Remedy pushes back against Baldur's Gate 3 dev's criticism of Epic CEO Tim Sweeney and its game publishing — "There would be no Alan Wake 2 without Epic"

Remedy Entertainment, the storied developer behind big action-adventure games like Max Payne, Control, and most recently Alan Wake 2, has come out to publicly defend Epic CEO Tim Sweeney and Epic Games publishing after it recently came under criticism from Michael "Cromwelp" Douse, publishing director of the Baldur's Gate 3 developer Larian Studios.

Earlier this week, Sweeney argued that the competition between the Epic Games Store and Steam benefits both developers and players by giving them "more options and better deals," responding to news that the dark western FPS Blood West enjoyed a 200% spike in sales on Steam after it was given away for free on Epic.

Douse challenged this notion, pointing out that while Epic "entirely funded Alan Wake 2," Remedy went on to experience major financial troubles that he argues were likely caused at least in part by the deal it made with Epic to keep Alan Wake 2 exclusive on the Epic Games Store. Because it wasn't released on Steam, Remedy "couldn't tap" the platform and its far larger user base for sales.

"This altruistic pro-developer talk doesn't sit well," he wrote, noting that Remedy ended up "suffering potentially hundreds of millions in lost revenue."

Remedy, though, has now defended Sweeney and Epic. "Hi. There would be no Alan Wake 2 without Epic Publishing. The publishing deal with Epic was very fair to Remedy," the studio wrote in a social media post on Thursday morning.

"While these complex deals can often take even a year to reach their conclusion, and may not always be fair to the developer, this one was," it continued. "And it only took months to get done. Epic Games was, and is, an excellent partner to us. Steam or no Steam."

It's important to note that Douse's mention of an apparent "financial crisis" at Remedy doesn't stem from speculation. After the developer's co-op shooter FBC: Firebreak flopped last summer, it issued a "profit warning" to developers in October, and subsequently stated it was "not satisfied" with its Q325 financial results. CEO Tero Virtala stepped down from the company shortly afterwards.

Alan Wake 2 also didn't even turn a profit for the studio until a year and a half after its 2023 launch, with the game finally climbing out of the red when it surpassed 2 million copies sold across Xbox, PC, and PS5 last February.

There's merit to both sides of this debate, complicating the whole ordeal. While Alan Wake 2 may indeed never have existed without Epic's funding, it's also quite clear that the game would have enjoyed more sales — many more, most likely — if it got a Steam release at some point. The Epic Games Store only has "55%-60%" the number of monthly users as Valve's platform, after all.

One also has to wonder if Remedy would have struggled to find publishing support elsewhere, given the studio's pedigree. After Control blew up in 2019 and was lauded as one of the best narrative adventure games in recent memory, I'd think it would have been able to secure other funding. But perhaps the developer tried to and failed, before Epic came into the picture.

Ultimately, this debacle shines light on the fact that the Epic Games Store is still criticized by many for lacking key features, like the ability to write user reviews, community pages and forums where fans can share and discuss, the ability to preload most games, and more. It didn't even have a shopping cart until three years after launch.

Steam has all of this and more, and has for many, many years; perhaps if Epic focused more on improving the quality of its client, more players would be willing to use it to play games like Alan Wake 2.

What do you think of the Epic Games Store, and Alan Wake 2's exclusivity? Have you not played it yet because it hasn't come to Steam, or do you not care much about which PC gaming client you have to use to play a game? Let me know your thoughts below.

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