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Marathon releases to 87,000 players on Steam and 87% Positive Reviews (sponsored by coachmcguirk91)
DeathGuise
Member
Can someone explain to me what the deal is with this game? I have zero context and looking at these posts, I seriously cannot tell if it's good or bad. I can't tell if people are being tongue in cheek or sincere.
StreetsofBeige
Member
Steam CCU creeping down this morning. Both 9 am and 10 am hourly checks vs yesterday are similar at about -9% each. If the trend holds up then the 60k peak yesterday should drop to about 55k today. And the 21k low point late night should drop below 20k.
But rankings as a whole are still important apples to apples time slots. So once the CCUs start dropping, that 15th ranking will drop to 20th, 25th etc...
To be fair, Marathon is a USA EST skewed game. So it's best CCU and ranking will be around 10-11 pm. At that time it peaks about 15th place at 60k lately.
But rankings as a whole are still important apples to apples time slots. So once the CCUs start dropping, that 15th ranking will drop to 20th, 25th etc...
Hollywood Hitman
Gold Member
It's a game designed around a genre that is simply super niche. You go into a match and run around a map gathering guns or materials etc and real players can kill you and you lose everything, or bots can kill you as well and you lose everything. The goal is to go in and gather the loot, and extract yourself out before getting killed. Rinse and repeat. Most of us in this thread don't like the game at all.
StreetsofBeige
Member
- Big Bungie shooter
- Steam CCU (concurrent player count) disappointing for a Bungie game peaking 88k on launch day last Thursday
- Has trended down since then even on launch weekend, while some other hit games like ARC Raiders or recently launched games like RE9 or Slay the Spire 2 have much higher CCU and could be trending up during their first week
- Bungie told reviewers not to publish reviews till the end of the month so they could release more maps and content first. A small number of sites did anyway and reviews are meh
- But gamer user review scores are much higher
- Since Bungie hires lots of people and both Destiny 2 and Marathon dont have great CCU (Destiny 2 used to have much bigger numbers), people are expecting more layoffs. Bungie had two rounds of layoffs a year or two ago already when Destiny was huge. So if the games both have weak sales now, people are thinking another wave of layoffs will happen again
GermanZepp
Member
Folks that play it seems to be quite happy with it. It has the good Bungie gunplay. The complains regarding the game are confusing UI and fonts, some umbalanced quest, hard onboarding for casuals. Other people point out ulgy aesthetics, niche genre, etc. plenty stuff have being said in here and in the OT.
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Zacfoldor
Gold Member
So what I'm hearing about what the game is(and keep in mind I haven't played it):
1. PvP is super sweaty
2. After getting to level 20 if you aren't better than average at shooters you might have a hard time
3. There is really nothing here for casual or pve players after the refund window, basically level 15-20 is big boy pants time.
4. It is very early in the season but we are already starting to see frustration as players are outclassed = Marathon will feature mandatory, full-account wipes every three months to coincide with the start of each new season to combat this but some people feel the imbalance is already being felt pretty early
5. the maps are setup in such a way that killing even beginner characters is almost a necessity for vets because you cannot leave players on the field who could take you out so you don't have that comradery of a game like Arc Raiders but also I've heard someone say(maybe Gerstman?) that they find Marathon less stressful(everyone's motivations are clear and simple) as the neurosis of betrayal in Arc is real.
So it really depends on what kind of player you are. If you are super into PvP it is probably worth checking out(the dedicated crew who like it, seem to REALLY like it but keep in mind there is a long honeymoon phase for any gaas)....but this is going to be a lot harder to learn and get into than any souls/pve game. I think a pure PvP game like this will have a limited audience but it can grow if they add content to bring new players in. Steam numbers have not been encouraging tbh.
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Hollywood Hitman
Gold Member
I don't think it's pvp players tho that gravitate to this more or less the ones that just seek that nonstop exhausting type of thrill, I'm a pvp guy through and through... Thousands upon thousands spanning since they were invented and pvp to me isn't the draw here I'd say.
The pvp is actually the ONLY thing I personally would like it's everything else surrounding it I just hate.
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PeteBull
Member
CrustyBritches
Gold Member
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StreetsofBeige
Member
For these kinds of shooter games, there will be a limited base of gamers.
The majority of shooter fans just want to shoot people, do simple objectives modes, or be last man standing in a BR game. Not everyone wants to mess around looting boxes doing mass inventory control, getting to an exit point without getting killed, or losing gear if you lose.
Dr. Samuel Hayden
Member
This is what success looks like, chuds.another day another 2500 people quiting
Kronark
Member
Basically we're all here to watch this game slowly sink. Why you may ask? It varies from person to person but:
- Some people hate Marathon as a game specifically (Art style, mechanics, etc).
- Some people hate extraction shooters / the extraction shooter trend.
- Some people hate live service games / trends.
- Some people hate Bungie as a studio specifically (ex-Destiny fans).
- Some people hate that the Marathon IP was turned into a live service trend chasing game.
- Some people feel the industry is arrogant and want to see it learn a lesson.
- Some people feel Sony specifically is arrogant and want to see them learn a lesson.
- Some people feel games journalists are arrogant and Marathon is caught in the crossfire.
- Some people are just here to troll (The Bungie defence force has been hilariously cringe at times).
With that said Marathon itself looks like an ok game? Maybe a little slow / boring in places and underwhelming in terms of scope given it's dev costs / time. It just seems to largely be a victim of backlash because it represents executives yet again chasing trends to cash in.
Hollywood Hitman
Gold Member
My dude, what a nice summary
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Timberwolf25
Member
Kacho
Gold Member
Yep. Wonder if it will rise over the weekend.
Hollywood Hitman
Gold Member
StreetsofBeige
Member
It'll drop today based on trending. Should be about 55k-ish.
The weekend peak bump is all over the place with other popular games. But it typically ranges from 0 to +10%. And thats for games that have been around a while already. That might not sound like a lot but it really is because there's a lot more gamers as a whole playing on the weekend as the graphs show a much more holistic bump across all hours (fatter wedge). This makes sense since it's the weekend and people can play at any hour, while on weekdays, gamers skew hard to peak times which is in the evening. But even then, the weekend peak is still higher for many games.
If Marathon is trending down daily at lets say -5% on avg and it gets bumped up, it might hold onto flat on the weekend vs today. But when Monday comes around, it'll probably drop again -5-10%.
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Kacho
Gold Member
Wasn't Bungie supposed to drop some fresh new content this week?Doubt it, this baby has a one way ticket to the south pole
Hollywood Hitman
Gold Member
Ah maybe so, I hope so actually... That'll probably give us another 40 pages of entertainment
Eesha
Member
You got me
GermanZepp
Member
falconhoof
Member
Me.
Marathon seems fine for the right audience. It's got a foundation that could be built upon. I respect that they ran public tests and clearly improved the game based on the feedback. But I'm struggling to see how this product is a fit for Bungie's size and budget. Many of my issues are a collation of repeated industry mistakes of blowing big money at bad ideas, Marathon is far from the worst of them, just the potential next in line of the GaaS cash bonfire.
The cost of all these billion dollar chasing projects has been jobs, the chance for cheaper and more creative games to happen, the chance for a more stable industry, a more humble industry, a chance to see genuine innovation that makes use of the hardware we have, not some dangling carrot of a future.
AAA Games industry where's your innovation?
- Battle Royale? Nope, it was a mod of a mod
- Survival Games? Nope, it was a mod
- Extraction? Nope
You fund these too big to fail projects based on historic data that take years to make and are often too late to the party when they arrive. You don't give ideas time to prove themselves, you cut staff and kill games too late or too early based on how the wind is blowing that week. You ignore gamers, you tell them they're wrong, then you prove them right as products fail, then you blame them for it. Then you repeat your mistake out of spite, hubris, whatever, showing that lessons are slow to be learned.
Gaming has never had a bigger audience that's easier to reach. We should have our bellies full of goodness from a mature and well learned industry who's learned from past mistakes as to not repeat them. Games should be built for their audience and not some unobtainable number.
Marathon is a sweaty game. It should embrace that. Polish the edges to make sure that it finds everyone it should. Make those gamers happy. Be happy with the numbers it earned. Be not for everyone, let other games make other people happy.
yurinka
Member
I think it's more like this:
"Some players are arrogant and want to see games failing, people laid off and studios shut down because are childish fanboys who hate that company or because they don't like the games where these companies need to work on to make sustainable investments of hundreds of dollars in AAA games"
I think considering Bungie's expertise in scifi FPS, they tried to make another somewhat similar project that didn't directly vampirize Destiny, so instead of focusing on mainstream PvE tried to focus on hardcore PvP.
Something I assume somewhat smaller and cheaper but hopefully with a bigger ROI. The thing is, the project and Bungie had some struggles (nothing rare in gamedev) including a major project reboot, a game director change in mid development, layoffs in the middle, an acquisition, delays, the controversy created with the art plagiarism that required additional changes. So I assume all this may have increased the budget to way above where they originally considered.
On top of this, they've been unlucky to have Arc Raiders achieved what they were aiming for: to bring the extraction shooter to the masses. Which combined with an unusual giant horde of haters wishing Bungie fails in whatever they do, wishing Sony fails in whatever they do, particularly if multiplatform, MP or GaaS didn't let it shine as it could.
So I think they've been lucky having been able to release the game, and in fact having a pretty great game at launch with potential for the future, doing I assume somewhat decent / just ok numbers at launch but I assume lower than the ones they expected.
We'll have to wait and see a bigger picture with more data from PC and particularly how it did perform in console to see if Sony is happy enough with the numbers and the project will last.
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Hollywood Hitman
Gold Member
You wouldn't happen to have blue, purple or pink hair and septum ring would you?
GAAS trash game made by a huge dev like Bungie is doing meh numbers despite being the first new game after almost a decade of Destiny 2
Timberwolf25
Member
As the dev/studio, it's up to you to cater to your customers and not for your customers to cater to you. It isn't arrogant nor is it childish to NOT support something you don't want.
If you choose to make something the consumer doesn't want, that's on you.
Quite a few devs have tried the blame the gamers excuse....it hasn't worked out yet.
Plague Doctor
Member
The cope has been glorious here and elsewhere.
I love free entertainment.
For me, Marathon is already F2P
Last Hearth
Member
Can we not turn people hating a product and the corporations who make such products into a soapbox about employee losing jobs.
By that reasoning no one can ever criticize any product, every business has employees who can lose their jobs if the product they make doesn't sell.
Kronark
Member
If you think anything Bungie is doing is "Sustainable" or "Smart Business", I have a bridge to sell you.
I want to see bad businesses burn to the ground so that capital can be better allocated to developers capable of doing their fucking jobs. I also just hate seeing a lot of player spending in the industry be allocated to loot boxes and skins because these asshole companies have brought in actual psychologists to manipulate people and target fucking children. In any sane society the Roblox executives would be in prison.
Get off your high horse. There's nothing wrong with people bad at their jobs losing those jobs and investors making greedy stupid investments losing that money.
Hollywood Hitman
Gold Member
Guardian Monkey
Member
The game is good. People here just like to get mad at it because they are easily offended.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
If Marathon fails, I'll never forgive any of you.Some people just want to see another Sony Gaas failure so we can lol atMen_in_Boxes
Guardian Monkey
Member
Timberwolf25
Member
The people here are such a small subset of gamers. The numbers it's doing has next to nothing to do with this thread or even GAF in general.
Hollywood Hitman
Gold Member
yurinka
Member
If you ever play Marathon you'll notice it doesn't feature lootboxes and it doesn't children, it's a PEGI 16 / ESRB T game instad.
Despite Lightfall underperforming, Destiny 2 was one of the top grossing games of the year in PC since it was acquired, after Lightfall did some changes and The Final Shape was a hugely successful and praised expansion. Destiny Rising got released with big success, TeamLFG got their project successfully incubated and seems will release it next year and Marathon got released, even if with dealy and not doing stellar numbers (very likely they didn't expect it to be the next Fortnite) but if they keep supporting it very likely will be profitable in the near future.
They also contributed with moving valuable staff to central SIE and PS Studios divisions, and helping the other GaaS teams, helping SIE first party games aprox. double their revenue which now around 40% comes from GaaS.
So yes, while not perfect sounds like a profitable business that over time will recoup, something normal because only retarded people who have no idea about business thinks that an acquisition of over a couple billions gets recouped in 2-3 years.
And no, these people aren't bad at their job. They are some of the best ones in the industry making FPS games. You thinking they are bad at their job because you hate their company or games just means you're an entitled random who has no idea what you're talking about, and no idea on how difficult is to make games. And even more AAA ones, and even more great AAA games, and even more successful great AAA games.
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Arsic
Loves his juicy stink trail scent
Reddit found a way to change what the messages say for an easy to use click url and generate images. Saw a lot of funny ones.
Game is good. 80 hours in.
Joe Cool
Gold Member
Kacho
Gold Member
You've sunk 80 hours in a week?
Chuck Berry
Gold Member
Some people just want to lol at
That would be me
BigBeauford
Member
Be real for a second. GAF's batting average is for sure above .750 when it comes to the barometer if whether a game succeds or fails. Perhaps the biggest recent "whiff" was Assassins Creed Shadows. And that game didn't shatter the world (in fact Ubisoft fell apart after release).
Orbital2060
Member
I wish all the best for Marathon but what a coincidence to have an indie launch at the same time as a high profile first-party GAAS, and then go on to knock it out of the park.
The games industry in a nutshell right now.
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CentralScrutinizer
Member
Now THATS unemployed and maidenless behavior
Arsic
Loves his juicy stink trail scent
I work from home. Game is crack. Pure dopamine.
Arsic
Loves his juicy stink trail scent
CentralScrutinizer
Member
Are you directing a mid GAAS game you need market research on?