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Marathon releases to 87,000 players on Steam and 87% Positive Reviews (sponsored by coachmcguirk91)

My suspicion is that within 6 to 12 months we will see a pve only mode introduced.

If they did I might honestly buy it. It's the hardcore steamy PvP element which keeps me from buying Marathon, I love the artstyle and gunplay, but I just suck at competitive PvP.
 
Let's be honest, most people saw this coming

I don't blame anyone who enjoys it, heck one of my most played games is World of Tanks and that game is almost dead in North America

Once people get past their Steam return window, we are going to see catastrophic numbers for this game
 
Let's be honest, most people saw this coming

I don't blame anyone who enjoys it, heck one of my most played games is World of Tanks and that game is almost dead in North America

Once people get past their Steam return window, we are going to see catastrophic numbers for this game

What is the return window for Steam, anyway?
 
So if this game actually flops quickly, will this inevitably be the end of the hero/extraction/whatthefuckever shooters by big companies? It seems to be flop after flip at this point, and undoubtedly a ton of capital lost.

Is it time to get back to single player games, or is the industry going to keep doing this until they find another one that sticks?
 
So if this game actually flops quickly, will this inevitably be the end of the hero/extraction/whatthefuckever shooters by big companies? It seems to be flop after flip at this point, and undoubtedly a ton of capital lost.

Is it time to get back to single player games, or is the industry going to keep doing this until they find another one that sticks?
Looking at the success Arc Raiders is having not to mention the numbers other games in this genre keep pulling in, I think companies will still try to find their lightning in a bottle gold mine

Just hopefully it gets trimmed way back on how many we see
 
Looking at the success Arc Raiders is having not to mention the numbers other games in this genre keep pulling in, I think companies will still try to find their lightning in a bottle gold mine

Just hopefully it gets trimmed way back on how many we see
It just feels like insane gambling (hundreds of millions of dollars a bet), with a very low success rate. Just seems like terrible business to keep greenlighting these projects. Obviously they make bank if they hit, but there's little guarantee of that at this point.
 
What the fuck did I just watch
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Oh no it's cratering like the server test last week, how terrible.

Conversely I am surprised by some people's level of surprise in here at how many are rooting for the game's failure, like Sony didn't just close one of their best single player studios less than two weeks ago.

I for one will grab the popcorn and watch their pathetic multiplayer gaas strategy fail.
Yeah I'm shocked at the "surprise" people feel about the backlash to this game. Marathon is the one game with the most promise to achieve a strategy the general PS audience has rejected time and time again. This game failing signifies the entire failure of Jim and Herman's GAAS initiative and it's exactly what a lot of people want to see happen so Sony can move on and return to what they did during PS4.

If this game hits it could lead to another round of mandatory GAAS projects from Sony's traditionally single player studios. If this game crashes and burns it seals the deal on what Sony sought to do this generation.
 
Yeah I'm shocked at the "surprise" people feel about the backlash to this game. Marathon is the one game with the most promise to achieve a strategy the general PS audience has rejected time and time again. This game failing signifies the entire failure of Jim and Herman's GAAS initiative and it's exactly what a lot of people want to see happen so Sony can move on and return to what they did during PS4.

If this game hits it could lead to another round of mandatory GAAS projects from Sony's traditionally single player studios. If this game crashes and burns it seals the deal on what Sony sought to do this generation.

With Jim being gone - and if Marathon proves indeed to be a failure - I wonder if Herman will finally get the boot...

This GaaS initiative clearly hasn't paid off (never mind the 3.6 Billion Bungie acquisition), I don't know about the upcoming Horizon Hunters bullshit but something tells me that it won't be a "hit" and as for Fairgames, they will clearly pull the plug before it even comes out (i.e get canceled).
 
Its pretty good success despite gaf doom posting

What did marathon do differently than concord and high guard for this success though?
Who says its a success lol. If anything the numbers have been dropping by the minute and the game is out for 24 hours. Marathon still has not enough reviews for a Metacritic overal score.
 
Destiny was a unique game in a league of its own during its peak. It had PvE, PvP, and a huge social element that tied it all together. It was also a cash cow until it was clear Bungie had no clue what to do post Final Shape.

Then their's Marathon...
 
It just feels like insane gambling (hundreds of millions of dollars a bet), with a very low success rate. Just seems like terrible business to keep greenlighting these projects. Obviously they make bank if they hit, but there's little guarantee of that at this point.
To be totally and completely fair to the publishers, green lighting any game is a pretty big risk with 6+ year dev times and massive teams based in some of the most expensive cities in the world. GaaS does seem like much more of an all-or-nothing bet.

It would also be just to say that the games they do green light, whether single player or GaaS, often seem monumentally out of touch with what most gamers want, which includes going all in with uninspired, content-lite, wannabe entries in some of the most overcrowded GaaS genres. It's like they think they can just show up with a proof of concept, and gamers will pour in money to fund its continued development.
 
To be totally and completely fair to the publishers, green lighting any game is a pretty big risk with 6+ year dev times and massive teams based in some of the most expensive cities in the world. GaaS does seem like much more of an all-or-nothing bet.

It would also be just to say that the games they do green light, whether single player or GaaS, often seem monumentally out of touch with what most gamers want, which includes going all in with uninspired, content-lite, wannabe entries in some of the most overcrowded GaaS genres. It's like they think they can just show up with a proof of concept, and gamers will pour in money to fund its continued development.
Games should not take six years to make. This is insane. Basically saying that it takes longer than World War 2 to put out a friggin' videogame.

There are massive issues here with management here. Marathon doesn't even have that much content and took a staff of over 300 people and five+ years. This is nuts. If you can't get this game out in 3 years then you need to do some soul searching.
 
It's more interesting to follow Slay the Spire 2's CCU numbers on SteamDB. The 400,000 barrier will be crossed in a couple of minutes, 500,000 peak users looks like a very achievable goal this weekend.

I wonder if Marathon will hit 100,000 this weekend to be honest.
 
600lbs horizon gaas next, as a bonus we will stick it to hermens beloved ip:
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Closing bluepoint was one bridge too far :messenger_pensive:
Imagine if (more like when) that game crash and burn, losing hundreds of millions of dollars and wasted years of development, but somehow Guerrilla would still be up and running...
 
It's far worse than I thought it would be, this at launch is terrible, just to put it in perspective Highguard had more at launch. I told the guys here that it looked awful and the terrible art direction would hurt it badly. All Bungie had to do was make a extraction shooter within the Destiny universe and it would have been big, it's a shame it really is.
I would 100% be playing it and most people I know would as well. As it is now many in the old destiny crew are playing other games, and most are not even aware that marathon exists. I have not seen it mentioned even once in the chats where those old players hang. And yes, people that are actively playing games, just not marathon.
 
I'm no cheerleader on one side or the other, but from my perspective, I find it a little sad that the once revered Bungie are completely ignoring the SP market now. Don't they realise that their ability to produce fantastic gunplay is exactly what the genre needs right now? Yet they decide to waste their talent on such risky overpopulated GaaS.

Hell, I'm pretty certain that the reason why Destiny initially became so popular was because it had decent content for solo players who could then advance to the multiplayer side of the game.

I tried Marathon, and whilst I admire the lore, the gunplay and the general vibe, it just doesn't have enough to pull me in. And for YouTubers, there's no exciting spectacle like you get with games such as Helldivers 2 or ARC.

It's a hard sell is what I'm saying.
 
To be totally and completely fair to the publishers, green lighting any game is a pretty big risk with 6+ year dev times and massive teams based in some of the most expensive cities in the world. GaaS does seem like much more of an all-or-nothing bet.

It would also be just to say that the games they do green light, whether single player or GaaS, often seem monumentally out of touch with what most gamers want, which includes going all in with uninspired, content-lite, wannabe entries in some of the most overcrowded GaaS genres. It's like they think they can just show up with a proof of concept, and gamers will pour in money to fund its continued development.
I think this is the biggest issue overall in games today. I'm not going to involve the culture war junk like others, but I think it goes deeper than that. Chasing after certain art styles like Fortnight or Overwatch, instead of coming up with something unique automatically makes a game feel like a ripoff, and a lot of people will give it a pass before even trying it.

Not only that, when games take 4+ years to make, you'll likely miss the boat in terms of the trend by years. Who wants to play a Fortnight clone when it's already an established IP, and you've sunk tons of hours and money into it? Most people don't want to restart grinding on a similar kind of game when you're already well established in another. Make something new and stop chasing trends!
 
Just to give u guys comparision, ff16, major entry in biggest jrpg franchise of all time had only 91m usd budget, while this modern audience gaas shit had 250m usd production budget(aka way more if we add to that marketting budget on top).
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Sony could make 2 or maybe even 3 proper AAA blockbuster jrpgs with the money they wasted on this failure :messenger_pensive:
 
Just to give u guys comparision, ff16, major entry in biggest jrpg franchise of all time had only 91m usd budget, while this modern audience gaas shit had 250m usd production budget(aka way more if we add to that marketting budget on top).
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Sony could make 2 or maybe even 3 proper AAA blockbuster jrpgs with the money they wasted on this failure :messenger_pensive:
FF XVI is shit and so are most JRPGs.
 
Hell, I'm pretty certain that the reason why Destiny initially became so popular was because it had decent content for solo players who could then advance to the multiplayer side of the game.
Needs a Single Player or Co-Op campaign(especially that previous Marathon games were single player or Co-Op Campaigns) that transitions into their PvP mode. But this game is just going to turn out like most other Extraction Shooters and player retention will be low.

I'm sure upsetting their Destiny playerbase was also a smart thing to do.

On top of releasing in the same window as RE9 and Slay the Spire 2. It is not going to go well.
 
FF XVI is shit and so are most JRPGs.
ff16 is indeed shit but the point is that you can put together a full high profile game for a fraction of what they spent on marathon.

People act like this sort of development time and spend is inevitable but no these companies and projects really are being managed this poorly.
 
First there is GAAS fatigue. People want to have fun with serious Single Player games (Requiem).

Secondly the artstyle is very divisive (many will just not play this because of the repulsive graphics) then finally the DEIed characters will put off the last courageous potential customers.

People like me would have bought a SP Halo-ish game like I would have bought Bluepoint next game. Ugh. What a waste of money.
 
Marathon CCUs are starting to rise. Wonder if it will hit 100k today
We'll see later today during the western EU+US peak hours. It may peak higher today or tomorrow, or even next week. Most games reach their highest launch peak during the first or second weekend.

First there is GAAS fatigue.
No, the big majority of gaming revenue and playtime continues being spent on GaaS and the perfentage of both keeps growing both in console and PC.

Due to this, the percentage of playtime and revenue spent in games released in previous years vs the one spent in games released in the current year also keeps increasing, keeping less and less room for new non-GaaS games.

Super successful non-GaaS games like RE9 and Slay the Spire 2 are exceptions and not the common case. As competittion gets thougher (on top of that the amount of games released keeps growing) and there's less room for new games, there are more games that flop, both GaaS and non-GaaS.

Don't they realise that their ability to produce fantastic gunplay is exactly what the genre needs right now? Yet they decide to waste their talent on such risky overpopulated GaaS.
AAA budgets keep highly increasing every generation, while SP AAA revenues don't, starting to reach now a point when what most SP AAA games sell is starting to be less than what they need to be profitable.

Successful GaaS generate way more revenue than non-GaaS, so that's why publishers and devs keep investing more in GaaS (and multiplatform).

P.S.: I'm just explaining why the industry takes these decisions, I would prefer to have SP games instead too.
 
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OOF That's rough, Meanwhile Bloody Slay the Spire 2 got almost half a mil for it's early access.

I really hope Bungie can bounce back from this because this industry is becoming cut throat and expensive to bankroll a studio of that size.
 
Grasping at straws now?
Marathon just launched. Of course we're comparing launch CCUs. There's a reason nobody's talking about the server slam numbers.


I stand corrected about Destiny 2. Now let's focus on the preceding sentence where we benchmark against other paid GaaS shooters.
? Nobody mentioned server slam number
 
First there is GAAS fatigue. People want to have fun with serious Single Player games (Requiem).

Secondly the artstyle is very divisive (many will just not play this because of the repulsive graphics) then finally the DEIed characters will put off the last courageous potential customers.

People like me would have bought a SP Halo-ish game like I would have bought Bluepoint next game. Ugh. What a waste of money.
I dont think it's fatigue and more the case like in many MMO's that people just play their go to games instead of new ones because of sunk cost/too invested in their accounts on CS, Fortnight, R6 Siege, Apex ect., every new GAAS that comes out is competing against older behemoths on a finite player base thats already playing other games.
 
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