If you haven’t picked up Alan Wake, it’s available on Steam now for $US3. And with good reason: from tomorrow, it won’t be available on digital marketplaces anymore.
Remedy Entertainment, the makers of Alan Wake and the Max Payne series, announced late last week that Alan Wake would be pulled from digital sale as of tomorrow. The reason? Music.
Alan Wake uses licensed music for the game, the agreements for which have expired. And that means the game can’t be sold after today, although the American Nightmare DLC isn’t affected and anyone who currently owns the game will remain in your library and work just fine going forward.
A FAQ on Remedy’s forums added that they “are looking into relicensing the music” for Alan Wake, but don’t have an ETA at the time of writing.
It’s another reminder of the downsides of using licensed music in video games. I’m also reminded of what happened to the box DVD set of Daria, which had a completely different soundtrack to the original series that aired (save for the theme songs).
Alan Wake is available on Steam for $US3 for the next 12 hours or so, or you can pay $US4 for a bundle with the DLC. If you would rather pay a DRM free version, Good Old Games is charging $3.89 for the base game and $5.18 for a bundle with the American Nightmare DLC.
Comments
7 responses to “Get Alan Wake Before It Disappears”
Yeah, there is even a note in the DVD boxset actually saying that was the reason it was held up for so long. Nobody bothered to get a home media license for the music and finally doing so would have made the set unaffordable.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad Daria made it to DVD. It just stinks from a preservation perspective that later generations (unless the broadcast rights are still intact) cannot see Daria in its original form.
Really is insane how in the past 20 years we have reached a point where media (or at least its original form) and other content is more easily lost and/or rendered inaccessible (thanks to licensing hell!) today than back then.
Some of the fault surely lies at the feet of Remedy itself, for not disclosing this information sooner.
I loved Alan Wake when I played it but don’t own it on Steam, I’m in two minds about snapping it up now.
I never played the DLC. I bought the two ‘supplemental’ DLCs that finish off the first game’s story but never got around to playing them before I traded away the software/console.
Is American Nightmare a quasi-Alan Wake 2?
More of a side story, still worth the couple of bucks. Still holding hope for a true sequel.
In a similar vein, I already own Alan Wake on steam, but do not have the dlc or American nightmare. Is it worth it to buy the dlc and American nightmare for 5 bucks or is the base game good enough?
American Nightmare is definitely worth it. It’s a more action-orientated affair, and it’s a side-story, but it’s a lot of fun. Definitely worth it for the DLC and AN, I’d say 🙂
Damn, really? I picked up the box set and I desperately want to know what the original soundtrack was like now.
Heck I remember when the music license for some songs on one of the GTA games expired. The uproar that it caused was crazy.
Still I loved Alan Wake, though to be honest never really noticed the music. The story in it however was awesome. Needs a true sequel.