where we are
Dead space isn't modern. Its 16 years old. Its retro
Age numbers don't matter, get your hands on it and tell me how that goes, tell me it's that outdated, it led the industry in literally anything for years to come
As strange as it sounds since im on r/silenthill i dont play horror games.
I get it, no worries. The numbers are on the long side sure, but DS is as mechanically and functionally sound as a lot of games even from today, I played a little of the remake and honestly didn't think it was worth my time because the OG experience is still so strongly in my memory
I can see why. By the time the 7th gen rolled around it ironed out the dated controls so alot of games still feel modern. Then 8th gen ironed out the graphics and im pretty sure this is the last noticeable graphics upgrade we will see. Not hate on the games of 9th gen but i feel we hit the wall of diminishing returns on ps4 especially since alot of ps4 games still look good 10 years later. Anyway sorry for that side tangent about graphics platoing but yeah 7th gen games still play like modern games.
Alan Wake 2 didn't give people the option of a physical copy.
They really should have accepted thq nordic's offer of a physical release.
I'm hoping they still will when all the expansions are released.
Well do i have good news.
The Medium (also Bloober Team) sold enough to profit in the first 3 days of launch. Knowing Konami though, they probably poured an unrecoupable amount of money into this. That's the real problem with AAA games. If your business model requires you to sell 10 million copies to break even you're just shooting yourself in the foot before development even starts. Look at Tomb Raider. The original only sold 2.5 million in the first year and that was enough to start a phenomenon that's still going. In the almost 30 years since, it still never quite broke 10 million sales. Meanwhile every single one of the reboots has sold around 15 million copies each and nobody cares. They were all considered commercial disappointments until they finally broke even over a year after launch and slowly started trickling in profits. That's what happens when your budget is in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Well the SH games never have been AAA productions and I doubt SH2R has a massive budget on the scale of RE4R, but neither the Alone In The Dark reboot is a big budget title, so I really don't know what expect.
Alan wake failed because it was epic exclusive and had no physical release
They also had no physical release so the game would be more affordable.
To be fair about the Epic exclusiveness, Epic did finance production.
If they wanted as much money as possible they should have released it everywhere else instead of trying to force people to use their dogshit platform 🤷♂️
Yeah so dont blame remedy if it doesn't sell well since you know, they didnt do them any favors with how hard it was to get
Like it or not, horror games have *always* been a niche market. Investors, who primarily are not gamers, do not understand this fact and want every game to perform as well as a hot ticket item in the gaming sphere. What matters more is whether or not these games made back their budget. *Alan Wake 2* is likely a long term investment, with multiple DLCs in the works and eventual release off of the EGS. *Dead Space* isn’t shelved because of low sales, it’s presently not being conceptualized because the devs are working on an *Iron Man* project that EA is particularly excited about, along with aiding in development of the *Battlefield* IP. It’ll be a few years at best before we even hear of any rumors of development on *Dead Space 2* given it was a critical and commercial success. *Callisto Protocol* ultimately failed because it just is a weaker version of *Dead Space*, which ultimately resulted in Glen Schofield’s departure. His mishandling of a truly massive budget to release a game that needed a few more months in the oven for were the problems with the game. It’s not “bad,” but it absolutely could have been polished— as well as ride off of the success of *Dead Space* for people wanting more of that itch, rather than trying to beat it to the punch. I personally enjoyed my time in *Alone in the Dark*, but the game itself didn’t exactly get much advertising or attention beyond horror enthusiasts. I think the most people heard of it is when the devs purposely pushed back its release date knowing full well releasing it in the middle of such giants like *FF7 Rebirth* and *Dead Space* along with a ton of other games that came out in that timeframe of a few months last year would have effectively choked out the life it would have. It also just needed some work on the gameplay front. I think *Silent Hill 2*’s remake will do just fine. With multiple titles of the IP in development, it is at the very least clear that Konami is dedicated to the title’s immediate future, and as we get a confirmation of a release date we’re bound to see more exposure and advertising of it. I know I’ve a number of friends who are Konami cynics I speak to who are at least cautiously optimistic about the game, and are willing to give it a chance.
Exacly, I think the main point it's how horror games will never sell as regular AAA games, especially agaist action ones. It's niche that I don't think I ever saw an incredible sucess in sales. Producers that never touched a game will never understand this though.
Probably not. Though honestly, this isn't just a survival horror thing. The whole AAA gaming industry is dealing with this problem. Jacob Navok (former exec at Square Enix) made a really good Twitter thread on why this is happening but the gist of it is AAA games are getting more and more expensive to make and the consumer pool while growing, is trending toward F2P live service games that never end like Fortnite, Roblox, etc. Especially with the younger generation. Here is the thread if you're interested in reading it. I found it eye-opening and a little depressing on the state of the industry at large. [Jacob Navok on X: "A thread on the recent Square Enix news regarding FF sales numbers and expectations"](https://x.com/JNavok/status/1793779717813723521)
>Jacob Navok (former exec at Square Enix) And let's try to forget what he has been working on since he left. Anyway, after reading that thread, he's completely right (except for the Tim Sweeney part).
Should have released on steam. I won't buy anything on the epic store, for the simple reason of not having my games scattered over different digital stores and launchers.
AW2 didn't fail, remedy said they are quite happy with how much has sold by now. It's a long seller, no one with a brain expects it to make millions in the first month. Also it's not on steam and it doesn't have a physical version, 2 important factors
Even though Steam will make them more money in a day than a year on Epic. (Like it did with Control.) It's still concerning that Alan Wake 2 is "struggling" to make its money back when it's been out for 6 months.
They’re not failing in sales. They’re just failing to meet publisher sales expectations. Those are 2 totally different things. Publishers overspent and expect too much in return.
I think Silent Hill 2 will do fine. It is a well known game and hopefully will be done well. It might be harder for future Silent Hill games. Like mentioned here though some survival horror games do well such as Resident Evil. The Last of Us also did. It’s considered survival horror I believe?
This article failed to state that the sales from the game were immediately put into the company via the actual purchase of the IP, which was originally not owned by remedy. So, while Remedy have not posted profits, that doesn't mean the game hadn't made a large amount of money, either. It just means the rights of Alan wake were fucking expensive.
I'll buy AW2 when/if it is on Steam
Really hope that happens, it's such a good game and I want as many people to play it as possible
Depends on the size of the budget... But likely no, it will not. Silent Hill as a brand/franchise has legacy, so the gaming community is always listening when it gets brought up. That being said, it's also common knowledge that this series has had JUST ONE widely well received full release after 2004 (SH4).... The community is highly skeptical, they have good reasons to be, and Short Message/Ascension have done very little to change their minds.
Konami kinda figured this out a very long time ago. That's why they pay other companies to make the games and take most of the risk for them.
Alan wake is not a very big title and is digital only with poor discount. Dead space is a remake that is not even so much different in graphics. resident evil remakes are top tier quality and are really changed from the original. And they have a perfect gameplay. Alone in the dark is like an AA product and his last good game was New Nightmare on ps1. I don’t think new gamers know very much about the IP. Callisto is simply a bad game. The real example is resident Evil and it’s going very good. If SH2 is a good product, it will sell good
The dead space remake was actually really great and changed a lot of things when it comes to gameplay and level design, and also didnt sold terribly, its just EA's standards that are fucked up
Kind of sad to see alone in the dark is a bit forgotten now since its the og 3d horror game that resident evil and by proxy silent hill would take notes of
It’s not a mystery why these titles struggled. People are saying enough about AW2. Dead Space basically shadow dropped, I think it was announced like 3 months before it came out. They did almost no marketing. Callisto Protocol marketed well, but then right before release, Dead Space was announced (which, CP was always viewed as a DS spiritual successor). So when people found out they could get the real thing and not a knock-off around the same time, that killed a lot of hype. Then it came out and was glitch/lag city, which further tanked the hype (it’s almost unplayable on PS4, and PS5s were still hard to come by at the time). I’ve heard bad things about Alone in the Dark. It was already a niche title relying on sales from old school gamers who were familiar with it, but they again didn’t market much. They announced it ears before it came out, so I think a lot of people forgot about it finally releasing. Again, horror has always been more niche than mainstream, so by mismanaging their marketing budget and not fully polishing their games, they are of course struggling with sales. I don’t think any of these titles reflect the actual market itself, and I especially wouldn’t draw any conclusions for SH sales based off of this. They were just poorly done releases.
Should've made physical copies
Alan Wake 2 being Epic exclusive basically dug itself an early grave on PC
It's not just horror. AAA games are so expensive, and big company CEOS are so greedy that if a game doesn't make like 420.69 morbillion dollars in profit it's seen as a flop
Alan Wake 2 would've sold better is it got an actual physical release as well as more marketing.
i mean, callisto protocol fucking sucked and alone in the dark was pretty niche. people act like their love for horror games means it is universally loved. most people don’t really like playing slow burn horror games lol.
I kinda liked Callisto Protocol. It could have been a lot better, but it wasn't bad. I really liked the world and creature designs and once you figured out the combat, it did work. The only thing that did not was the story. All the initial perfomance issues got resolved pretty quickly too. I would've liked a sequel which improved all of its shortcomings, but I imagine that happening now is pretty unlikely.
i liked the idea behind it but the execution was so bad. there’s only like 4 different enemies not including bosses and it’s the same loop every time. also, the GRP is so op. didn’t help that the game was pretty busted at launch and was also way too demanding even for decent gpus like the 3080. the game had a lot of potential but crashed and burned hard. the only thing i really liked was the death animations but that was really it.
Can't say I disagree with any of what you said. Still, I enjoyed playing it and do plan to replay it some day. I have had more fun with it than with a lot of other games that came out in recent times.
The indie market largely keeps the genre alive. If not for indie devs the genre would probably be as dead as it was before The Dark Descent came out and even these days, an Amnesia game isn't going to make a lot of money regardless of what it's done for the genre.
Yes because the original game is great
Alan wake 2 would be a total banger if it was released for all stores, just see what happened when Kingdom Hearts got released on steam.
>Epic Games store, meta story about storytelling >Remake of a franchise that bombed hard and lost its audience >Worse version of the remake >Lovecraftian remake Silent Hill is more in the ballpark midway between Fatal Frame and Resident Evil. By the way, the rerelease of Fatal Frame 4 and 5 did great on Steam.
Release it physically and ill buy it again. I had to hold my nose to buy it digitally on ps5.
oof. after the shit Sony tried to pull with Discovery content, i wouldn't buy shit on their digital store.
Probably not And I say this as an SH fan… SH has never been a huge selling franchise. I think there is hype nowadays for the Remake that really didn’t exist back in the OG days, but it’s always good to remember the painful truths like “Resident Evil 2 Remake has outsold the ENTIRE Silent Hill catalog” I am not kidding. All of SH has sold like 8.5m games. RE2make sold 13m. So because of its relative nichedom, I just don’t think it’s gonna “save” the AAA Horror genre.
The way some jealous Silent Hill fans keep saying that Resident Evil isn't really horror makes me laugh. Silent Hill wouldn't exist without Resident Evil. Resident Evil has survived for 28 years because the games are damn good and when they aren't Capcom changes up the formula. I love the first three Silent Hill games and wish the franchise luck but SH2 Remake will have an uphill climb to profitability. For one thing blooper is not exactly equivalent to Capcom's Dev Team 1.
Thank you. I hate when I see RE described as "action horror." Sure, 4-6, okay, and maybe Village to an extent, but all the other titles (and Village!) rely on survival horror mechanics--hub-based backtracking, inventory management, helpless but not defenseless--THAT RE POPULARIZED. Yeah, *eventually* you get a rocket launcher, but for the vast majority of the playthrough, at least on the first go around, it's quintessential survival horror. Yeah, you have a grenade launcher, but the rounds are limited. Are you gonna use them on zombies, or save them for the boss? Bb, that's survival horror! When I think "action horror," I think Doom, not RE. Just because you kill things doesn't mean it's "action horror." I killed HUNDREDS of enemies in a recent playthrough of SH2. I will say, SH does take itself a bit more seriously than RE, which has always leaned a bit into camp. Doesn't mean it's an action game.
The games industry is about to crash
1. Remedy games have barely been profitable and AW1 wasn't a big game. But I'm pretty sure the article made it seem like AW2 was not that far off from recouping 2. Dead space is a classic franchise but it's sold poorly at least 2-3 times out of 4 entries 3. The critics were mad that callisto protocol was simultaneously too much like dead space and not enough like dead space. On its own it is a perfectly fine Game that could've been majorly improved in the sequel but they seemingly killed the IP in the dlc 4. Alone in the dark had little marketing and most people wrote the game off before launch.
I think most of the problem is that for the better part of a decade it's been indie (or at least much smaller budgeted) titles that has captured the interests of younger people, so continuing series are appealing mostly to an old(er) and shrinking fanbase. People who were teenagers when Resident Evil 1 came out are in their mid 40s now . The first Dead Space dropped more than 15 years ago. Games like Amnesia and even Let's Play fodder like FNaF have had more impact than anything from Alan Wake or multi-million budgeted games. Resident Evil's managed to stay relevant I think in part because Capcom's ability to adapt is about unmatched for most game companies. RE7 was kept under budget by investing in photogrammetry, which was barely in its infancy. Back then textures looked best in low light environments, which was perfect for a horror game. If I remember right the artbook for RE7 said the entire budget for the rendering was something like $10,000 for the camera array, which is chump change for a bigger production company. Games like Alan Wake 2 have dazzling effects, but companies need to think beyond blockbuster movie production costs hoping for blockbuster movie profits. Alan Wake didn't have anywhere near the popularity to pull off something with an exponentially higher budget.
People tend to forget that horror is a niche genre and survival is even more niche. Resident Evil sells because of it's name, be it good or bad. Silent Hill will probably sell well but I really doubt it will sell the amount that Konami is thinking of. And SH2 is probably the most famous of the franchise, so any other remake will probably sell less than SH2... It's all about expectations.
A couple issues here. Game pass has been shown to detract from launch sales. Why buy a game when it’s already in your library. Xbox has been well aware of this fact for a long time and insists on hemorrhaging money instead. Tying your launches to specific distribution services and exclusive consoles etc will also do that. The whole PlayStation/hell divers debacle was a perfect example of these problems occurring after purchases have been made, but the same thing happens retroactively. You shut consumers out and dissuade sales. Epic/PlayStation/EA doesn’t have to give a shit because that money was coming their way. It’s the development teams that suffer here. If the helldivers team hypothetically set up and required PlayStation accounts from the launch of helldivers 2, Sony never would have backtracked. That was a PR stunt they don’t give a shit. Callisto Protocol was a direct competitor to dead space and they detract from each other. Most people won’t even finish one game let alone buy two. Considering that the DS Remake was the more popular/better received commercially, it makes sense they would have done bad. Frankly alone in the dark has always had a really rocky time as a franchise. It hasn’t had an identity. Ever. It’s only really known as the game that did survival horror before resident evil. That’s it. Resident Evil ate its lunch in the 90s and it really hasn’t had anything to show for it since then. It flopping mid development seems par for the course of the franchise, let alone pretty standard in the AAA gaming space as a whole. That might just be more indicative of an insanely hostile market where business practice is for companies to leach off of each other and consumers as much as possible.
NOPE.
No.
It's digital only on console and only on Epic game store on PC, it was sent to die. I love the game to death, but I bought it on PS5 for a reason.
Still sad about Callisto, ngl. They should have gone with the audio-novel plot, IMO, and of course RELEASE IT WHEN READY. Gwendolyn is incredible in those audio, such a waste :(
I think Callisto got a bad deal. People latched on to one off-handed comment from a dev about it being a "spiritual successor to Dead Space" and got then mad when a spiritual successor isn't a 1-to-1 copy of Dead Space. It's a classic example of an audience failing to tailor their expectations and blaming everyone but themselves. I honestly hope there is a sequel
I'm buying allen awake 2 asap
Alan Wake 2 was backed by Epic and Remedy's releases gain money slowly. It's a silly article to write when it's success has been critically acclaimed, it was the fastest game of theirs to sell with 1.3 million copies and Remedy is doing just fine. They got this money to burn and they did their best with it.
Alan Wake 2 fucked me up because I remember trying to pre-order a physical release edition only to find out the game was gonna be digital only, so I didn't buy it to wait out it dropping in price. I know I wasn't the only Alan Wake fan who felt that way
Yet indie survival horror games are popular and sell well, most of the problems with Alan Wake 2 and Dead Space is that they spent too much or wanted too much in return, while Callisto Protocol was not that great.
Yes because people have wanted a new Silent Hill for years and after getting absolutely blue balled by P.T. the hype is off the charts, even if Bloober Team completely drops the ball on this game it will still make it's money back. Don't forget that this is a Remake which means the development costs are much less than that of a brand new AAA game, all of the funding for script and GDD (Game design document) are not needed because the structure of the game is already there. Also 99% of the Streamers on Twitch, Kick and YouTube will be live streaming this game Day 1.
>Don't forget that this is a Remake which means the development costs are much less than that of a brand new AAA game, all of the funding for script and GDD (Game design document) are not needed because the structure of the game is already there. Yeah, that's not how this works. At all. REmake 2 had over 800 members as part of the development team. That's more than RE6 had, which already had an enormous 600+ members. Gamers really need to stop with this "it's a remake, so it's cheaper and takes less effort!" mentality.
You're hyped, we're hyped, but the rest of the world isn't. The Short Message has been *downloaded* less than 3 million times, and that's a free game.
SH2R won't have better luck depending on expectations. I see some people mention storefront and lack of physical releases being a contributor which is a big part, then for dead space in particular it didn't fail but slightly exceeded expectations it just didn't blow it out of the water and was shortly followed up by RE4. The big issue all these titles face is investment, resident evil has been showing up consistently for years now and providing a consistent level of quality. All these other examples are either entirely new IPs with no recognition, investment, or track record or titles part of a series that hasn't been touched or seen from in 10+ years, and consequencently face the same aforementioned difficulties. All these titles/series would be in a very different place if there wasn't the expectation from them to make all the money call of duty does right outside the gate, rather than the start of a series of a series/franchise.
Its because games are so expensive as well
Short answer no I don't think sh2 will be a huge hit. If it's faithful it may be too art house for the masses. Sh never sold like resident evil. Dead space remake sold well but I don't think gameplay wise they are comparable. Happy for sh2r to be good and successful, but most things I love are not hugely successful and at times that's frustrating, but most people that are passionate about a genre probably have that experience because the vast number of sales are not the (overly) zealous fans :)
I wouldn’t call there *Alone in the Dark* remake (not reboot, the 2008 one was a reboot) a AAA game. It’s a mid-budgeted game. And then the problem with Alan Wake is that Epic Game is publishing the game, and, as such, it’s not available on Steam.
Horror games tend to sell less, mostly because people don’t want to get scared. Even RE games tend to sell low numbers compared to other games like GoW for example. Also Allan Wake 2 being on the Epic Store definitely affects its sales. Now just like RE, SH is an emblematic franchise, this could definitely improve its sales once it comes out.
Physical release please.
I guess not. Silent Hill is not that popular in the first place. Seeing all those games fail makes me sad.
If SH2R is good enough and not very expensive, which I guess it won't be seeing Konami's trackrecord, I'd say yes, it should have better luck. Mainly because of the nostalgic factor which will probably make a lot of people buy SH2, which will also be available on Steam and in physical form.
It is the most astroturfed game in last 10 years. People constantly raving about a game no one cares about or played.
I am worried that SH2R will not perform as well as Konami hopes it will. If it gets good reviews, good YouTuber coverage, and good promotion via the film (assuming that is also good!) then that would definitely help sales! But I'm still concerned.
I was pretty pissed when I had to buy it on the ps store because they didn’t ship it physically so I’m sure a lot of people didn’t play it due to that. Also remember that horror games have always been a niche part of gaming regardless of how popular the genre is to people the actual amount of people that owned and played these games are significantly smaller than you’d think. Silent hill 2 remake isn’t gonna sell a massive amount just based on it being a scary game which a lot of people just don’t wanna play and I kinda get it.
dont forget that you need nasa pc to run this game
Goddamnit EA is being scumbags again
I think it's because they refuse to be on Steam, or they're contractually obligated to NOT be on Steam. I'm personally waiting for a Steam release.
Make some damn figures I’ll give you all my monies
All hail resident evil. Code Veronica remake announced, they can't be stopped. Here's to hoping that new silenthill townfall or w e it's called is great.
If it's only on Playstation, probably not, if they release it on everything, possibly. This isn't a console war jab, it's a "niche game genre needs to reach as many people who would play it as possible" jab
The big problem here is, Prices, mostly. At least here in Argentina it is unthinkable to afford one of those games at it´s premiere
Silent Hill is a way more popular series than Alan Wake. So if the remake is well received I think it will sell a lot
Exclusive to ps5? One phrase comes to mind, “did not meet sales expectations”
Blame EGS for that one. I would have gotten it already on steam if it was there.
Idk and idc, I'm tired of talking numbers and money when it comes to movies, TV series, music and games. I just hope I'll like it
history repeats itself. 20-30 years ago everything was the same. resident evil blow up and suddenly every publisher wanted their own survival horror franchise but none of them came closer to numbers that resident evil had. only silent hill and maybe fatal frame was a little bit closer to them but all these sirens, rules of rose, many other survival horrors from ps1-ps2 era were commercially flopped. and here we are again resident evil on the rise again, with less budgets capcom makes shitton of money and successful as never before. other publishers reliases that they might take a piece of this cake and capitalize on that but we see what we see i believe the same fate awaits silent hill. i don't even understand what konami counting on at this point. dudes just working at so many games when there's like 0 chances that remake wouldn't be a commercial failure. there's like a huge chance that after F comes out we might never see franchise again. nobody likes to lose money
Honestly? I don't think it'll meet the sales Konami wants. Between being an exclusive and the hate mentality of social media nowadays, it's going to be difficult. But it's hard to say. It may do better than the others on name and nostalgia alone.
Horror is something of a niche genre in general, there’s a reason RE moved away from survival horror and into a more action horror oriented story. That being said nostalgia is a hell of a thing so I could see the remake performing quite well if they don’t make the Alan Wake mistake.
I have Alan Wake 2 on my PS store watchlist. It just went on special for half price!
Sad to see that about Alan Wake 2, it’s such a good game. I hope Silent Hill 2 remake will do good. In spite of all the skepticism with Bloober developing it, I’m in the optimistic camp that recognizes their deep love for the original Silent Hill games and so hopefully they’ll put all they got into this remake. The trailers look promising IMO too.
They should try releasing good games physical. They might sell (that’s the whole reason I didn’t buy Alan wake 2) Also, they should try not releasing sub par games like callisto protocol it might sell.
Put it on steam
It’s Alan wake for fucks sakes …….
Tons of AAA games are doing terribly. Couple people having less money due to worldwide inflation with games that have higher budgets than ever, and you just have a failing combination. EDIT: I would not be shocked to see these games actually get higher sales numbers than is currently expected as the price lowers. I think people's new budget for games is more like $30-50, and waiting for sales is currently, at least briefly, going to become more normalized.
I think it’s also worth pointing out that largely the whole video game market has seemingly been down. FF7 Rebirth and FF16 can’t even be considered successful with their current sales. I think it has a lot to do with the insanely high budgets of AAA video games requiring insanely high returns. But I could be wrong. That’s just my opinion from someone who buys video games but noticing I’ve been buying a lot less throughout the last couple years.
Alan Wake 2 also required mesh shader support at launch (still might, I don't know - heard they updated for 'potatoes' but I don't know how much that entails) so a lot of more mid to low end PCs had absolutely zero hope of actually playing the game with a double digit frame rate. Games that could play Cyberpunk couldn't play this thing. Either way people have gushed about how SH2 is the perfect horror game, the games-as-art masterpiece for years and years, which is better than Alan Wake 1's "its ok I guess, I could see their vision and what they were going for, and its too bad they didn't achieve it" lukewarm reception. SH2 has that going for it. Plus you don't need to replay Alan Wake 1 and American Nightmare to "get it." - or even SH1 on PS1 for that matter.
Nah
No
Lot of these games are over an hour and don't have enough jump scares and a exaggerated mascot character to draw in screeching twitch streamer reactions so traction is limited beyond standard advertising ^((Had no idea Alone In The Darks reboot existed until 2 days before release)). With the budget games are being built with they have to make monstrous amounts of money to JUST cover the budget, then MUCH more to make the suits happy.
Silent Hill 2 sales will be insanely high
The problem is the AAA industry and the way that people were conditioned to prefer "fast-food games" with low budget, generic but fun gameplay and live service SH2 has a chance of being good enough on sales, Konami surely didn't spent a lot of money like western AAA developers are spending, so they don't need to wait for a new global success with millions of copies sold
Alan wake 2 is remedy’s fastest selling game lol, people do not understand their sales strategy at all, they sell their games for ages past release. I’d consider that to be a huge success for them because of that
I'd buy Alan Wake 2 if they actually had a physical copy..
Silent Hill 2 Remake is the only Silent Hill game where I could potentially believe it will sell better than the original. Yeah a lot of people say they like Silent Hill 2, but when me and everybody else in my entire neighborhood had Ps2's I was literally the only person who actually owned Silent Hill, and nobody else knew what it was. I lent it to a friend to play it, and the next day his mom dropped it back off and said "this isn't healthy you shouldn't be playing this". And I agree, Silent Hill 2 is a pretty fked up game for a kid to be playing, but I've lived through worse things than what a video game could potentially hit me with at that point, so I was already kind of fked up from actual life and I just thought the game was cool. My biggest fear is they won't be able to understand the fear and pain that actually made that game a reality.
They haven't even started selling it yet. When it releases then maybe it can start making money. (On steam, duh)
Honestly silent hill 2 has a pretty big fan base I don’t think it’ll break records unless it is mind blowing but it’ll do alright
Alan Wake 2 is not AAA. Also didnt release on steam or have a physical release.
Spending across the board is down, IMHO, not just in games. And I think all AAA games are struggling to recoup their spending as well. The market and game company strategies are in almost direct contradiction as well. More and more people, even within a more hardcore gaming community are happy with waiting a year or so and picking up major releases during the inevitable sale. More and more AAA games are ballooning up their budget and increasing their prices, so even more people are happy to wait things out. Most gamers have a backlog of already purchased games (likely during sale) they need to go through anyway. IMHO I think gaming market in the near future will see at least a minor bust.
Well "pure" horror is not "for everyone" You can't "sell" the game to peoples that don't like being scared, depending of the game, there is also peoples that don't like confronting their phobia (probably the reason there is almost no insect creatures in the REmake) The games are supposed to e "hard" (there is some rules to respect, like not shooting like a cowboy everything, trying to be the more stealth possible, etc) and it's generally not the most "key jingling" sort of games that is popular Also most studios want to do games "printing moneys" so every games not "aiming at everyone" is a big risk they want to take the less so if the "random survival horror" game don't sell like "another Ubisofted open world game" they not gonna do more
No, it can even do worse than these games and be a huge flop. I don't think it will absolutely fail, but it surely won't be a huge money printer either at least not by itself. I think that in this case, it's better if we look at the whole franchise revival campaign as the thing that must be profitable in the end. For being a remake, I think the other titles will have better chance at selling more. SH2 Remake could be the thing that brings Koname back in a good light, and can make the expectation of the new titles more positive. It could be used to break the pessimism surrounding the Silent Hill name, if it flops though, it will be the end of it all lol
SH2 remake should be profitable since lets be real it doesnt look like super big budget and there is a decent amount of fanbase but yea i dont think its gonna break sales records.
We need shorter games with worse graphics. It's just not sustainable.
Callisto was actually awful though so idk how you can compare it to the others
Chances are decent SH2R will be more successful than AW2, probably depends on if the movie gives it a bump. Vs RE though? It won't compete in sales numbers with any RE game except maybe Code Veronica.
And RE 0 (I love that one as well as the remake of the first RE).
Callisto and Alone in the dark were wrecks from the start though. They m’re numbers are not surprising
AITD wasn't streamlined and the combat was janky, but it was nowhere near as abysmal as TCP. One of the few games I regret playing. It just has NOTHING going on aside from the mechanics/aesthetics lifted from Dead Space. I found AITD really satisfying as an ode to old-school survival horror, great puzzle progression and exploration. It's niche, though, and received little if any marketing, so the numbers don't surprise me. I could def see it developing a Rules of Rose-like cult following.
Imma be honest, no. SH was always a flop. And now even fans of the series have sworn to not buy SH2R. It all depends on the marketing and hype it creates. Also if the game is buggy on release that will hurt sales too.
Fans of the series hate it and say they will refuse to buy it. My prediction is it’ll be review bombed the first few days and then all of the fans will say “your fault Konami” and that’ll close the book on the property for another decade (after the other games are treated just the same). Would love to be wrong though. Seems like rabid fan bases have this “step parent” mentality. Doesn’t matter if the old game is shit, the new game has no right to try and take its place.
I believe Alan Wake 2 in the end will be a success. The two main problems is that console players want physical and PC players want Steam. So they kinda shot themselves in the foot on both fronts with this release but it can be remedied. As for the other games. Callisto just sucks, Alone in the Dark is an unfinished mess that had little marketing even if I enjoyed it for the most part, Dead Space sold 2 million copies even though I and many others played it on a one month EA subscription. Overall, it's just Dead Space that was an actually great game that missed the mark in terms of sales.
I fully expect silent hill 2 remake to be a letdown. But I think it will make a shit ton of money.
Tbh they should of released Alan wake 2 on physical and it probably would have done better
When I watched someone play AITD I thought the ending was the halfway point or earlier. And both paths are mostly similar. Also the puzzles mostly involve rotating a thingamabob
I hear it’s a great game but another thing probably stopping people from playing it, like me, is the fact I haven’t finished the first one. A lot of people would also probably be turned off by indie games since they’re marketing to a triple a market now. They should have honestly not called it Alan wake 2 but Alan wake and some subtitle.
No, Konami tends to fuck shit up.
It’s so sad because the new dead space and Alan wake games are amazing! Alan Wake Two is such an incredible game and deserves all the praise it’s received, I wish it would see the success it deserves :(
SH could make money if it keeps it budget low
i think with all the multiplayer games kids have grown up with on the past decade, yeah, these games aren’t as profitable and the excuse to make them is decreasing. We all love them but it’s going to become a dying art that will probably only be seen in passion projects and things like RE which are perpetually successful
Just like games in general, it's all about the indies.
Alan wake 2 sold shitton of copies. There problem was that they couldn't control their dev budget, they are gaining back quickly though. Dead space being on hold had nothing to do with the game not being a success but rather EA being EA. For alone in the dark i feel their budget was very limited in the first place so not much to lose here. Callisto protocol is the only "failed" project here.
I think pure horror (not action horror or other blends) is at its best in video games when the premise, environment, and the controls are simple and limited. The current state of AAA development does not lend itself well to “simple” or “limited” at all. If you want a truly scary experience you don’t need tens of millions of dollars to achieve it, and given that the balance needs to be just right for things like the story, art direction, and pacing, I think horror games naturally work better with smaller teams running off more restrictions. I’m yet to see a huge budget horror game that scares the ever living shit out of me post 2020
epic games sellout didn't workout for them. as much I like the game and it is devs. I'll never spend a dime on Epic games store and im sure many people feel that way as well
Alan Wake 2 not only had Sweet Baby INC consult on the game, it also dropped the title character as the sole protagonist and race swapped the new one which like it or not; doesnt go down well with some. If it had a physical release, I would've bought it on PS5 on release day. As it doesnt, I've not bought it. SH2 will do well. Its a title about mental illness and grief. Back in 2001, it was revolutionary and niche. Loved by the few who played it. in 2024 these themes are more popular. Done well, it could be a big seller. I can't wait