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Comment by n4r9 | Hacker News Reader

Had to look up that reference to Sweet Baby. Apparently they've been a recent target of "woke agenda" accusations [0] including wild conspiracy theories like being controlled by BlackRock (what?!) or forcing studios to make characters black [1]. The irony with the latter being that the game in question - Alan Wake 2 - is widely seen as a "good game".

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_Baby_Inc.#Online_backlas...

[1] https://www.imdb.com/news/ni64471459/

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Alan Wake 2 was a critical success but no one bought it. The studio just a few weeks ago said it still hasn't earned its budget back. [1] I tend to ignore major game outlet reviews myself, because the industry simply is not mature enough to review in the way that others are - way too many outlets are afraid of corporate backlash for honest reviews of the negative variety.

[1] https://www.ign.com/articles/remedy-has-recouped-most-of-the...

I'm not clued up on modern game economics... how long on average does a game take to start making royalties these days? The article you linked says it's the company's fastest selling game, selling 1.3 million units within a year. Compared to their previous game Control which was released in 2019, had much lower initial sales, but has now reached 4 million units. So is it not reasonable to think that the royalties will be flowing in over the next few years?

Royalties may be flowing in over the next few years, but they still have to keep the lights on and the payroll flowing - the long tail of a game that wasn't initially profitable may not be enough. Remedy has a few projects in the barrel, and if those hit it big they will probably be fine, but I remain skeptical. (especially if they stick with an Epic exclusive PC deal)

Sad but True. Okami also had quite the cult following and tail, but that was way after Capcom shut down Clover Studio. These studios depend a lot on the first month sales to stay afloat.

I imagine Remedy was overall fine (as in payroll) thanks to Epic's bankrolling, but few studios get that privileged.

> Remedy has a few projects in the barrel, and if those hit it big they will probably be fine

It's hard for me to gauge whether this is normal for modern game studios or they're desperately hanging on by their fingernails. But the disparity between you saying "no one bought it" and it being the company's fastest-selling game makes me suspicious of everything. Either way, times have changed since my only interaction with Remedy, the original Max Payne :D

As with any kind of statement released to the public I hold little stock in things that are not definite. What exactly does "fastest selling" mean? Is that an indicator of a wide and long tail or did it sell a bunch of copies in the first month and then very few later on? 1.3 million is a hard number - something they (I hope) can't lie about, as with the statement "almost made back its budget". Everything else to me is just spin and fluff.

Critics are a minuscule part of the audience. Also reviews can be bought.

To be actually successful a game needs to capture the target audience (gamers).

Problem is there seems to be a huge disconnect between critics and gamers gamers nowadays

I couldn't get past the first 30 minutes. All the sudden I have some ghost thing chasing me in basement of the sheriffs office. Then the sheriff just ups and disappears. Seriously felt like i skipped something on accident.

>Alan Wake 2 was a critical success

Gaming critics are irrelevant. Their opinions on games is not more relevant than your opinion or my opinion. It's not like they got a PhD from Game Criticism University.

They're just average joes who give each other clout online to practice access journalism and are bought and paid for by the big studios to parrot opinions favorable to drive sales for their games.

Games studios should listen to the gamers who actually buy the games, not to the journalists who don't.

>Had to look up that reference to Sweet Baby. Apparently they've been a recent target of "woke agenda" accusations

It's not just accusations, it's the truth. Sweet Baby Inc CEO came out in public talking about how they're blackmailing game studios with social media mobs in order to create demand for their services on censoring games, and recordings of SBI employees in video presentations saying their jobs is to "burn the games industry to the ground" and that game devs principles are rooted in "white supremacist patriarchal values".

How can one call it a conspiracy, is beyond me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq86DnmX2xY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6DygXwMOJU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQa7NyicVAY

Maybe it's my age, but I don't find reaction videos over a couple of selected quotes to be persuasive. Especially the first video, where the quote doesn't sound much like blackmail to me. The script is:

> If you're a creative working in AAA (which I did for many years), put this stuff up to your higher-ups, and if they don't see the value in what you're asking for when you ask for consultants/research, go have a coffee with your marketing team and terrify them with the possibility of what's going to happen if they don't give you what you want.

This is advice to employees about how to push for change from within. It's kind of aggressive, and the word "terrify" is OTT, but it's legit to say "if we don't do this we're going to get roasted on social media". Unless I'm missing something, there's no suggestion that Sweet Baby themselves would be the ones whipping up social mobs.

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