Alan Wake Disappearing from Stores Due to Licensing Issues
Alan Wake, the action-adventure by Remedy Entertainment, will be pulled from Steam and the Xbox Game Store this weekend. The reason behind this move is a licensing issue with the music. The license expires on May 15th, so the game the game will have to vanish from stores until Remedy and Microsoft renegotiate the license.
As head of communications for Remedy Thomas Puha told Polygon, Alan Wake will be disappearing from the Xbox store and Steam today, hopefully temporarily. If you want to grab it, you’d better hurry up.
Why is Remedy’s action-adventure thriller getting pulled? It’s because the license for the music, which is integral to the game, is expiring. Of course, both Microsoft and Remedy are on their way to renegotiating the rights to the soundtrack. However, until they reach some kind of deal, the game will stay off the stores. Puha said:
Microsoft and Remedy are looking into renegotiating the music licenses, but there’s nothing more to comment on that for now. Obviously having to remove the game from stores is rather unfortunate. So, we figured, let’s discount the game heavily and those who have not bought Alan Wake yet, here’s your chance to grab it on Steam.
Hopefully, they’ll manage to resolve the issue, and Alan Wake will be back in online stores soon. For now, the future of the game is uncertain. Fortunately, Remedy does still own the IP, which means that they can still continue the franchise regardless of the outcome of the licensing issue.
Depending on the time you’re reading this, you might still be able to purchase Alan Wake, if you want to. In fact, at the time of writing, it’s 90% off on Steam. Originally, Alan Wake came out in 2010 on Xbox 360 and on PC in 2012.
