Recently, there was a small, concentrated storm online after Cromwelp AKA Michael Douse, director of publishing at Larian, criticised Epic Games for its approach in Alan Wake 2's publication. Douse quote tweeted a post by Epic's boss Tim Sweeney, which said that both gamers and developers win by having Steam and the Epic Games Store as options to purchase video games.
"I understand Epic entirely funded Alan Wake 2 but this altruistic pro-developer talk doesn't sit well when Remedy seemingly went into financial crisis because they couldn't tap Steam for AW2 sales," Douse wrote, claiming that potentially hundreds of millions in revenue were lost because Alan Wake 2 missed PC gaming's biggest platform.
Remedy stepped in with a reply, coming to Epic's aid. "Hi. There would be no Alan Wake 2 without Epic Publishing. The publishing deal with Epic was very fair to Remedy. 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," reads the response. "And it only took months to get done. Epic Games was, and is, an excellent partner to us. Steam or no Steam."
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Alan Wake 2 did take time to get its feet off the ground when it came to sales, but in the end it drew a sizeable audience. Whether it could have sold more copies and sold them quicker on Steam is only speculation, but it seems Remedy is very happy with how it all went down.