Pretty excited, im back on a horror/suspense kick and ive really enjoyed the cohesive universe theyre creating. Looking forward to booting the xbox up again for it.
Pretty excited, im back on a horror/suspense kick and ive really enjoyed the cohesive universe theyre creating. Looking forward to booting the xbox up again for it.
This looks interesting, especially with Dylan there at the end, and a lot of the interior shots give off Oldest House vibes. I haven't played either of the Alan Wake games yet, but after playing...
This looks interesting, especially with Dylan there at the end, and a lot of the interior shots give off Oldest House vibes.
I haven't played either of the Alan Wake games yet, but after playing Control, I want to. It's unfortunate they won't release the games on Steam though. (Alan Wake is on Steam, but the remastered version and Alan Wake 2 are only on Epic.)
After I read that Alan Wake 2 sold poorly, like "half as well as the first game did a decade ago" poorly, I had hoped they would relent and release it on Steam to boost sales, but that was almost six months ago and still nothing. I'm guessing Epic has to approve of a Steam release, Remedy can't just do it themselves like they are with FBC: Firebreak, and Epic probably cares more about twisting consumer's arms with exclusivity to gain market share than any particular game actually making a profit.
I'd end this comment with something salty like "the Fortnite gravy train can't die soon enough" but with the industry-wide brain drain and studious moving their games to Unreal Engine en masse, Epic unfortunately will be around for a long time.
I just do not understand the sentiment that you'd rather steal from artists then buy their work from an inferior storefront. I guess I've never understood the Epic Games hate either; I think their...
I just do not understand the sentiment that you'd rather steal from artists then buy their work from an inferior storefront. I guess I've never understood the Epic Games hate either; I think their impact on the PC ecosystem has been largely positive or neutral.
It's also worth noting that, while Alan Wake 2 (which likely wouldn't have existed without Epic publishing, by the way) didn't sell well, per se, it certainly outsold Remedy's previous efforts, and the studio seems relatively happy with the project's financial performance.
I don't consider it stealing. I don't buy into the idea that choosing not to give someone money is the same as taking something from them. And yes, Epic funded the development of the Alan Wake...
I don't consider it stealing. I don't buy into the idea that choosing not to give someone money is the same as taking something from them.
And yes, Epic funded the development of the Alan Wake remaster and Alan Wake 2, hence why the games aren't and may never be released on Steam. However, Remedy has yet to make any royalties off the game. For the first half of 2024, all of their royalty revenue came from Control and the Alan Wake remaster. I don't doubt Remedy is fine with Alan Wake 2's financial performance since it's Epic, not Remedy, who's had to primarily contend with that. Of course, the game will eventually be profitable for Remedy, but to say it sold well, let alone "outsold" Remedy's previous games, isn't correct. Alan Wake 2 sold 1.3 million copies by February 2024. Control sold 4 million. (Guess which one was released on Steam.)
That's convenient for you but you're still stealing, by definition: You took the digital property of the Remedy devs without permission or legal rights. Call it what you will, but don't lie to...
I don't consider it stealing. I don't buy into the idea that choosing not to give someone money is the same as taking something from them.
That's convenient for you but you're still stealing, by definition:
the action or offense of taking another person's property without permission or legal right and without intending to return it
You took the digital property of the Remedy devs without permission or legal rights. Call it what you will, but don't lie to yourself and pretend you're not stealing.
To be clear, and with the caveat that I am not a lawyer, piracy in my country (US) is copyright infringement, not theft. Regardless of the legal definition though, I disagree that "took" is a...
To be clear, and with the caveat that I am not a lawyer, piracy in my country (US) is copyright infringement, not theft.
Regardless of the legal definition though, I disagree that "took" is a valid verb to use here. Choosing not to give someone money is not the same as taking money away from them. Choosing to make a copy of something is not the same as taking that thing away.
I understand that if 99% of people who play Alan Wake 2 chose to pirate it instead of buy it, that would be very bad for Remedy, and maybe that would be the end of their company.
The thing is, I don't really care. Remedy's existence, the existence and future of the Alan Wake series, is simply not important enough to me, for me to buy it on the Epic Games Store. I'm sure that sounds callous (it is), but it isn't my responsibility to compete with piracy "in the market" or "on convenience". That responsibility is Remedy's and Epic's. I genuinely don't think I have a responsibility as a consumer to only consume in the way Remedy, Epic, or even the law, expect me to.
Pirating Alan Wake 2 is the easier and more convenient option for me, and so that's what I'm going to do. Maybe after I play it, I'll think it's a masterpiece and go out of my way to spend money on it, but considering their funding deal with Epic, I doubt it.
I wasn't quoting law at you, I was responding to your assertion that it wasn't stealing. And I'm sorry, but that's a bad take. Justify your poor behaviour however you like, I know I'm not changing...
I wasn't quoting law at you, I was responding to your assertion that it wasn't stealing.
And I'm sorry, but that's a bad take. Justify your poor behaviour however you like, I know I'm not changing your mind. I used to try and justify my piracy the same way. I hope you grow up one day.
I'm not committing some grand sin by downloading and playing a copy of Alan Wake 2 without buying it. I don't want to spend money on the Epic Games Store because I dislike their practice of using...
I'm not committing some grand sin by downloading and playing a copy of Alan Wake 2 without buying it. I don't want to spend money on the Epic Games Store because I dislike their practice of using exclusivity agreements to drive their market share, rather than actually trying to compete feature-for-feature with other game stores like GOG or Steam (to say nothing of their hostile attitude towards Linux support). So, I'm opting out of the deal they're putting forward. I'm choosing to access a game they publish, without paying them for it.
I know you understand that is different from stealing. I know you understand that I'm not taking anything from them or Remedy, I'm choosing not to give them something. If anyone needs to "grow up one day", it's you. Stop pretending like copyright law is some precious and necessary thread of society's moral fabric that must not be torn, or that anyone who does tear it is somehow lesser. It isn't, they aren't, and you know it.
To give another, perhaps more palatable example, why should I subscribe to Prime Video to watch Rings of Power, when I can just pirate the show and not give Amazon my money? Amazon is a terrible company who regularly abuses and overworks their employees, fights unionization, and routinely lobbies against labor laws. Tell me, what makes me so beholden to give them my money in exchange for watching their show, when I could just watch their show and give them nothing?
You might think I ought to give Amazon my money for the benefit of the workers they employ. After all, if not enough people subscribe to their streaming service, and watch Rings of Power on it, then that show, or even the entire streaming service, and everyone who works on and with it, could find themselves out of a job.
My answer is that the "terribleness" of Amazon and the ill they inflict is a worse thing to support than the unemployment of all those workers would be. That's a decision I made, an actual decision I took time and thought about long ago when I decided to pirate their shows. You might think I'm just some infantile greedy person who doesn't want to spend money, but no, piracy is something I've long given serious thought about.
Piracy is the ultimate opt-out, loophole, escape hatch, etc. for the consumer. It's a necessary part of "the market". Without it, we'd be entirely at the mercy of predatory businesses.
Going back to Alan Wake 2:
Remedy, whether they had any other choice or not, has made their bed with Epic.
I don't like Epic. I don't like using their software, it's an inconvenience to me. I don't like their exclusivity agreements, they curtail consumer choice and try to force the market. I don't like their attitude towards Linux, which they're outright hostile to. I don't like their (legal) arguments about store fees and 30% cuts, they're disingenuous. I at least can appreciate that Epic has tried to force the monopolistic companies of Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Valve to "move over" and give up some of their dominance by litigating for it, but Epic didn't do this because they're "the good guys" (and those other companies certainly aren't either).
Those are just the things I'm very familiar with. There are other issues, like extreme privacy violations and exploitative dark patterns to drive microtransaction revenue in Fortnite, which were so severe that Epic had to pay a half a billion dollar fine.
So I don't like Epic. I think they're a bad company doing more bad than good, and I don't want to support them, so I won't.
You could almost even call my attitude "boycottish", except I'm willing to commit the apparently unparalleled sin of simultaneously not giving Epic my money, but still accessing a game they published.
As for Remedy, well, I'll let you in on a secret: I actually did download both Alan Wake games last night, and started playing the first one. It's really good! I wish they'd release them both on Steam, or even just on not-Epic, because I'd happily pay money for them anywhere else.
You're not comparing like to like on sales data. When I say "outsold" I'm referring to Remedy's claims that Alan Wake 2 was their fastest selling game; of course Control, a five year old game, has...
You're not comparing like to like on sales data. When I say "outsold" I'm referring to Remedy's claims that Alan Wake 2 was their fastest selling game; of course Control, a five year old game, has more total sales; unsurprising, given that Remedy games have historically had long tails. Notably, Controlalso did not launch on Steam until the game's one year release anniversary (which hasn't come for Alan Wake 2 yet).
Okay, that's fair, I misunderstood your use of the word "outsold" and that's my bad. I do generally agree that Alan Wake 2 will eventually match or exceed Control's current 4 million in sales.
Okay, that's fair, I misunderstood your use of the word "outsold" and that's my bad. I do generally agree that Alan Wake 2 will eventually match or exceed Control's current 4 million in sales.
Yeah that's what I had to do. I love Alan Wake, it is one of my favorite games of all time, and I waited so many years for a sequel that seemed very likely to never happen. And then it did, but it...
Yeah that's what I had to do. I love Alan Wake, it is one of my favorite games of all time, and I waited so many years for a sequel that seemed very likely to never happen.
And then it did, but it was Epic, and my ethics refuse to yield to that horrible company's storefront and business practices. So I did the only thing I could, because I couldn't not play this amazing game.
Haven't pirated a game in like 15 years.
Gabe was always right. Piracy is a service problem. Had they been able to put it on Steam, I would've happily paid any price to play it. But...I will not use Epic.
This is some backwards logic. You hate Epic so much that you refuse to give them a 12% cut but are totally fine with screwing the amazing Devs at Remedy out of the 88% cut for their game?
This is some backwards logic. You hate Epic so much that you refuse to give them a 12% cut but are totally fine with screwing the amazing Devs at Remedy out of the 88% cut for their game?
As far as im aware, the deal for these sort of situations is that Remedy doesnt see a dime until Epic has made all their money back, and considering the games dev costs of over €50million, and not...
As far as im aware, the deal for these sort of situations is that Remedy doesnt see a dime until Epic has made all their money back, and considering the games dev costs of over €50million, and not all to stellar sales numbers being at just over a million as of February of this year, i think its fairly safe to say its only Epic getting that money, not Remedy. Besides, practically speaking Remedy already got paid. They got fully funded development for the game, the brand recognition and prestige of having one of the finest artistic works of the past few years.
And this might just be my american pov showing here, but its not like the actual devs would be seeing that money individually. Maybe a small bonus, if they're lucky? They got paid their salary for the length of game development, and hopefully secured a spot for future projects based on the critical success of the game. Any extra profits would usually go to the people at the top or the publisher. That said, Remedy is a finnish company, they might have a much better pay and wealth distribution structure there than what is standard over here. But i think its safe to say that the devs would care far more about what people thought of their art, rather than the extra money they likely arent even going to see.
By this logic, we should never pay for any game because a publisher already paid to have it made and because the money doesn't directly do to the people who worked on the games? How long do you...
By this logic, we should never pay for any game because a publisher already paid to have it made and because the money doesn't directly do to the people who worked on the games? How long do you think that logic will keep the games industry alive?
The mental gymnastics to justify piracy are always impressive.
That isn't what @PancakeCats is saying at all. They're just explaining why your other put-words-in-peoples-mouths comment about "screwing the amazing Devs at Remedy out of the 88% cut" isn't...
Right now, Remedy (probably) wouldn't get any money from a sale of Alan Wake 2, because the game hadn't, at least in the first half of 2024, started generating royalties yet. 100% of that money would go directly to Epic.
I don't exactly think that's a great argument in favor of pirating Alan Wake 2, but no one is trying to argue about that. Except you.
Sure, they may not directly get money, but sales numbers are going to help them get future deals, which pays the devs. So not buying a game because you hate the publisher disproportionately...
Sure, they may not directly get money, but sales numbers are going to help them get future deals, which pays the devs. So not buying a game because you hate the publisher disproportionately affects the developers. Just because the money for the purchase of the game MAY not go directly to the developer at that time doesn't mean pirating the game doesn't still hurt them.
I generally agree with you. Thankfully, no one here is arguing otherwise. Like yeah, when developers don't make enough money off of their games, bad things tend to happen to them. By choosing not...
I generally agree with you. Thankfully, no one here is arguing otherwise.
Like yeah, when developers don't make enough money off of their games, bad things tend to happen to them. By choosing not to give developers your money, whether by pirating their games, or even just straight up not playing them at all, you're not helping them avoid the "bad things" category of financial outcomes.
And I recognize it's not really consequential for the discussion here, but for what it's worth, Remedy is doing okay financially. They don't, as far as I can tell, seem to even be close to dire straits.
Pretty excited, im back on a horror/suspense kick and ive really enjoyed the cohesive universe theyre creating. Looking forward to booting the xbox up again for it.
This looks interesting, especially with Dylan there at the end, and a lot of the interior shots give off Oldest House vibes.
I haven't played either of the Alan Wake games yet, but after playing Control, I want to. It's unfortunate they won't release the games on Steam though. (Alan Wake is on Steam, but the remastered version and Alan Wake 2 are only on Epic.)
After I read that Alan Wake 2 sold poorly, like "half as well as the first game did a decade ago" poorly, I had hoped they would relent and release it on Steam to boost sales, but that was almost six months ago and still nothing. I'm guessing Epic has to approve of a Steam release, Remedy can't just do it themselves like they are with FBC: Firebreak, and Epic probably cares more about twisting consumer's arms with exclusivity to gain market share than any particular game actually making a profit.
I'd end this comment with something salty like "the Fortnite gravy train can't die soon enough" but with the industry-wide brain drain and studious moving their games to Unreal Engine en masse, Epic unfortunately will be around for a long time.
So I'll just pirate the Alan Wake games instead.
I just do not understand the sentiment that you'd rather steal from artists then buy their work from an inferior storefront. I guess I've never understood the Epic Games hate either; I think their impact on the PC ecosystem has been largely positive or neutral.
It's also worth noting that, while Alan Wake 2 (which likely wouldn't have existed without Epic publishing, by the way) didn't sell well, per se, it certainly outsold Remedy's previous efforts, and the studio seems relatively happy with the project's financial performance.
I don't consider it stealing. I don't buy into the idea that choosing not to give someone money is the same as taking something from them.
And yes, Epic funded the development of the Alan Wake remaster and Alan Wake 2, hence why the games aren't and may never be released on Steam. However, Remedy has yet to make any royalties off the game. For the first half of 2024, all of their royalty revenue came from Control and the Alan Wake remaster. I don't doubt Remedy is fine with Alan Wake 2's financial performance since it's Epic, not Remedy, who's had to primarily contend with that. Of course, the game will eventually be profitable for Remedy, but to say it sold well, let alone "outsold" Remedy's previous games, isn't correct. Alan Wake 2 sold 1.3 million copies by February 2024. Control sold 4 million. (Guess which one was released on Steam.)
That's convenient for you but you're still stealing, by definition:
You took the digital property of the Remedy devs without permission or legal rights. Call it what you will, but don't lie to yourself and pretend you're not stealing.
To be clear, and with the caveat that I am not a lawyer, piracy in my country (US) is copyright infringement, not theft.
Regardless of the legal definition though, I disagree that "took" is a valid verb to use here. Choosing not to give someone money is not the same as taking money away from them. Choosing to make a copy of something is not the same as taking that thing away.
I understand that if 99% of people who play Alan Wake 2 chose to pirate it instead of buy it, that would be very bad for Remedy, and maybe that would be the end of their company.
The thing is, I don't really care. Remedy's existence, the existence and future of the Alan Wake series, is simply not important enough to me, for me to buy it on the Epic Games Store. I'm sure that sounds callous (it is), but it isn't my responsibility to compete with piracy "in the market" or "on convenience". That responsibility is Remedy's and Epic's. I genuinely don't think I have a responsibility as a consumer to only consume in the way Remedy, Epic, or even the law, expect me to.
Pirating Alan Wake 2 is the easier and more convenient option for me, and so that's what I'm going to do. Maybe after I play it, I'll think it's a masterpiece and go out of my way to spend money on it, but considering their funding deal with Epic, I doubt it.
I wasn't quoting law at you, I was responding to your assertion that it wasn't stealing.
And I'm sorry, but that's a bad take. Justify your poor behaviour however you like, I know I'm not changing your mind. I used to try and justify my piracy the same way. I hope you grow up one day.
I'm not committing some grand sin by downloading and playing a copy of Alan Wake 2 without buying it. I don't want to spend money on the Epic Games Store because I dislike their practice of using exclusivity agreements to drive their market share, rather than actually trying to compete feature-for-feature with other game stores like GOG or Steam (to say nothing of their hostile attitude towards Linux support). So, I'm opting out of the deal they're putting forward. I'm choosing to access a game they publish, without paying them for it.
I know you understand that is different from stealing. I know you understand that I'm not taking anything from them or Remedy, I'm choosing not to give them something. If anyone needs to "grow up one day", it's you. Stop pretending like copyright law is some precious and necessary thread of society's moral fabric that must not be torn, or that anyone who does tear it is somehow lesser. It isn't, they aren't, and you know it.
To give another, perhaps more palatable example, why should I subscribe to Prime Video to watch Rings of Power, when I can just pirate the show and not give Amazon my money? Amazon is a terrible company who regularly abuses and overworks their employees, fights unionization, and routinely lobbies against labor laws. Tell me, what makes me so beholden to give them my money in exchange for watching their show, when I could just watch their show and give them nothing?
You might think I ought to give Amazon my money for the benefit of the workers they employ. After all, if not enough people subscribe to their streaming service, and watch Rings of Power on it, then that show, or even the entire streaming service, and everyone who works on and with it, could find themselves out of a job.
My answer is that the "terribleness" of Amazon and the ill they inflict is a worse thing to support than the unemployment of all those workers would be. That's a decision I made, an actual decision I took time and thought about long ago when I decided to pirate their shows. You might think I'm just some infantile greedy person who doesn't want to spend money, but no, piracy is something I've long given serious thought about.
Piracy is the ultimate opt-out, loophole, escape hatch, etc. for the consumer. It's a necessary part of "the market". Without it, we'd be entirely at the mercy of predatory businesses.
Going back to Alan Wake 2:
Remedy, whether they had any other choice or not, has made their bed with Epic.
I don't like Epic. I don't like using their software, it's an inconvenience to me. I don't like their exclusivity agreements, they curtail consumer choice and try to force the market. I don't like their attitude towards Linux, which they're outright hostile to. I don't like their (legal) arguments about store fees and 30% cuts, they're disingenuous. I at least can appreciate that Epic has tried to force the monopolistic companies of Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Valve to "move over" and give up some of their dominance by litigating for it, but Epic didn't do this because they're "the good guys" (and those other companies certainly aren't either).
Those are just the things I'm very familiar with. There are other issues, like extreme privacy violations and exploitative dark patterns to drive microtransaction revenue in Fortnite, which were so severe that Epic had to pay a half a billion dollar fine.
So I don't like Epic. I think they're a bad company doing more bad than good, and I don't want to support them, so I won't.
You could almost even call my attitude "boycottish", except I'm willing to commit the apparently unparalleled sin of simultaneously not giving Epic my money, but still accessing a game they published.
As for Remedy, well, I'll let you in on a secret: I actually did download both Alan Wake games last night, and started playing the first one. It's really good! I wish they'd release them both on Steam, or even just on not-Epic, because I'd happily pay money for them anywhere else.
But they won't, so I won't.
You're not comparing like to like on sales data. When I say "outsold" I'm referring to Remedy's claims that Alan Wake 2 was their fastest selling game; of course Control, a five year old game, has more total sales; unsurprising, given that Remedy games have historically had long tails. Notably, Control also did not launch on Steam until the game's one year release anniversary (which hasn't come for Alan Wake 2 yet).
Okay, that's fair, I misunderstood your use of the word "outsold" and that's my bad. I do generally agree that Alan Wake 2 will eventually match or exceed Control's current 4 million in sales.
Yeah that's what I had to do. I love Alan Wake, it is one of my favorite games of all time, and I waited so many years for a sequel that seemed very likely to never happen.
And then it did, but it was Epic, and my ethics refuse to yield to that horrible company's storefront and business practices. So I did the only thing I could, because I couldn't not play this amazing game.
Haven't pirated a game in like 15 years.
Gabe was always right. Piracy is a service problem. Had they been able to put it on Steam, I would've happily paid any price to play it. But...I will not use Epic.
This is some backwards logic. You hate Epic so much that you refuse to give them a 12% cut but are totally fine with screwing the amazing Devs at Remedy out of the 88% cut for their game?
As far as im aware, the deal for these sort of situations is that Remedy doesnt see a dime until Epic has made all their money back, and considering the games dev costs of over €50million, and not all to stellar sales numbers being at just over a million as of February of this year, i think its fairly safe to say its only Epic getting that money, not Remedy. Besides, practically speaking Remedy already got paid. They got fully funded development for the game, the brand recognition and prestige of having one of the finest artistic works of the past few years.
And this might just be my american pov showing here, but its not like the actual devs would be seeing that money individually. Maybe a small bonus, if they're lucky? They got paid their salary for the length of game development, and hopefully secured a spot for future projects based on the critical success of the game. Any extra profits would usually go to the people at the top or the publisher. That said, Remedy is a finnish company, they might have a much better pay and wealth distribution structure there than what is standard over here. But i think its safe to say that the devs would care far more about what people thought of their art, rather than the extra money they likely arent even going to see.
By this logic, we should never pay for any game because a publisher already paid to have it made and because the money doesn't directly do to the people who worked on the games? How long do you think that logic will keep the games industry alive?
The mental gymnastics to justify piracy are always impressive.
That isn't what @PancakeCats is saying at all. They're just explaining why your other put-words-in-peoples-mouths comment about "screwing the amazing Devs at Remedy out of the 88% cut" isn't actually true or correct.
Right now, Remedy (probably) wouldn't get any money from a sale of Alan Wake 2, because the game hadn't, at least in the first half of 2024, started generating royalties yet. 100% of that money would go directly to Epic.
I don't exactly think that's a great argument in favor of pirating Alan Wake 2, but no one is trying to argue about that. Except you.
Sure, they may not directly get money, but sales numbers are going to help them get future deals, which pays the devs. So not buying a game because you hate the publisher disproportionately affects the developers. Just because the money for the purchase of the game MAY not go directly to the developer at that time doesn't mean pirating the game doesn't still hurt them.
I generally agree with you. Thankfully, no one here is arguing otherwise.
Like yeah, when developers don't make enough money off of their games, bad things tend to happen to them. By choosing not to give developers your money, whether by pirating their games, or even just straight up not playing them at all, you're not helping them avoid the "bad things" category of financial outcomes.
And I recognize it's not really consequential for the discussion here, but for what it's worth, Remedy is doing okay financially. They don't, as far as I can tell, seem to even be close to dire straits.
Huh, hadn’t heard any news about Project: Condor in a while, thanks!
Yeah I had forgot about it until it was posted Tildes yesterday: https://tildes.net/~games/1jjd/fbc_firebreak_official_announcement_trailer