Support NeoGAF

[yurinka]

I don't think most gamers think like this. Places like NeoGAF really overestimate the amount of value the average gamer places on a developers name.

Plus, the PC audience definitely skews older with a larger draw for more complex games. That's Marathon. Paul Tassi also said Marathon is primarily being played on PC.

I'm sure there were some Riot fans (League of Legends & Valorant) tried out 2KX0 but that's the value of "Bungie fans)

Some companies like Riot make most of their money and have most of their fanbase on PC, others on mobile, others in console.

Bungie Halo games were back then some of the most popular games on Xbox. Sony got the marketing deal and published in Japan Destiny 1 and 2, which became a huge success in PS and Xbox, making at least while with Activision way more money on console than in PC.

Riot is mostly a PC focused games company, who tried to expand their super LoL success to other GaaS genres to expand their audience without overlapping their own success at LoL. Succeded with tactical hero shooter PvP FPS in case of Valorant, and apparently not with 2XKO.

Sony was too focused on SP narrative action adventures (plus MLB and GT) for their console, and like any other AAA publisher needed to grow their revenue, so is trying to expand to more genres/subgenres, particularly GaaS (in addition to expand their games to more platforms): looter shooter with Destiny, coop PvE TPS with Helldivers 2, bullet hell TPS roguelike with Returnal & Saros, hero shooter with Concord, extraction shooter with Marathon, 3D action platformer with Astro Bot, hack & slash with Stellar Blade, heist games with Fairgame$, team based MP monster hunter clone with Hunters Gathering, 2D metroidvania with Sons of Sparta, apparently Smash Bros x MOBA x life sims x frog games (whatever that means) with the -apparently mobile focused but also coming to console and PC- TeamLFG game etc.

I think Bungie with Marathon also wanted to make a smaller game than Destiny that targeted a more hardcore team based PvP niche audience of a different subgenre, to reduce the potential overlap with a more mainstream PvE focused Destiny while helping them expand their audience with a mostly different subset of players.

Since budgets keep increasing a lot, I think for the next gen instead of releasing Destiny 3 including PvE and PvP modes, I think they'll make a PvE only Destiny sequel (maybe a non-PvP GaaS like Helldivers 2 or AC) and a (non team based, and with more classical Destiny PvP modes and maps approach to differentiate it from Marathon) PvP Destiny game.

But well, in any case despite these companies wanting/needing to expand to new audiences, I assume a good portion of the users of their new games continues being fans of their previous games.

 

[Negotiator101]

On a real data note, Marathon is tracking about -10% vs yesterday at the same hour (11 am EST). Yesterday, the peak was 66k and the low was 22.5k. At current trend, it'll be down to 60k and 20k.

Again is this normal? In terms of player retention? Is it liable to stabilise soon at not lose too much more IYO?

 

[Kronark]

This thread has been comedy gold.

This thread is just lame at this point. Here are all the summary facts:

1. The Steam sales appear relatively strong, somewhere around 650k.
2. The CCU is on the low end of "solid."
3. The console sales probably put overall purchases at around 2.5 million.
4. At $40, Bungie has injected enough revenue to build this game out.
5. They probably can build it out, as user reviews are very strong.
6. It clearly has found a small, but apparently durable audience.

Literally any other takes are super useless.

This is some of the most delusional thinking I've seen on this game yet. Marathon is not a small game and small game performance metrics are a fail state for Marathon. If I tried to conservatively estimate dev costs I'd probably imagine:

300 staff x $80,000 average salary x 4 years = $96,000,000

Why $80,000 average? You probably have a mix of senior technical talent making 100k+ and junior artists making ~50k. This doesn't even factor in the c-suite or support departments like HR / IT. Why 4 years? Because it was probably not in full scale dev for the 6 years. This number is just basic labour and does not include marketing, IT infrastructure costs, software licensing costs, building costs, utility costs, game server costs, additional labour taxes / fees, benefits, corporate taxes, insurance, etc. Marathon all in is probably somewhere around 175-200 million dollars minimum if we're being realistic about it.

So even if I use the conservative number of 96 million at $40 a pop the game would have to sell 2,400,000 units. On platforms like steam or xbox where Sony is losing a 30% cut they're only getting about $28 a copy, meaning they'd need to sell approximately 3,428,500 units. Split the difference any you're probably looking about ~2,900,000 units assuming half are sold on PSN where Sony gets 100% revenue and half are sold off platform. Keep in mind I don't believe the actual costs are anywhere near 96 million, I'm just using that as a minimum floor for sake of example. The number of units they actually needed to sell was probably around 5-6 million.

If Marathon had in fact sold 2.9 million units and we're only seeing 50k players online on steam then player retention was awful, but I don't think they sold anywhere near 2.9 million units. Unless they managed to sell every user $40 worth of cosmetics on top of the base game there is no way Marathon was anything but a financial disaster. Unless they can somehow pull a marketing miracle and 4x the launch performance this game is going to slowly bleed out. I don't see how Sony could justify continuing content development. I am not saying they will shut it down, but content support will likely be very limited beyond what was already in development.

 

[Hollywood Hitman]

Fantasizing about sending people off to war because they enjoy a game is weird, bro. But you do you.

"fantasizing"... Wow, do you work for CNN?

 

[KyoZz]

I honestly below this is preposterous. Gunplay has the most value up front. The longer you play a game the less you feel the gunplay as you get used to how a game feels.

Yes, you habituate to the controls after dozens of hours but good gunplay habituates into muscle memory that feels invisible and rewarding. Take CS for example: every headshot, every reload, every spray still gives that dopamine hit years later.
Bad gunplay habituates into constant low-level frustration that gets worse the more you play. You notice it every single match when the game doesn't feel like an extension of your hands. That's why vets in 10 year-old games still complain about even tiny feel changes in patches.

In no way, is there any developer on earth who thinks gunplay/gunfeel keeps players engaged long term. Player adoption, sure a case could be made there.

Bungie (you know, the actual devs of the game we're talking about) have said for a decade that Destiny 2's gunplay is the single biggest reason it survived sunsetting, content droughts, and controversy. They literally have dedicated gunfeel designers whose only job is iterating recoil patterns, audio, and TTK because they know it drives thousands of hours of play. Their player-retention team still prioritizes core feel fixes over pure progression tweaks. Please inform yourself, this is why it's tiring to argue with you: you don't know what you are talking about and yet act like you are the only one who understand how all this work... WTF dude.

But we can also take CS as it's even more impressive: 20+ years of the same gunplay philosophy and they barely touch the core feel because it's the retention engine. Progression? Basically nonexistent for most of its life. Skins and ranks are multipliers on top of god tier shooting.

No post-mortem or GDC talk from a successful live-service shooter ever says "yeah we phoned in the gunplay because progression carries it." And Marathon is the latest proof as the gunplay is literally the only reason it's still somehow alive after the launch drop.

The majority of Roblox games are shooters. Gunplay is overvalued here.

Now you just making stuff up to defend a bad take as this is objectively false in 2026.

From Roblox's own charts + Rolimons/rTrack concurrent players, the top 10 right now:

1. Brookhaven RP (~400k+) — roleplay/social hangout
2. Blox Fruits (~350-390k) — anime adventure/fighting (not a pure shooter)
3. Adopt Me! (~340k+) — pet collecting/social
4. Fish It! or 99 Nights in the Forest — fishing/survival/horror trend
5. RIVALS (~200-380k) — yes, this one is an arena shooter (the only clear FPS in the top right now)
6. Steal a Brainrot / Escape Tsunami for Brainrots! — viral/survival mini-games
7. The Strongest Battlegrounds — fighting/brawler
8. Jujutsu Shenanigans — anime fighter
9. Bee Swarm Simulator — tycoon
10. Various obbies/garden/brainrot slop

The majority of Roblox games are not shooters, look at the actual charts right now. Only like 1 shooters crack the top 10. Roblox is huge despite its basic gunplay because it's a free social/UGC platform for kids, not a dedicated shooter. That's exactly why your example proves my point: when gunplay is the whole identity of the game (Marathon, CS2, Valorant, Helldivers), it has to feel amazing or retention dies. Roblox shooters succeed in spite of mid gunfeel thanks to everything else. No dev of an actual shooter GAAS thinks 'eh, just make the shooting meh and add skins.'"

For a shooter, the gunplay has to be elite or the multipliers do nothing. Players won't grind seasons and skins for weapons that feel like shit. Starting to repeat myself, please read carefully MiB.

 

[Bernardougf]

Think beyond your bias Men in Boxes.

 

[pepeno]

I think there is bigger story everyone is missing.

Bungie and AAA legendary studio couldn't cross 100k at release day where no name Highguard team achieved that 100k. It seems to confirm that Bungie lost most of its fanbase over course of Destiny 2 and its shit practices.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Internet Army, do your thing!!!!

 

[BennyBlanco]

I think there is bigger story everyone is missing.

Bungie and AAA legendary studio couldn't cross 100k at release day where no name Highguard team achieved that 100k. It seems to confirm that Bungie lost most of its fanbase over course of Destiny 2 and its shit practices.

Bungie is just a brand name like Bioware now, everyone who made the good games is long gone.

 

[Sohurmk833]

Internet Army, do your thing!!!!

Developing unwanted Live Service Slop is future unemployed behaviour.

 

[Bernardougf]

Internet Army, do your thing!!!!

Devs at Bungie should definitely not mess around with the word "unemployed" ....

 

[Kronark]

I think there is bigger story everyone is missing.

Bungie and AAA legendary studio couldn't cross 100k at release day where no name Highguard team achieved that 100k. It seems to confirm that Bungie lost most of its fanbase over course of Destiny 2 and its shit practices.

I mean this where I'm at. I simply do not trust Bungie as a studio after years of Destiny 2 making the same mistakes over and over again and taking 6-12 months to get back on track every time. I genuinely don't know what they could possibly do to win my trust back at this point.

 

[BennyBlanco]

Internet Army, do your thing!!!!

If anyone would know what the unemployed are up to it would be a game dev.

 

[tmlDan]

This thread has been comedy gold.



This is some of the most delusional thinking I've seen on this game yet. Marathon is not a small game and small game performance metrics are a fail state for Marathon. If I tried to conservatively estimate dev costs I'd probably imagine:

300 staff x $80,000 average salary x 4 years = $96,000,000

Why $80,000 average? You probably have a mix of senior technical talent making 100k+ and junior artists making ~50k. This doesn't even factor in the c-suite or support departments like HR / IT. Why 4 years? Because it was probably not in full scale dev for the 6 years. This number is just basic labour and does not include marketing, IT infrastructure costs, software licensing costs, building costs, utility costs, game server costs, additional labour taxes / fees, benefits, corporate taxes, insurance, etc. Marathon all in is probably somewhere around 175-200 million dollars minimum if we're being realistic about it.

So even if I use the conservative number of 96 million at $40 a pop the game would have to sell 2,400,000 units. On platforms like steam or xbox where Sony is losing a 30% cut they're only getting about $28 a copy, meaning they'd need to sell approximately 3,428,500 units. Split the difference any you're probably looking about ~2,900,000 units assuming half are sold on PSN where Sony gets 100% revenue and half are sold off platform. Keep in mind I don't believe the actual costs are anywhere near 96 million, I'm just using that as a minimum floor for sake of example. The number of units they actually needed to sell was probably around 5-6 million.

If Marathon had in fact sold 2.9 million units and we're only seeing 50k players online on steam then player retention was awful, but I don't think they sold anywhere near 2.9 million units. Unless they managed to sell every user $40 worth of cosmetics on top of the base game there is no way Marathon was anything but a financial disaster. Unless they can somehow pull a marketing miracle and 4x the launch performance this game is going to slowly bleed out. I don't see how Sony could justify continuing content development. I am not saying they will shut it down, but content support will likely be very limited beyond what was already in development.

I don't entirely disagree, but the numbers aren't hidden, it had 66k on a monday, but it averages 75k+

Don't reduce it to 50k to push your narrative when you dont have to lie

 

[tmlDan]

I think there is bigger story everyone is missing.

Bungie and AAA legendary studio couldn't cross 100k at release day where no name Highguard team achieved that 100k. It seems to confirm that Bungie lost most of its fanbase over course of Destiny 2 and its shit practices.

Lets not compare a free game to a paid one, a lot of games dont pass 100k, actually 99% of them dont

Obviously its not good, but dont act like its normal to pass it

 

[SlightlyUnstable]

I don't think most gamers think like this. Places like NeoGAF really overestimate the amount of value the average gamer places on a developers name.

Typically I would agree but the Bungie name still holds a LOT of weight for whatever reasons. That studio died a long time ago but tons of players are still holding on to hope that the OG Bungie shows up at some point. If this game had been made by an indie studio it wouldn't have nearly the numbers it has right now. The Bungie name still holds weight, just not nearly as much as it used to.

 

[Negotiator101]

I don't entirely disagree, but the numbers aren't hidden, it had 66k on a monday, but it averages 75k+

Don't reduce it to 50k to push your narrative when you dont have to lie

Average is not 75k not even close, currently it's sitting at 36,000.

 

[tmlDan]

Average is not 75k not even close, currently it's sitting at 36,000.

top CCU in a day, you do know how this works right?

we're not going to look at "work day" numbers

 

[Kronark]

I don't entirely disagree, but the numbers aren't hidden, it had 66k on a monday, but it averages 75k+

Don't reduce it to 50k to push your narrative when you dont have to lie

50k is a pretty fair average for the steam player count. It did 66k peak, 22k low yesterday which puts the average at 44k... The day before it did 77k peak, 25k low... Again about 51k average.

If I was being super generous and somehow granting it did 2x sales on console then one could argue it has maybe 150k players average total across all platforms.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

This thread has been comedy gold.



This is some of the most delusional thinking I've seen on this game yet. Marathon is not a small game and small game performance metrics are a fail state for Marathon. If I tried to conservatively estimate dev costs I'd probably imagine:

300 staff x $80,000 average salary x 4 years = $96,000,000

Why $80,000 average? You probably have a mix of senior technical talent making 100k+ and junior artists making ~50k. This doesn't even factor in the c-suite or support departments like HR / IT. Why 4 years? Because it was probably not in full scale dev for the 6 years. This number is just basic labour and does not include marketing, IT infrastructure costs, software licensing costs, building costs, utility costs, game server costs, additional labour taxes / fees, benefits, corporate taxes, insurance, etc. Marathon all in is probably somewhere around 175-200 million dollars minimum if we're being realistic about it.

So even if I use the conservative number of 96 million at $40 a pop the game would have to sell 2,400,000 units. On platforms like steam or xbox where Sony is losing a 30% cut they're only getting about $28 a copy, meaning they'd need to sell approximately 3,428,500 units. Split the difference any you're probably looking about ~2,900,000 units assuming half are sold on PSN where Sony gets 100% revenue and half are sold off platform. Keep in mind I don't believe the actual costs are anywhere near 96 million, I'm just using that as a minimum floor for sake of example. The number of units they actually needed to sell was probably around 5-6 million.

If Marathon had in fact sold 2.9 million units and we're only seeing 50k players online on steam then player retention was awful, but I don't think they sold anywhere near 2.9 million units. Unless they managed to sell every user $40 worth of cosmetics on top of the base game there is no way Marathon was anything but a financial disaster. Unless they can somehow pull a marketing miracle and 4x the launch performance this game is going to slowly bleed out. I don't see how Sony could justify continuing content development. I am not saying they will shut it down, but content support will likely be very limited beyond what was already in development.

We did this math earlier in the thread. The correct value for average salary at Bungie is ~$150k

The total amount of Marathon's budget attributable to salary is closer to $200 million during its development which seems pretty accurate with some rumors going around that the budget for Marathon totaled around $250 million

 

[ValiantInstance]

I've never seen such a militant defense of a game that isn't politically motivated. I popped my head in the OT earlier and read someone saying they would "never forgive" gamers if Marathon dies.

When the servers shut down there will still be a few defending it like those Japanese soldiers in the pacific still in the trenches 30 years after the war ended.

 

[tmlDan]

50k is a pretty fair average for the steam player count. It did 66k peak, 22k low yesterday which puts the average at 44k... The day before it did 77k peak, 25k low... Again about 51k average.

If I was being super generous and somehow granting it did 2x sales on console then one could argue it has maybe 150k players average total across all platforms.

you cant look at overnight numbers, look at daily peaks.

Why are you playing this game, so i can come and say Arc was 50k, its dying, shut it down?

 

[Merline]

"It has way more players on console" bros... I don't feel so good...

Source: Paul tassi

 

[Negotiator101]

top CCU in a day, you do know how this works right?

we're not going to look at "work day" numbers

I know how averages work, you clearly don't.

 

[tmlDan]

I know how averages work, you clearly don't.

I do know, but its not a fair way to assess things, use daily peak CCU. Otherwise i can say Arc is already below 75K on average since it goes down to 50k now at night and is dying

 

[Kronark]

you cant look at overnight numbers, look at daily peaks.

Why are you playing this game, so i can come and say Arc was 50k, its dying, shut it down?

Why would I only give a shit about the peaks?

If I as a player log in at a random time to play Marathon, on average I will encounter about 50k players right now. Sometimes more or less at a given hour but on average that's the player pool. The peaks are only relevant when taking about potential sales performance. They are not relevant for game health.

 

[PeteBull]

Internet Army, do your thing!!!!

They called us so many weird names over the years, this time its not even anything creative like "chuds" but simply unemployed, but that was overwatch dev, so ofc expecting creativity was never on the table here

 

[Branded]

I don't even care about the game at this point, or if it fails or not. This shit cracks me up.

 

[Kronark]

We did this math earlier in the thread. The correct value for average salary at Bungie is ~$150k

The total amount of Marathon's budget attributable to salary is closer to $200 million during its development which seems pretty accurate with some rumors going around that the budget for Marathon totaled around $250 million

Does this include CEO pay out or are there sources for pay data?

I work in the VFX industry and I can tell you artists get paid as little as the studio can get away with. I am sometimes shocked at what talented individuals are getting paid. I would expect Bungie to be a little better on average given their bolstering about initiatives but I would still be shocked if their average artist comp was over 60-70k annually. Some seniors or leads will make a healthy deal more but a majority of them are going to be minimum pay art slaves.

 

[mdkirby]

This thread has been comedy gold.



This is some of the most delusional thinking I've seen on this game yet. Marathon is not a small game and small game performance metrics are a fail state for Marathon. If I tried to conservatively estimate dev costs I'd probably imagine:

300 staff x $80,000 average salary x 4 years = $96,000,000

Why $80,000 average? You probably have a mix of senior technical talent making 100k+ and junior artists making ~50k. This doesn't even factor in the c-suite or support departments like HR / IT. Why 4 years? Because it was probably not in full scale dev for the 6 years. This number is just basic labour and does not include marketing, IT infrastructure costs, software licensing costs, building costs, utility costs, game server costs, additional labour taxes / fees, benefits, corporate taxes, insurance, etc. Marathon all in is probably somewhere around 175-200 million dollars minimum if we're being realistic about it.

So even if I use the conservative number of 96 million at $40 a pop the game would have to sell 2,400,000 units. On platforms like steam or xbox where Sony is losing a 30% cut they're only getting about $28 a copy, meaning they'd need to sell approximately 3,428,500 units. Split the difference any you're probably looking about ~2,900,000 units assuming half are sold on PSN where Sony gets 100% revenue and half are sold off platform. Keep in mind I don't believe the actual costs are anywhere near 96 million, I'm just using that as a minimum floor for sake of example. The number of units they actually needed to sell was probably around 5-6 million.

If Marathon had in fact sold 2.9 million units and we're only seeing 50k players online on steam then player retention was awful, but I don't think they sold anywhere near 2.9 million units. Unless they managed to sell every user $40 worth of cosmetics on top of the base game there is no way Marathon was anything but a financial disaster. Unless they can somehow pull a marketing miracle and 4x the launch performance this game is going to slowly bleed out. I don't see how Sony could justify continuing content development. I am not saying they will shut it down, but content support will likely be very limited beyond what was already in development.

We've seen Sony's insane budgets from smaller and more responsible studios than bungie. There's not a chance in hell marathon cost anywhere close to only 100mil…that figure next multiplying 2-3x…then more on top for marketing…and not forgetting ofcourse Sony paid billions to acquire the studio on the promise that marathon held.

 

[Saber]

Internet Army, do your thing!!!!

They should reaaally not talk about unemployed in an age where even showing good numbers results in layoffs. Just a tip, keep your mouth shut and do your work. Internet does not forgive comments like this, even more when the unemployement hits you instead and you start crying about how internet is mean.

 

[Kronark]

We've seen Sony's insane budgets from smaller and more responsible studios than bungie. There's not a chance in hell marathon cost anywhere close to only 100mil…that figure next multiplying 2-3x…then more on top for marketing…and not forgetting ofcourse Sony paid billions to acquire the studio on the promise that marathon held.

I agree. It seems common for AAA games to follow the movie industry model of 50% production / 50% marketing. I don't have any confirmation of those numbers in Marathon's case but it would not surprise me if they spent 100 million on marketing though I haven't personally seen many ads for it. Sony may have decided to cut their losses with this one and retrieve those marketing costs.

I was just trying to show that even using very conservative cost estimations that Marathon has very likely already failed to hit profitability based on performance we can see. There are many people in this thread that for some reason believe Marathon is a complete success because it didn't immediately shut down.

 

[pepeno]

Lets not compare a free game to a paid one, a lot of games dont pass 100k, actually 99% of them dont

Obviously its not good, but dont act like its normal to pass it

When Destiny 2 launched on Steam it had 300k player on launch. That too was paid. Also Highguard game was literally from no name dev. They didn't have any marketing other than Game Awards trailer people mocked.

No matter how you look on it, Bungie just lost fans.

And no wonder. Asking 60$ every new expansion and then cutting out content you paid for will do that for over years.

 

[tkminus]

36 pages. I though people retired already.

 

[delishcaek]

top CCU in a day, you do know how this works right?

we're not going to look at "work day" numbers

I do know, but its not a fair way to assess things, use daily peak CCU. Otherwise i can say Arc is already below 75K on average since it goes down to 50k now at night and is dying

You see the dotted lines in both graphs? That is the average. Marathon sits at a 47k-ish average. Arc Raiders at 120k-ish.

 

[Fake]

"unemployed"

This dev one month later:

 

[Last Hearth]

Does this include CEO pay out or are there sources for pay data?

I work in the VFX industry and I can tell you artists get paid as little as the studio can get away with. I am sometimes shocked at what talented individuals are getting paid. I would expect Bungie to be a little better on average given their bolstering about initiatives but I would still be shocked if their average artist comp was over 60-70k annually. Some seniors or leads will make a healthy deal more but a majority of them are going to be minimum pay art slaves.

Payroll taxes, benefits such as health insurance, 401k matching, etc. The cost of an employee is often nearly double of base salary.

 

[Kronark]

36 pages. I though people retired already.

I am an inflatable tube man fueled entirely by a consistent flow of hatred for dick head executives. I am here for another 100 pages.

 

[falconhoof]

Internet Army, do your thing!!!!

This is where younger developers need good mentorship. Those who's careers have developed during the time when oversharing thoughts on social media has become normalized are really failing themselves and their co-workers. It's not always younger developers, I know of more senior ones too who have fallen into the trap of needing to log every neural blip and brain fart they have online.

We had the same thing recently with the Highguard developer who felt that they needed to correct the gamers and try telling them that they were wrong and the game was great. I guarantee that there were people on the team who saw that tweet and shook their head in disappointment.

These posts help no one but they do harm relations in the industry.

 

[pepeno]

36 pages. I though people retired already.

Hey mate, There's at least 2-3 weeks of fun until they will shut down servers.

Sarcasm aside... Honestly I don't see pathway for Bungie to stay afloat after such bombs. They spend 10 years on it, Destiny 2 barely anyone plays anymore. This was supposed to be their next big game for next 10 years.

Sony killed studios for less than this.

 

[falconhoof]

Payroll taxes, benefits such as health insurance, 401k matching, etc. The cost of an employee is often nearly double of base salary.

This. Rule of thumb when developing the budget is to double a salary so it includes all other costs outside of wages that an employee costs.

Bigger AAA studios spend a lot more money than smaller ones. Fancier office, more perks, higher salaries, more software licensees, more hardware, more expensive running costs.

 

[GooseMan69]

It seems that Fortnite and GTA Online are outliers when it comes to being infinitely self sustaining live service games. Now we're seeing that even the big boys like Bungie are having to go back to the well, but said well is starting to run dry. There are a very small handful of big players who have a complete monopoly on the genre while everyone else fights for scraps. Even the most arrogant executives will have no choice but to face that reality.

 

[IAmAnAgnostic]

Trending lower by the day. Currently far below the other Sony Live Service game.

 

[OuterLimits]

I just can't see how. One of the things I'm looking at is where it's ranking, not necessarily raw numbers. Currently it's not even in the top 30 games being played (33rd at the time of this post). For the investment put into this game by Sony that's a massive failure. If they manage to pull this one out of the gutter it will be one hell of a comeback.

Yeah, it does seem to have a hardcore group of fans which prevents a complete flop but Sony didn't spend 3.6 billion buying Bungie with the hope they would make a GaaS that only appeals to a niche crowd.

It definitely seems the significant player base is in America based on the daily player peaks. The game also seems to be underperforming(or perhaps even completely bombing) on consoles.

The game isn't very accessible to casuals/new players so not sure how Bungie can easily turn things around. How long a runway will Sony even give them to do so?

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Typically I would agree but the Bungie name still holds a LOT of weight for whatever reasons.

According to what evidence though? Nintendo gamers don't support Nintendo games like this. Look at Breath of the Wild sales and Metroid Prime 4 sales. What evidence suggests that a meaningful percentage of gamers are "Bungie fans"?

I think essentially everyone buys games that look interesting to them, not games that are made by a certain developer.

 

[MMaRsu]

Trending lower by the day. Currently far below the other Sony Live Service game.

But the game is doing great! The playerbase is stabalizing and in 30 years we'll finally be able to appreciate Bungie for what they tried with Marathon

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

But well, in any case despite these companies wanting/needing to expand to new audiences, I assume a good portion of the users of their new games continues being fans of their previous games.

I'd be interested in seeing data that supports this. I never thought Marathon would appeal to Destiny players. High stakes PvP and low stakes PvE don't seem like much overlap

 

[TVexperto]

Internet Army, do your thing!!!!

Im working 60 hours a week in the office, checking this thread every hour keeps me alive

 

[CowboyLou]

According to what evidence though? Nintendo gamers don't support Nintendo games like this. Look at Breath of the Wild sales and Metroid Prime 4 sales. What evidence suggests that a meaningful percentage of gamers are "Bungie fans"?

I think essentially everyone buys games that look interesting to them, not games that are made by a certain developer.

Not sure exactly where I come down on this, it's certainly true a lot of the time but Bungie might be an exception. They spent two decades cultivating a certain vibe, a certain very unique and specific gameplay feel, and a certain type of (some would say parasocial) relationship with their fanbase which eventually came back to bite them in the ass. Yes there were missteps, but Destiny had a run that most live service games could only dream of yet it'll never be enough for some.

I don't know how many gamers would be likely to check out a game just because it's Bungie, but a lot of gamers are cheering for it for fail because it's Bungie.

 

[Ristifer]

Pack it up guy's, everything is fine it's on the "low" end of solid

So is my shit.

Marathon's doomed.