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

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"Random indie" - my man LectureMaster LectureMaster

I knew this shit was gonna blow up that's why I made the hype check thread.


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Slay the Spire is one of the most successful PC games in the last years, so not the best example for comparisons. Anyway, a CCU lower than 100K for an AAA project is a borderline disaster. If it doesn't get much higher, Bungie will be left in a very rough position, with no other main project in the pipeline and Sony not willing to keep investing big in them.

My prediction is that they will be downsized gradually, chopped up into pieces and later on disbanded.
 
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LOL at the people doing this whole projected analysis of when each region goes to work and sleep to find the optimal timeframe for the game to get a decent CCU.
Meanwhile Slay the spire just keeps getting more and more players right now.
 
CuteFaceJay said:
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.
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Nah fuck 'em. According to reddit you can buy 1100 gaas-busk for $10, but items cost 1200 gaas-bucks. Burn it down.
 
Fbh said:
LOL at the people doing this whole projected analysis of when each region goes to work and sleep to find the optimal timeframe for the game to get a decent CCU.
Meanwhile Slay the spire just keeps getting more and more players right now.
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Bro players need to finish Resident Evil first. Then Crimson Desert after that. Then when they've finished GTA 6 that's when the player numbers count.
 
Fbh said:
LOL at the people doing this whole projected analysis of when each region goes to work and sleep to find the optimal timeframe for the game to get a decent CCU.
Meanwhile Slay the spire just keeps getting more and more players right now.
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Same happened with Requiem. People going to sleep, going to job, some kinda nonsensical explanation and despite that, Re Requiem was still going up for some reason.
 
Banjo64 said:
We know that live service games need a strong start and a strong road map from launch.
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But I'm saying this is a strong start. Not helldivers 2 strong but strong. Look at Overwatch (2) for example. It launched at a lower 75k:
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It never went above it for years and its peak is years later. Nobody calls overwatch a flop do they? Warframe is even worse it started at 15k.
CoD BO7 launched at 87k, again lower than Marathon. It's down compared to old CoD games but it's still selling well and that's CoD CCU we're talking about.
Banjo64 said:
It would buck all trends for the average CCU to go up over time. If it's started at 80k the logic says it will only decline from here.
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Look at overwatch above or go look at warframe. That's not even something I'm suggesting anyway. My argument is that 88k is already a strong start.

Banjo64 said:
Live service games are supposed to provide a consistent source of revenue, and that will be higher with a higher user base.

Live service games are supposed to provide a consistent source of revenue, and that will be higher with a higher user base.

Forza Horizon 5 is none of the above, it's primarily a single player game that people can jump in to day one or day 500 and the experience will be the same.
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Forza horizon 5 is live service just like GT7 is. it has mtx and multiplayer. It doesn't have "seasons" but it still got updates with paid for car packs, horizon realms, etc.
 
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diffusionx said:
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.
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For another comparison, KCD2 is an amazing Western produced RPG (Central Europe). It cost like $50 mil.

Of course Spider-Man 2 cost $300 mil and reused bunch of art assets and engine from Spider-Man 1.

Basically it's sheer mismanagement by Sony and larger Western (EA, Ubisoft, etc) publishers and studios that is causing prices to balloon like this. It's batshit crazy.
 
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Three said:
But I'm saying this is a strong start. Not helldivers 2 strong but strong. Look at Overwatch (2) for example. It launched at a lower 75k:
Screenshot-20260306-142623-Chrome.jpg


It remained there for years and peaked higher years later. Nobody calls overwatch a flop do they?
CoD BO7 launched at 87k, again lower than Marathon. It's down compared to old CoD games but it's still selling well and that's CoD CCU we're talking about.

Look at overwatch above. That's not even something I'm suggesting anyway. My argument is that 88k is already a strong start.
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Overwatch was on Battlenet for many years before coming to steam, same for Destiny 2 and Destiny 2 had over 200k on steam when it came there years later as an old game so for Marathon to debut to that much less in 2026 when Steam is a much bigger platform is most definitely not a strong start.

Bungie are roughly as big and as prestigious studio as DICE, Marathon needs Battlefield 6 numbers (500k+) to be a strong start. BF6 was a big success at 700k+ tho.
 
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StereoVsn said:
For another comparison, KCD2 is an amazing Western produced RPG (Central Europe). It cost like $50 mil.

Of course Spider-Man 2 cost $300 mil and reused bunch of art assets and engine from Spider-Man 1.

Basically it's sheer mismanagement by Sony and larger Western (EA, Ubisoft, etc) publishers and studios that is causing prices to balloon like this. It's batshit crazy.
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yea, even if you assume they produced it under total poverty (not really, Prague is a modern cosmopolitan city), and say it costs 2x as much to make this game in the USA, it is still very cheap compared to Sony westshit.

Basically Sony needs to rein in their operations and start controlling cost, they let it get out of control.
 
ValiantInstance said:
Bro players need to finish Resident Evil first. Then Crimson Desert after that. Then when they've finished GTA 6 that's when the player numbers count.
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What's really going in is that those are all games for unemployed basement dwelling losers.
Good guys Sony and Bungie are the only ones out there making games for the working class
 
This game is done.

It's not Concord or high guard levels of failure dropping to 1000 players fast, but it's now already down to rank 43 on steam charts.

To be fair it's morning now in East coast USA which a lot of games skew to. Not all but many and it's unknown what it's hourly trend is since yesterday was so stable all day. That comes down to how spread out the gamer base is globally for this game in different time zones.

The weekend is coming so that will spike all games too.

But I don't see this game propping up to 100k even on the weekend. Who knows.

It's not trending up which is a bad sign. Slay the spire is early access and been going up every hour for almost a full 24 cycle. Marathon is at -50% from 88k to the 40s right now. I think helldivers was 400k and going up too to get there.

Give it a month and it'll probably be down to 10-20k.
 
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T4keD0wN said:
Overwatch 2 = Overwatch

There is no confusion on my side, its the exact same game, it has/had 2 different names at certain points.
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It's not the exact same game but it could have been an expansion/update. It was a new game launch. Much like counterstrike GO and CS2. It launched day one on Steam. It went from Overwatch, to Overwatch 2 (new game redone, day one release), then Overwatch 2 renamed to overwatch. Overwatch 2 was day one on steam regardless.
 
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HeisenbergFX4 said:
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
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I think they will realize that mega budgets with huge marketing push is that largely a copy of existing popular game play not going to get people to migrate over to your game permanently. What might work is many smaller projects, with unique quirky game play, and maybe if your throw enough of them at the wall one of them might catch lightning in a bottle and stick.
 
Three said:
It's not the exact same game but it could have been an expansion/update. It was a new game launch. Much like counterstrike GO and CS2. It launched day one on Steam. It went from Overwatch, to Overwatch 2 (new game redone, day one release), then Overwatch 2 renamed to overwatch. Overwatch 2 was day one on steam regardless.
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It was not a new game launch, it occupies exactly 1 and the same spot in the library. It would have to have a different appid/different save or a config directory to be a different game regardless of platform, its a name change or a name update whichever you prefer.

If youve had Overwatch in your game library it got updated with Overwatch 2. They arent separate products, unless you want to consider Cyberpunk 2.31 and Cyberpunk 2.30 as 2 different games too, then its the same game.

Both save data here and use the exact same files:
%USERPROFILE%\Documents\Overwatch\Settings\
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applesaucejaxon said:
If anything, all this has just made me want to check out Slay the Spire 2. Never played the first and know nothing about the series, but it must be doing something right.
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First game is very good and Slay the Spire 2 has been on my Steam wishlist for months.

I find it pretty funny how this has sort of become a Slay the Spire 2 CCU thread due to the sheer juxtaposition.
 
Wilhelm_85 said:
No idea what anyone sees in Marathon, but I'm glad this thread exists, because I had no idea there was a Slay the Spire II. Awesome!
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It's biggest draws are:

- it's got big bold mirrors edge kind of colours

- it's different than arc raiders if someone is burnt out from arc

- it's got the Bungie brand
 
T4keD0wN said:
It was not a new game launch, it occupies exactly 1 and the same spot in the library. It would have to have a different appid to be a different game, its a name change or a name update whichever you prefer.
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What are you on about? Overwatch 1 never came to steam. Overwatch 2 launched day one on steam as the first ever blizzard game to come to steam. Overwatch 2 has the appID of Overwatch 2 from day one. We're not talking about the rebrand. An Overwatch 1 appID has never existed on steam. August 2023 on that chart is the launch day of Overwatch 2.
 
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The Mad Draklor said:
First game is very good and Slay the Spire 2 has been on my Steam wishlist for months.

I find it pretty funny how this has sort of become a Slay the Spire 2 CCU thread due to the sheer juxtaposition.
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Slay the spire is great but it's become about that because bennyblanco keeps trying to make it about that by spamming it to divert attention.
 
I think these numbers are healthier than a lot of people thought they were (reminder that each and every person playing today paid +$40 already), onus is on Bungie to find a way to maintain and grow the playerbase over time.

Also reminder that a lot of the posters here told us it would be Concord 2.
 
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Three said:
What are you on about? Overwatch 1 never came to steam. Overwatch 2 launched day one on steam as the first ever blizzard game to come to steam. Overwatch 2 has the appID of Overwatch 2 from day one. We're not talking about the rebrand. An Overwatch 1 appID has never existed on steam. August 2023 on that chart is the launch day of Overwatch 2.
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I wasnt talking about the Steam name specifically, i am talking about Overwatch = Overwatch 2 regardless of platform. It refers to the same thing, same product, its a name you can use interchangeably and it will refer to the same thing.

If you had Overwatch added to any of your gaming accounts (all platforms) it just got changed to Overwatch 2, meaning its the same item and merely an update, you never had to add a new item to your account which is what youd have to do if it was a different game.
 
Fbh said:
LOL at the people doing this whole projected analysis of when each region goes to work and sleep to find the optimal timeframe for the game to get a decent CCU.
Meanwhile Slay the spire just keeps getting more and more players right now.
Click to expand...

Because Slay the Spire fans play the game as they sleep.
 
What a disastrous start for this game. If this doesn't blow past 100k on the weekend we're going to start hearing some really bad insider leaks from Bungie...
 
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T4keD0wN said:
I wasnt talking about the Steam name specifically, i am talking about Overwatch = Overwatch 2 regardless of platform. It refers to the same thing, same product, its a name you can use interchangeably and it will refer to the same thing.
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Not really. Only after the rebrand not when Overwatch 2 launched.
T4keD0wN said:
If you had Overwatch added to any of your gaming accounts (all platforms) it just got changed to Overwatch 2, meaning its the same item and merely an update, you never had to add a new item to your account which is what youd have to do if it was a different game.
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It's not the same product. It was a new release. CoD on steam has had the same appID since it first came to steam but it doesn't mean CoD BO7 is the same game as Modern Warfare. They just do this to migrate people to the new game.

Overwatch 2 was made as a new release with new marketing and a new launch. It came to steam for the first time on day 1.
 
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Three said:
Not really. Only after the rebrand not when Overwatch 2 launched.

It's not the same product. It was a new release. CoD on steam has had the same appID since it first came to steam but it doesn't mean CoD BO7 is the same game as Modern Warfare. They just do this to migrate people to the new game.

Overwatch 2 was made as a new release with new marketing and a new launch. It came to steam for the first time on day 1.
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*Scratches head* did you not play overwatch?
 
LyricalShrike said:
*Scratches head* did you not play overwatch?
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Yeah I did. Much like how I played Crackdown 1 and Crackdown 2 knowing this could have just been an expansion/update. I get that, already mentioned it. Doesn't mean crackdown 2 didn't launch and was marketed as a "new game"
 
Angry_Megalodon said:
Slay the Spire is one of the most successful PC games in the last years, so not the best example for comparisons. Anyway, a CCU lower than 100K for an AAA project is a borderline disaster. If it doesn't get much higher, Bungie will be left in a very rough position, with no other main project in the pipeline and Sony not willing to keep investing big in them.

My prediction is that they will be downsized gradually, chopped up into pieces and later on disbanded.
Click to expand...

Luckily there are people playing on Consoles too, so Steam CCU isnt the full story
 
Three said:
[
Slay the spire is great but it's become about that because bennyblanco keeps trying to make it about that by spamming it to divert attention.
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3 posts in a thread with 550 posts = spam. Sure.

It's just interesting to watch people twist themselves in pretzels to make excuses for Bungie's huge budget AAA shooter while a roguelike deckbuilder that launched the same day is doing incredible numbers that simply keep going up

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BennyBlanco said:
3 posts in a thread with 550 posts = spam. Sure.

It's just interesting to watch people twist themselves in pretzels to make excuses for Bungie's huge budget AAA shooter while a roguelike deckbuilder that launched the same day is doing incredible numbers that simply keep going up

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I think the more interesting behaviour is people like you who just follow numbers to claim a game is failed. Its kinda obsessive…
Im sure there are people playing on consoles, which slay the spire isnt on yet
 
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Three said:
Yeah I did. Much like how I played Crackdown 1 and Crackdown 2 knowing this could have just been an expansion/update. I get that, already mentioned it. Doesn't mean crackdown 2 didn't launch and was marketed as a "new game"
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Its the same game for the purposes of ccu discussion. The main audience was on Bnet. Blizzard change the name of the game and released it on steam where it grew an audience on a different platform. It's the same game in the normal sense as well. Crackdown 1 and Crackdown 2 are different games not patches for each other. I'm now questioning if you played them.
 
HeisenbergFX4 said:
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
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As long as there's one hit game out there to copy, studios and the big money guys will always follow

I'm sure there will lots more extraction games coming soon since arc is a big hit. Even existing hit games will probably add an extraction mode soon.
 
PeteBull said:
Sony could make 2 or maybe even 3 proper AAA blockbuster jrpgs with the money they wasted on this failure :messenger_pensive:
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Sony could make fifteen AAAA story driven big budget single player blockbuster games with the money they wasted on buying Bungie :messenger_pensive:
 
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