Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining Remedy Entertainment webinar. My name is Veli-Pekka Puolakanaho, and I manage the Investor Relations at Remedy. Today, we'll go through Remedy's business review for January-September 2023. With me are Tero Virtala, Remedy CEO, and Terhi Kauppi, Remedy CFO. We will have a Q&A session after the presentation. Tero, the floor is yours.
Thank you. So welcome everyone, also on my behalf. Let's see, the next slide. Okay, so first, shortly, the third quarter highlights. Of course, overall, in the third quarter, finalizing Alan Wake 2 was the key focus for us. We managed to do that successfully, launched the game last Friday, and both critics and players have received the game really well. I will soon cover Alan Wake a bit more, but in relation to our quarter three numbers, it's good to remind that this is an investment year, and our numbers reflect that. Our revenue decreased at 1%, being approximately on the same level as last year, EUR 7.8 million. Operating profit was -EUR 5.5 million, which was a clear decline from the past year.
But as we have said, we are in an investment phase, and the numbers are a reflection of that. We have five games in development at the moment. Four of them are co-financed by us. High-quality games is the most important or highly important criteria for us in all of our game projects. We know that quality always with our games eventually will pay off, and the game sales potential grows, the value of our game brand increases, interest that partners have towards Remedy, our value in the talent market increases when we have high-quality games out there. One of the key phases for ensuring the final quality is in the later phases of our game productions, and this has also been the case with the recent game, Alan Wake 2.
Our own investments have been skewed in the late phases of the production to ensure its final quality, and these investments, as we have seen, have been worth it. We have seen it in the reception. In the third quarter, before the launch of our games, our board of directors decided on a new option plan. We were fully focused operationally on finalizing Alan Wake 2 for its launch in October 27th. In August, leading into the launch, Alan Wake 2 Dark Place trailer debuted, and in September, we had an extensive briefing and exclusive hands-on demo session that was held for a select group of global media, gaming media, and influencers. Then, going to the hot topic, Alan Wake 2. It launched in October 27th, and we definitely can now say that we had a successful launch.
Alan Wake 2 has been a long project for us. There has been a lot of passion, a lot of ambition, but also a lot of belief from our side that the game can be something truly special. These type of innovative, creative, ambitious projects are never easy ones, but we have been following our vision now for four years, overcoming challenges along the way, learning and improving. As a result of all that, we have all seen the magnificent reception the game has gotten. We have succeeded clearly in creating an exceptional gaming masterpiece that we are really proud of. Before we talk a bit more on Alan Wake 2, let's watch the gameplay trailer, preview trailer, and remind everyone what Alan Wake 2 is.
The killer left the heart next to the body. This wasn't some random act of violence. This was a ritual. A page of text written with a typewriter. Someone's been watching us.
How do you run from an idea, from a story that lives in your head? I need to escape this nightmare.
Wake says the story will change reality around us. Why are we written into the story? I brought you the heart, Witch. Show me the terror.
Show me the terror!
FBI, drop the knife!
... Since I felt arms wrapped around
All right, so Alan Wake 2 launched last Friday. On the way towards the launch, the marketing, both from Remedy's side and Epic's side, did a really good job. The interest and excitement that we saw for the game before its launch was the highest we have ever seen for any Remedy game before the launch. What was also important, as we were approaching launch and in the launch, was that the interest and support from the platform partners was strong. We have had now, in the launch day and across the first week, a good visibility both in the Epic Games Store as well as Xbox and PlayStation stores. And highly importantly, for any Triple-A game, the critics and reviewers have clearly loved the game.
When embargo lifted on Thursday, so the first reviews were out day before the launch, it was definitely an exciting moment in the office. What delights us is that Alan Wake 2 was praised on so many fronts: on the story, world, atmosphere, visuals, gameplay, technical achievements, to name a few. Original Alan Wake, 13 years ago, impressed in some fronts and left players to hope bit more on some other fronts. This sequel has clearly been a major step forward in all the areas, and has managed to tie all that together into an excellent experience. During development, we knew that we had a great game in our hands, but being able to make that truly happen, finalize and polish the game into a form that also makes others feel the same on quality, is never easy.
Now, getting the verification that the game resonates with gaming audiences is highly important. On top of that, getting this overwhelmingly positive review has meant a lot to us. In relation to quality overall, being liked by the users and having a Metacritic score of about 90 across platforms is truly exceptional for any game developer in the Triple-A space. Our type of games are being updated and patched also after launch, but the quality stamp that the Triple-A game gets at launch, that weighs a lot. The quality perception of a game, what it gets at launch, is really hard to change afterwards. And now we have the quality label and perception of a truly high-quality game. It will affect Alan Wake and Remedy in a positive manner for years to come.
First of all, it affects gamers' perception on Alan Wake and creates a good basis for good, long-lasting sales. It strengthens the Alan Wake brand and overall increases player interest to Alan Wake, but also to our other games. As a company, we are now an even more interesting partner to gaming industry's other players. Industry's big players are looking for new games and partners to work with. Especially in Triple-A, it seems like the market will polarize even more. Big successes can succeed really big, but middle ground, succeeding there will be harder. Expectation for quality will just keep on increasing, and when we look at the landscape at the moment, based on our recent market research, there are now about 150 game development studios that are capable of developing a Triple-A game.
Only about 30 of these are independent and can collaborate with any partner they like. Out of these 30 independent Triple-A-capable studios, some are new studios with no launch game yet. Some are smaller, meaning that if they have no game in development, they will not have an availability for years to come. Remedy stands among the few exceptional studios, and with recent games like Control and Alan Wake, we continue to be a highly interesting partner for industry's leading players. The same interest and value is true also towards our, our own people and in recruitment market. It's easy to say that we are truly taken and happy for the reception and launch of Alan Wake 2.
None of that, of course, yet by itself guarantees the future commercial success, but it sure gives a strong basis to build on, both for Alan Wake 2 and our future games. Now, in relation to Alan Wake 2 sales, games nowadays sell for years in digital channels. It's only been few days since we launched the Alan Wake 2, so it's still way too early to conclude anything on the game's long-term sales. However, launching a high-quality game that stands out and gets an excellent reception, of course, builds a strong basis also for good long-term sales. Then, on our other game portfolio. When we look at the other games, we have had good progress with Control 2.
There is a lot of ambition for the game, and there are still areas where we need to prove these ambitious, in a way, designs that we have before moving to next stage and scaling up the team. We will continue with Control 2 at the current proof of concept stage for the next few quarters. Condor, our cooperative multiplayer game, has progressed now during the quarter from proof of concept stage to production readiness stage. Codename Vanguard has been progressing towards the proof of concept stage. This is a highly important phase for any game project, and some of the core elements now start to be in place. This provides a good basis to evaluate where we are with the game and what will be the next stages of the project. This is what we are currently defining with our partner, Tencent.
Max Payne 1 and 2 Remake has progressed during the quarter into production readiness. Production readiness phase, team behind the game knows very well what they are aiming at. The team has clear plans on how to do it, and the game build is progressing with good velocity. We have already started to scale up that team. In Alan Wake 2, we will keep a team going into the future, doing updates, developing the two expansions to the game. However, that team will understandably be clearly smaller than it was for the main game. We have now many excellent talents that will move from Alan Wake 2 to work on our other projects. Alan Wake 2 marks to be the first of the many great game launches enabled by our model that we have been building, the multi-project model, over the past years.
In relation to our personnel, at the heart of Remedy are, of course, our world-class talents, our people. We continue to invest into them and make sure we have the world-class talents, and they have the means to efficiently utilize their expertise to make the great games that we can make. We are still active in the recruitment market, but it's more and more about targeted, selective recruitments. Some positions that you can see, for example, in our web page, are kept open, as that type of talents are overall hard to find, and when an opportunity arises, we are interested. But overall, we don't anymore need to grow our headcount in the same proportion as was the case in the past years. We have, at the moment, approximately 380 world-class talents, supported by our external development capabilities and good partners on that front.
Now, when our recruitment needs are not going to be as big as they were in the past years, even more focus goes to supporting the professional development of our personnel, career progression, leadership training, and how our teams overall work and collaborate all the time better. And, to end this part of my part of the presentation at this stage, I want to remind on Remedy's wider strategic context, where we come from, where we are at the moment, and where we are aiming to go. It's important, of course, that we succeed and aim to succeed each year, but the projects we developed are long ones, taking three to four years on average to develop, and after they launch, they should sell at least the same amount of years.
We have all the time had a wider strategic plan of where we aim to go in the long run, and this has been, and continues to be, a big transformation. So looking back six years ago, we started the transformation to be able to one day develop longer-engaging games on top of our unique strengths, and to make multiple games instead of one in parallel, and also via these multiple games, to gain a stronger position in the value chain and get more out of the value that we create with our games. This transformation, the first stage, took time. End of 2022, we reached our goal to have a stronger organization, and we could advance five game projects in parallel. This portfolio had also grown. It consists of larger longer-engaging single-player games, closer to our historical strengths, but also two service-based multiplayer games.
We had succeeded to build great partners for these games and had gained a stronger position overall in the value chain. Out of the five game projects, four are based on Remedy-owned brand. Remedy is a co-publisher in three of these, and Max Payne, which is not our IP, is owned by Rockstar, but this is a great match to our overall strengths and portfolio. We also managed to build, during the first long phase, a strong cash position, and according to our strategy, have, in collaboration with our partners, started to invest also more of our own money to these games to gain the bigger benefits that we believe these games can create in the future. We are now in the midst of this investment phase.
These investments are done to enable major growth opportunities in the future and an even stronger position to benefit from this growth. The aim with all these investments and transformation is that during the phase that has now started, between 2023 and 2027, we are building a company that has the ability to develop new games and also live operate the existing ones. The aim is that we can do game updates and new game launches approximately annually. We are building games that can have longer-lasting sales and also longer-engaging games with recurring revenues. With the model that we have with our future games, we can have higher royalty upside than we have had in the past.
With the co-publishing model, we can also have a direct involvement in the game marketing and sales, and an ability to even better build, connect, and serve our gaming communities. Now, Alan Wake 2 has just been launched, and this, in many ways, has officially started this phase of our long-term strategy. With our multi-project model, we are not, of course, fully dependent on any one game, but Alan Wake 2's launch has been a success. Of course, to start the phase with this type of launch that gets an extremely high-quality label and therefore will positively radiate to us for the next years, it's a great start. How well the game will sell, it's still too early to draw conclusions. Games nowadays, they will sell for years in digital channel.
However, of course, it's a good start that fans and critics have appreciated it, and does give the game a strong basis for good long-term sales. But that's my part, at this phase. Now more on the financials, Terhi.
Thank you, Tero, and good afternoon to everyone also on my behalf. Yes, so, a little bit more about the financials for quarter three and on year-to-date level. Our revenue in quarter three was EUR 7.8 million, and basically, it was flat against the comparison period. Out of that total revenue, the development fees were 86% and royalties, 40%. Our royalties grew year-over-year by EUR 0.7 million to EUR 1.1 million, due to Alan Wake Remastered, which filled the recoup and thus started to generate royalties for us. Development fees, on the other hand, decreased by 10% due to less development fees from Alan Wake 2, as the project was close to its completion, as we now all know.
As seen here in this graph, there has been and there will be quarterly variation in revenues, and thus, also in profitability. As mentioned also by Tero, we are in investment phase, and that is reflected in the profitability. For quarter three, the EBIT was negative by EUR 5.5 million, and that's - 70% of the revenue. The decrease in profitability was due to higher outsourcing staff and other operating expenses, as well as lower level of capitalizations. Also, we started to depreciate Alan Wake Remastered games capitalizations since the game now generates royalties for us. On year-to-date level, our revenue decreased by 21%, ending up to EUR 23.6 million. And here, our royalties decreased by 26%, and development fees decreased by 20%.
On a year-to-date level, our EBIT was negative by EUR 15.9 million, and that's -67% of revenue. Also here, on a year-to-date level, the decrease in profitability was clearly due to lower level of revenue, but also due to higher staff and other operating expenses, as well as lower level of capitalizations and the start of depreciations for Alan Wake Remastered in quarter three. About the cost elements, we also, for transparency sake, present here the unnetted amounts of expenses. Our external work performed was on somewhat higher level than in comparison period, EUR 4.9 million versus EUR 4.5 million in comparison period. In IFRS format, the netted amounts are 4 and 3, respectively, and the difference is due to capitalizations of external development.
Personnel expenses, there we had a slight 4% increase, and that's mainly due to the increase of about 5% in our own employees, from 330 people last year to 348 people. And our capitalizations were on a 44% lower level than in comparison period, and that's mainly due to Project Condor's lower level of external development work. Operating cash flow was negative by EUR 5.1 million in quarter three, and in comparison period, it was positive by EUR 4.7 million. We simply had very much lower level of incoming payments from partners this quarter. As in profitability, also in cash flow, we have quarterly variation.
The total cash level was about EUR 32 million now, end of quarter three. We had a solid cash position to invest in our projects, and as we have done so, as like Tero mentioned and explained the strategy, that is visible in the cash position development. We are certainly on pause with the cash situation and as a normal course of business, monitoring it closely. Here, overall, we can see that the current profitability level is impacted by increased our own investments to product development. This is to ensure our top-line growth and improve profitability in the long run. Yes, we have a balanced portfolio of projects.
We have a subcontracting-type agreement with Rockstar Games for Max Payne, and we are working with 505 Games and Epic in a model where Remedy owns the IP, publishing partner funds the development partly, and we share game sales profits. Then we have co-publishing deals with projects Condor, Control 2, as well as Vanguard, and these are IPs owned by Remedy. The higher we move up in this picture, the more there are models where the profitability of a game project is depending on game sales rather than the development fees received from the publishing partner. If you look at the pluses and the minuses related to the development phase, you see that in partner IP subcontracting, we usually have margin already during the development phase, but in other models, not.
Also, it is worth reminding now, as Alan Wake 2 is out, that we need to first wait for the game to recoup its development fees paid by partner before we start to see any of the royalties in Remedy's end. And now, please, Tero, you can continue.
Thank you, Terhi. Okay, then, on our outlook. Outlook is unchanged, remains the same. We are expecting revenue to decline from previous year and expecting a negative operating result. Our long-term objectives also remain the same, that by the end of 2025, the aim is that we have created several successful games and at least one major hit game, a game that reaches the global top-selling charts and can keep on succeeding also after that. The aim has all the time been that we have the unique creative skills and can create the world's character stories that build powerful brands, and we will own at least three expanding game brands, all with long-term hit potential.
We have also, by that time, built the commercial capabilities so that we can select the right commercial model for each of our future games, be it for some games, self-financing and self-publishing, or be it for working with publishing partners. We continue to focus on great people. We aim to be the most attractive gaming industry employer in Europe, and as has been said, in the long run, we aim to reach these objectives while having a profitable and growing business in which we also manage our risks well. But that's it, as an update. Now, I think it's time for questions.
Thank you, Tero. If you want to ask questions, type your question into the chat, and we are now ready for questions, and actually, we have already had some. So, can you give us a rough prediction on the number of copies sold for Alan Wake 2 in order to recoup?
We don't open that. That's a conversation with our publishing partner, Epic, because we haven't with Epic, published either the exact development budget or marketing budget that needs to be recouped. But we have said that the development budget on average for Remedy game is between EUR 30 million and EUR 60 million. We have said that Alan Wake 2 has been the biggest game we have ever, ever, ever made, so it's easy to assess that this is on the higher range. And by that, in a way, I guess, people can make a rough estimate how many copies approximately a premium price game should sell in order to recoup, but we haven't, in a way, published any more exact numbers.
Thank you. If Alan Wake 2 would not be a commercial success, despite remarkable response from the gaming community, how should Remedy approach its priorities going forward?
I don't speculate on that. I think it's way too early, and, now, especially when we have had a great response for the game, and in a way, even though we don't yet know how much Alan Wake will sell over the years, I think the basis is good that it can succeed. And we are now with our partner also, of course, supporting the game, to make that a reality. But, speculating at this point, on this type of questions, we are not doing it.
Regarding the Alan Wake 2 budget, even though Remedy has not disclosed it, but as you said, usually they are between EUR 30 million and EUR 60 million. Is this specifically, and now talking about Alan Wake, is it only about the game production budget, or is the marketing included in that?
That's the game development budget, and more marketing than comes on top of that.
How much is the marketing usually?
Well, I'd say that usually, of course, it depends on the partner, it depends on the game. It depends, whether we talk about product and the launch marketing or longer lasting. But overall, if we talk about Triple-A games, where a big part of the marketing is aimed for the launch and then supporting, in a way, a few months after that, typically in the industry, we are talking about between 15%-30% on top of the development budget. Then, of course, there are those industry giants where the marketing budgets can equal the development budget, but that's not for us.
Thank you. Is the plan to release a game in 2024 intact?
Well, as I said in the presentation, when we were discussing the wider strategic context, the aim has all the time been that we are building ourselves an ability to be able to launch either a major expansion or a new game every year. And now that ability has been in building, and we have that ability. But then, whether we will launch a game between every nine months, 12 months, or 18 months, that's roughly the one year. But there are many factors then in play that we are, with our partners, evaluating what's the right launch window for a game. Typically, in the end phases of the production, we also see if some additional time should be used to guarantee the high quality, as was now in a way done, also with Alan Wake, and it definitely paid off.
And, then also what we need to now bear in mind, to which we don't yet have the exact answer, is that Alan Wake 2 has now gotten an exceptionally good reception, and it may also open up new opportunities as we go towards next year. And just as a comparison point, even though this is speculation, what happened with Control when we launched Control in August 2019, was that the game got a very good reception, and, our original plan was to start developing the next game much earlier than eventually happened.
But what happened was a very positive one for us, because the interest for Control from different partners in the industry was growing, and actually, we could benefit from that for the next 1.5 years, creating different versions of Control, getting actually good business-to-business deals, expanding the game to new platforms. And that not only requires some people from the Control team, but also from our Northlight team and from our other support teams. So this is also an opportunity that we now need to keep an eye on and then evaluate if it will have some effect on some of the schedules that we have. But on average, the aim has been that we have been intentionally building the ability to approximately launch a game every year. If that's nine months, 12 months, 18 months, that's approximately the range.
Thank you. You, the comment regarding Vanguard gives a hint that scrapping this project could be an option. Is this reading in too much?
Well, that's quite the different conclusion. Think I said it in the presentation that now when we have five projects, we have had our stage gate model in development now for years, and I think in the past, we didn't fully succeed in following that model. But the proof of concept phase is one of the key phases on any project that we are now more and more diligently following. In proof of concept, the intent is that when we have clarity on the concept in the earlier phase, we understand what type of game we are making, we understand what are the biggest question mark and riskiest part, what's the core experience of the game going to be? So in proof of concept, the intent is that we have this core experience playable, and some of the riskiest parts also proven.
So we are definitely always in proof of concept phase, and before the proof of concept phase, with our partners, closely evaluating where we are with the game, what works, what doesn't work, work. And typically, always some changes happen in the proof of concept phase for any project that we have. But jumping into conclusions that are we scrapping the project, it doesn't mean that. But overall, in a way, that should be one option for any game project. Of course, this is too far. It's just a natural thing that what we said, that we are with our partners evaluating the projects very closely when we become closer to proof of concept phase.
Then to Terhi. Cash flow from operations was minus EUR 16.1 million for January- September, and the cash position is now down to EUR 21.7 million. Do you have the balance sheet required to... Or does Remedy have the balance sheet to, required to keep investing into the multi-project model if Alan Wake 2 would not recoup as quickly as planned?
Yeah, first of all, I would like to say that the cash position is actually what is visible as a cash in the balance sheet. And in addition, we have EUR 10 million as liquid investments, so it's actually EUR 32 million. But yes, when we gathered the funds from the market, we said that, okay, we are gathering the funds to invest more, and investing more means using cash. So it was obvious that we will use the cash, and now we have used it to a certain extent. So, that should not be a surprise as such. But of course, then, as a kind of normal course of business, if not every day, every week, and surely every month, we are updating our forecasts for revenue, expenses, and cash flow.
So surely, we are making calculations so that we understand every day the situation the best we can. And surely, the game sales is a one crucial part of forecasting. So every day, we learn more, and we know more about Alan Wake 2 commercial success, and like Tero said, now it's way too early to say really anything. But at some point, we know more, and then we update the models. And surely, if we see something that is requiring action, we will surely do it.
Thank you. Is Q4 usually more development-heavy than the other quarters of the year?
What do you-- What's meant by development-heavy?
Development fee-heavy,
Referring probably to our-
Ah, sorry.
-previous, previous history, when we've had quite a lot, before.
Yeah, I think it's not like based on a certain quarter of a calendar year. It's more like when do our projects have such milestones that then would, like, end up having high incoming development fees?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think what has affected, when we are looking at our past historical numbers, is also that if we have closed the deal in a certain quarter, then in some deals, it may be that our partners are also participating in the already accrued-
Yeah
development payments that have happened, and therefore, we may have bigger individual lump sums that are for a certain quarter.
But it's not related to-
No
-calendar year.
Yes. So.
How do you view the relationship between risk and return on capital in projects? Budgets are getting bigger and bigger. How will Remedy make sure that projects are high positive ROI for both the publisher and the developer in the future?
Well, I can start.
Mm.
You can, Terhi, then continue. But overall, we of course are a creative organization, and we understand our target audiences and the segments in which we operate quite well, that what are typically the criteria for success. Then we make our business cases internally, that what type of game we are making, what's a realistic revenue expectation that we can have, and how does the scope and investments then relate to that? Then, so far, we have seen that partnering with the strong industry player that brings, in a way, additional commercial expertise into play has been our way. And then in the early phases, in a way, the game is being evaluated also by our partner. So I think that sets a certain, in a way, basis on top of which we believe that the success can be built.
Then in the end, this is entertainment business. This is a quite hit-driven business in which we are. What we can then affect is that we are in a way optimizing the game, doing market research, and what can be still adjusted is likely in the game design, that it benefits the needs and desires of that target audience. But then it's also that we know that we can make, and we need to make, a game that stands out, can differentiate in that market, and most of all, that can, it can be of high quality. Quality is one of the key drivers for potential longer-term sales.
Then, together with our partners, we need to make sure that the marketing plans are such, and the marketing execution is such, that our game gets the attention and, in a way, reaches wide enough audience and can succeed. These are the things that we are doing, and of course, there is always risk involved when we are doing creative business innovation, and taking also some risks in order to then reach higher return.
Yeah, pretty much so. I would just, like, maybe conclude that overall, of course, we need to make sure that the, the budgets stay rational in relation to the, the game sales opportunities as such.
Good. Are both revenue streams, i.e. development fees and royalties, expected to grow in the coming years, or are the development fees expected to be lower? Do we strive for profitable growth per year as a financial goal?
Well, we are not speculating now with our numbers going forward, surely. But, as presented, what our strategy and aim is, is that we would move, like, towards, higher position in the value chain, and what we have done is, like, the co-publishing, for example, and maybe possibly, and someday, self-publishing. So meaning that overall, over the projects on a company level, we strive towards, the position where the more of the revenue share comes from the royalties than the development piece on a general level.
Thank you. How much do you think the headcount will need to increase in the coming year, i.e. 2024?
Well, we haven't said it exactly in public. We have our own plans. What I said in the presentation is that we are selectively growing. We are looking for certain talents still, but in proportion, what we were in the past, where the headcount could grow by 25, 30, even more % or even more than that, we don't now need to grow it anymore at that pace. It's more like targeted recruitment, that is now being done. Slight increase, but not in the level that we had in the past.
Thank you. How is the work to establish an organization that can release potentially one game per year going, while keeping the Remedy quality and formula intact in these games, i.e. quality first?
Well, well, overall, I can say that it's been developing well. We can now say, see that we had five games in development when we look ourselves, one to two years ago, but we were clearly less people. Now, we are almost 400 really talented people at Remedy. Our external development capabilities have grown significantly, and we have established external development partners. Our own Northlight technology has taken big steps forward. We have invested and developed a lot our internal ways of working and collaboration. So overall, our competencies to develop games and develop multiple games have grown quite significantly. And now, when Alan Wake 2 launched definitely in good quality, we are continuing with Alan Wake, but it's going to be on the two expansions, supporting the game with much smaller team.
In fact, with this growth organization and more competencies, we are not focusing on five new games, but four new games. So, that definitely gives a better basis than to, you know, like, drive these projects further. And, of course, I don't think that the work never ends, that the game industry is thriving for ambitious innovations. There is always room to improve, and we keep on doing that. But overall, the possibilities to do that even more successfully in the future are again better.
Which of the four projects under development will benefit most from the available resources from Alan Wake 2 production?
Well, I wouldn't say... They are all benefiting, of course, when we have so many talented people freeing up. But, we said also in our release, and I said in the presentation, that as an example, the Max Payne 1 and 2 remake has now progressed in the production readiness stage. We have already started to scale up that team, so that's, in a way, one clear example that's directly now benefiting from that.
Then there's a couple of game sales-related questions. Could you say anything about the start of the sales in comparison to previous launches? Is Alan Wake the fastest-selling Remedy game ever?
We are not speculating. It's too early, and this is also something that. Then at some point when we will tell something about the game sales, that's done in collaboration with our publishing partner, Epic.
When is this?
Let's not speculate on that. That's then decided with our publishing partner.
Thank you. Do you see the development phase for Max Payne 1 and 2 remake being as long as the development phase was for Alan Wake 2? Or is it actually considerably shorter?
We haven't, in a way, with our partner there, with Rockstar Games, we haven't published any information on that, but we have said that on average, the Triple-A games, what's on average, the marketing budget, and typically these type of big games take three to four years to develop.
Yes. Congratulations on a great Alan Wake 2 launch.
Thank you.
How are you going to make sure that the people at Remedy want to stay and achieve even more in the future with new projects? For instance, Control 2, after such a great release of Alan Wake 2.
Well, this is a highly competitive. In a way, the competition for talent in the industry has been high and most likely continues to be high. We have succeeded in that front during the past years really well. Remedy is an attractive employer. The projects we do interest the world-class developers a lot. We have also, as was shown in the presentation, and as we have been repeating every quarter, we put a lot of effort into our people operations. We keep on supporting our people. So overall, I think that we have been doing a lot of good things on that front, and we keep on doing that. That's benefiting from us.
Now, another thing which is more maybe on the psychological side, is that quite often in our industry, one of the strongest commitment, in a way, factors is that the teams that make a success typically want to continue working together and want to make, are motivated to continue working and make an even bigger success going into the future. At the same time, in a way, people who have been doing such an exceptional game, of course, in their CVs, that will show for the rest of their lives, and they will have, in a way, even more opportunities if they would like to look for opportunities elsewhere. Now it's our task to keep on doing the good work that we have done at Remedy, so that they want to stay here also at the moment.
I wouldn't say, in a way, like to say that it's fortunate, but what we now see in the recruitment market is that many gaming companies are really cautious. There have been a lot of layoffs in the industry. Many companies are downsizing, so actually, there aren't, at the moment, so many open positions and opportunities for talents. And when we just had such a good launch with Alan Wake 2, I think even though it's an unfortunate situation for many other companies, I think this now plays in our favor, that, most likely, in a way, the interest for some people that might be considering some other options is bit lower when they know, in a way, how the economy looks, for many other gaming companies, many other markets, and when we have just had this good success.
Has Remedy had big staff turnover, or has it changed?
We have overall, our staff turnover has been, for years, either less than about half of the industry average. So there is definitely, there is turnover, as in any gaming company, but I think in that front, we have been outperforming many other companies.
What kind of performance is required from Alan Wake 2 for it to be a profitable project for Epic Games?
We haven't released, in a way, the exact budget amounts or marketing budgets with Epic, so I can't comment more on that than I just earlier said.
Now that Alan Wake 2 has been published, does Remedy have the capacity to take on new projects?
Maybe one day in the longer-term future, but as I just said, now we have the multi-project model up and running. We have had five projects. One of these is now going to be with the smaller team supporting Alan Wake 2. There are updates. We are listening to the community, in a way, what they are saying. We have, in a way, known things that we are bringing out as updates. We have two expansions, but that's going to be smaller team, and now we want to make sure that the other projects we, at the moment have, can advance, in the planned way. And then one day in the future, we will then consider potential new projects.
Tero, can you provide some color, some further color on what's happening with Control 2? The game is still expected to be in proof-of-concept phase for the next quarters, despite resources being freed up from Alan Wake.
Well, Control... Alan Wake 2 was a massive step forward from Alan Wake 1. Control was a big success for us, and now, in a way, the ambitions for Control 2 are big as well. And, overall, we have an experienced core team working on that. It has been progressing well on many fronts, but, there are still things that the team wants to prove, wants to make sure that they are in place, so that when we one day move to next projects, in a way, all the key elements would have been proven, and we can be more certain that, in a way, phases with bigger team sizes don't need to turn back anymore, but can continue with the execution.
I think we are taking the smart learnings from our past projects, where we, in the past, progressed too early to larger team sizes, and then when we learned, in a way, some of the open designs with bigger teams, it was costly, and it was slow to change the direction. I think the Control 2 team is now making exactly the right things, and, as we saw with Alan Wake 2, eventually, when we have the really high-quality game, that's the goal where we are aiming at, then Control 2 has this exactly same goal in mind.
Then one more question to Terhi and one more to Tero. Terhi, in order for Remedy to move forward, move up a level in the business model, i.e., towards self-publishing, what kind of cash capital position would we need to cover both OpEx and CapEx?
Yeah, surely it depends on a portfolio level, where we are, what are the other projects we are having, then going forward. And as described, we are aiming for a kind of a balanced portfolio model. So we would have, also, most likely, subcontracting type of projects, where we make, typically matching also during the development phase, projects where we share the revenues and the risks, and then the model where we would take the full risk, and then also the full return. So it's not like one could say a certain number for a cash position or such.
Thank you. Tero, then finally and briefly, Northlight game engine, do we aim to develop all or most of our games with it? Any plans to license it to other game development companies?
We have about 60 people working on Northlight, and it's a focused engine, but a really powerful one. It has the tools, very efficient ones, now with the new iteration, especially, for our type of games, and it's a major part of Remedy. Four of our five games are now being made with Northlight. That continues to be a key part of our strategy, but it's for our games. In a way, we are a creative organization. We are a game developer. That's what we know we can do excellently. We have the technology and the tools that can serve our games. We have excellent collaboration models, and all the time, in a way, improve those internally. But then we don't have any plans to license it externally. That would be a completely different type of business with completely different type of operational requirements.
We think that when we succeed in the gaming business and games we do, that's going to provide enough growth opportunities for a long time into the future.
Thank you. I think that was all the questions for today. Thank you for the call and the questions. We will be back with the next earnings webinar, that is our financial statements release, 2023, on February 9, 2024. That's all for now. Thank you, and have a great week.