Alan Wake Getting Pulled As Song Licenses Expire
Sunset Sale starts tomorrow at 90% off.
If you never played Alan Wake, you missed out on a great title from Remedy. The main character was cool, the music stellar and the atmosphere impressive. Unfortunately, the stellar music means the end of the game's availability, as the song licenses gathered for the game are about to expire.
Some of the music licenses that are expiring are "Space Oddity" from David Bowie, Harry Nilsson's "Coconut," and "In Dreams" by Ray Orbison.
The entire franchise was to be discontinued, according to a Remedy FAQ, including all the DLC, but American Nightmare will still be in stores, as the company was able to renegotiate the music licenses for that game. It is still trying to do the same for the original Alan Wake, but there is no timeframe on when or even if the situation will be ... er, remedied.
For those wanting to get one last shot at the franchise, all the titles will be going on sale on Steam tomorrow as a Sunset Sale. The games and DLC will be 90% off, with the sale lasting May 13-15. The 48-hour sale will start at 10 a.m. PT/ 1 p.m. ET.
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replyJohn Keefer posted a new article, Alan Wake Getting Pulled As Song Licenses Expire
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i feel like im missing a joke here
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4-6 months before taking it away from PC and making it an XBox exclusive, the marketing was all about 'You can't play Alan Wake without DX10 and Windows Vista so get your Windows Vista now!" Then all the people who did that were sad because not only could they not play Alan Wake, but now they had Windows Vista.
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ohhh lol, i was gonna say, i've been playing it on recent OS's with no problems
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I think you're confused - Alan Wake didn't come out for PC until 2012, and the original release was canceled entirely. They may have bragged about features requiring powerful PC's (the tornado sequence comes to mind) but I don't think they ever tied it to Vista. Or if they did announce that it was pointless because they canceled that release.
The games Halo 2 and Shadowrun on the PC required Vista entirely artificially (they only needed DX9 and hackers removed the Vista check and they ran on PC just fine).
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No game on Steam that originally relied on Redbook audio has the music that was originally shipped. I'm sure a few other developers have put in effort to change how music works in their Steam re-release, but all I can think of is Half-Life which now uses MP3s.
Sounds like the GOG release of Jedi Knight tricks the game using an ogg CD audio wrapper, which is clever.
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Wow that's a shame. Going to have to make sure I have that when I get home from work.
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Lol I already have everything Alan Wake related.
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No, laws definitely don't need to be written. The owner of each song licensed its use to Remedy. That license was negotiated. I expect that Remedy chose to pay less for a license that would expire now rather than later or never. That was their choice. And if, in the alternative, the owner simply refused to grant an indefinite license for any price, well, that's their right. It would be totally inappropriate for statutory law to mandate license terms.
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This issue crops up all the time with TV/Movies when they change formats. Take Married with Children as an example the streaming version of the show had to remove "Love and Marriage" from the opening credits. Some movies I am sure some movies are being held up from ever being streamed because of clashing IP rights.
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You won't be able to purchase the game after May 15th. If you own it, you will continue to have access to it in perpetuity (subject to the availability of Steam and your account's continued good standing).
http://store.steampowered.com/app/108710/Alan_Wake/
If you're more concerned about it, Alan Wake is available on GOG or Humble, which will allow you to have it without DRM, stored and backed up in your own setup:
https://www.humblebundle.com/store/alan-wake-franchise
https://www.gog.com/game/alan_wake
Either way you'll likely want to wait for the 90% off deal starting tomorrow.-
You got a point there, might be better to get it on GOG.
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I loved the game too but I can't remember any of the copywrited tunes it used myself. I'd would just say *generally speaking* it's probably not worth adding songs with a time-based licensing agreement for a videogame.
The revenue lost from taking it off the store has to be more than the 2 people on earth that bought the game because it had a song they liked (or the 2% bump it may have received in review score for having a nice soundtrack).
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When does it go on sale? Still showing full price on Steam for me.
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I played the original on Xbox and didn't get that far in it, but was pretty impressed with it. Just picked it up today. $3.99 for the entire franchise, yes please.
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