After a rough playtest and now plagiarism confirmation, Bungie is changing some Marathon plans and internally, things are bad.
www.forbes.com
- The public explanation for the art theft, one ex-employee taking things in 2020, is the same one being given internally at Bungie among the rank and file.
- Sony and Bungie legal are now sorting through this and there is unlikely to be any much new information as all of this continues to unfold. It is not clear how long an "audit" will take of the assets to remove or find any more plagiarism, as it's an expansive enough process to have Bungie not even show any footage at all in its recent livestream.
- Morale is in "free-fall" across all departments, and "the vibes have never been worse." Everyone has the same concerns about what happens to Bungie as a studio if Marathon bombs, which is something they absolutely cannot afford.
- There are not even hints or jokes about a delay from the September release date internally. With that said, it is entirely possible, if not likely, those conversations are happening privately between higher-up Sony and Bungie leadership. It's unclear what the plan is to launch the game in a "now actively hostile environment" just a few months from now, or how to turn that around.
Oh, Paul Tassi.
With his articles you never know if everthing are anti Sony lies and FUD, or if a portion or all of that is true. I think Bloomberg will hire him soon.
But this article sounds realistic and possible, at least for the most part.
I'm confused as to how one decides that this niche genre is a good idea to invest in as their next major IP. This is the type of game that is made while another major IP is in its prime and getting a lot of success.
Meanwhile Destiny 2 is wrapping up and they are going to pin their hopes on this?! Game is probably going to be very good for what it is… and that's a niche extraction shooter that a small percentage of people will play.
Strange decision.
If a genre is niche or not depending on the size of the userbase and the money it makes.
I'd say the extraction shooter thing started in a small portion of The Division, that was only a small thing in the game. Other than it, as I remember all extraction shooters have been a very small thing in terms of revenue and playerbase with the exception of Escape from Tarkov, which had a big success and is massive in Twitch.
Destiny is a game for SP players, coop players, casual PvP players and a bit for hardcore PvP players for both PC and console. Extraction shooters are a hardcore PvP thing for PC players, so a smaller, more niche audience.
And hopefully differentiated enough to have two shooter GaaS IPs that aim different audiences so don't cannibalize themselves and helps Bungie grow their audience and appeal more (and different) player types.
Marathon is trying to expand this subgenre to console and a wider, more casual/mainstream audience compared to the other extraction shooters. But still, compared to Destiny, a smaller and more -relatively niche- hardcore PvP audience, even if it may end being huge too.
At the same time they work in Marathon, they'll continue working in Destiny. Last week the next Destiny 2 expansions were the top 1 preorder in basically all non-Asian PSN stores. It continues being a top 10 top grossing game in PC every year and also continues being huge in console. They'll continue working in Destiny 2 for a while, and at some point in the future (not soon) they'll release some other Destiny game, I assume Destiny 3.