Forbes: Marathon Info - Bungie's "Morale is in “free-fall” - “The vibes have never been worse.”

adamsapple said:
www.forbes.com

New ‘Marathon’ Info: Bungie Morale, Launch Worries And Changing Plans

After a rough playtest and now plagiarism confirmation, Bungie is changing some Marathon plans and internally, things are bad.
www.forbes.com www.forbes.com

New 'Marathon' Info: Bungie Morale, Launch Worries And Changing Plans


  • 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.
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I couldn't give a fig about any FPS MP/GaaS going down the drain, and their developers and publishers with it.

They robbed me of great FPS campaigns and inmersive sims, lots of them, so all I have for them is a big smile. 😁
 
I don't get why they just didn't go with the safest option and make Destiny 3? Nevertheless, they shall enjoy the fruits of their labour :messenger_beaming:

Also, I can't believe they were the ones to oversee other studio's GAAS games and provide feedback and even probably have a say on its release. I really can't wait to see the reception once it's released lol and I'm pretty sure delaying the thing won't really make a difference either way.
 
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Really makes you admire the editorial vision at Forbes, there's always room in the budget for videogame gossip and gaslighting.
 
Topher said:
Imagine all the awesome Sony single player games we could have had instead of watching all these dumpster fires.
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This. I think it will benefit us, the gamers. Sony will learn its lesson the hard way but in the end, it will be for the best.
 
KyoZz said:
This. I think it will benefit us, the gamers. Sony will learn its lesson the hard way but in the end, it will be for the best.
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I think PlayStation is due for PS3 level of course correction. Unfortunately there isn't a 360 around to help out with that.
 
That plagiarism is a huge problem for Bungie as every single asset and artwork now has to go through an audit and as someone pointed out, Marathon has lost its identity. Shame though as if this game flops, it is over for them.

Jim and to some extent Hulst are absolute disasters for this company: Bend studio GAAS dead, Concord & studio dead, Bluepoint project dead, ND's GAAS TLoU dead, Fairgame$ lol - Sony is lucky as it can soak so much damage because they are diversified and operate in multiple countries and also are riding the PS4 success but I wonder how much more can you bleed? MS is stepping up with a lot of good titles, Nintendo is coming super hot with NS2.

The only good I see for Sony is that sweet, sweet cut from GTA 6 revenue that probably will fund more shitty GAAS. lol, F
 
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I personally don't read nor give a shit what paul tassi thinks. Dude is a microsoft shill who came after the black myth: wukong devs and accused them of lying about not having exclusivity with playstation. He's a hack.
 
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TheAmazingSpiderMan said:
I don't get why they just didn't go with the safest option and make Destiny 3? Nevertheless, they shall enjoy the fruits of their labour :messenger_beaming:
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For Destiny 3 to work, they have to give a proper plot. Unfortunately when it comes to creating new story...

thegamepost.com

Bungie Faces Copyright Lawsuit For Allegedly Copying Storyline, Characters In Destiny 2’s 'Red War' Campaign

Bungie is being sued in a copyright infringement lawsuit claiming that the developer copied key elements of Plaintiff's original work for Destiny 2's "Red War" storyline.
thegamepost.com thegamepost.com
 
Bungie problems started with Activision. Tbh since halo 4 it had cracks on the studio quality.

Later they said most of Destiny problems were because of evil Activision but in the when they got independent we saw the problem is Bungie(vault content idea was the biggest scam ever).

And after all that Sony desperate after good ms acquisitions, made the stupid move of buying out Bungie.

With 4bn they could have bought capcom.
 
yurinka said:
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.


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.
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It's always interesting. You can make up the entire article from nothing but if true and he does have contacts at bungie or contacts that have contacts at bungie, these people are doing their coworkers or former coworkers a real disservice by continuously talking to him.
 
Topher said:
Imagine all the awesome Sony single player games we could have had instead of watching all these dumpster fires.
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This is one of, if not the most frustrating aspect to witness from Sony's live-service push.

If there's ever a reveal of how much money was spent on Marathon 2025, people can only imagine how many possibly cheaper single-player titles could have been made for that amount.
Or worse yet, just do that right now with the $3.6 Billion Sony spent on acquiring Bungie.
 
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They have to show off the long-term progression stuff, and it's gotta be good.

If whatever they show next ain't great and if it doesn't get people buzzin', then they have to delay it. No point pushing this out with no chance of success.

I assume they will show something in June that will determine it's future.
 
Neon Xenon said:
This is one of, if not the most frustrating aspect to witness from Sony's live-service push.

If there's ever a reveal of how much money was spent on Marathon 2025, people can only imagine how many possibly cheaper single-player titles could have been made for that amount.
Or worse yet, just do that with the $3.6 Billion Sony spent on acquiring Bungie.
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I can't imagine being the execs at Bungie who made the sale happen. They pulled off the heist of the century.
 
ChorizoPicozo said:
bCqKzKq.jpeg

this ain't GAF
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Have you ever been on the official Destiny forums when Destiny 1 launched?
It was a complete shitshow for the first few months, with a massive divide between the community and Bungie (with Deej in particular as he was community manager).

Those things don't always mean a game is doomed.

Pretty much all the criticism can be solved/addressed before the game launches even.

Next week they will show the game again with updated visuals and if they manage to impress the crowd, the vast majority of people will move on from the current issue with that artist.
 
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Bungie is such a joke.

Didn't they also botch the entirety of Destiny 2 as well? Basically taking away content that players paid for?
 
This is so fascinating. Might be less damaging for Bungie to pay her a fat check, announce that they have officially licensed it and keep the visual identity than revamp the whole damn thing.

Hope she lawyers up so they don't get away with some token BS.
 
viveks86 said:
This is so fascinating. Might be less damaging for Bungie to pay her a fat check, announce that they have officially licensed it and keep the visual identity than revamp the whole damn thing.

Hope she lawyers up so they don't get away with some token BS.
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I can't imagine why this hasn't happened yet, unless they are seriously offering under market/time/effort value or the artist is holding it for ransom.
 
Time to abort it and make it a PvP mode in destiny 3. Gambit v2
 
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notseqi said:
I can't imagine why this hasn't happened yet, unless they are seriously offering under market/time/effort value or the artist is holding it for ransom.
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Maybe it's not even that big of an issue.

Going by Bungie's official statement from the livestream yesterday, the issue was rather minor, but they decided not to livestream the game until next week to make extra sure they removed all of the artist content.

Next week they're going to livestream internal playtesting with improved exterior visuals and lighting.
So it doesn't seem like they even need to completely rework the game or anything.
 
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ChorizoPicozo said:
oh, some people watched it and still refuse to see how dire the situation is.

:messenger_winking_tongue:@Killjoy-NL
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The game could be salvageable but it needs delayed and reworked some

The worst thing (in my eyes) they could have done yesterday was come on stream and act like some things needs fine tuning but we are good to launch

Its not even close to being a real game to compete with ARC Raiders

And I know people can play more than one game but I am willing to bet not a lot play both Marathon and ARC

Also there is a strong feeling we get a new Battlefield reveal early in June and it launching close to this window

And I can promise BF right now not even announced was more fun to play than the Marathon Alpha was (for me)
 
HeisenbergFX4 said:
The game could be salvageable but it needs delayed and reworked some

The worst thing (in my eyes) they could have done yesterday was come on stream and act like some things needs fine tuning but we are good to launch

Its not even close to being a real game to compete with ARC Raiders

And I know people can play more than one game but I am willing to bet not a lot play both Marathon and ARC

Also there is a strong feeling we get a new Battlefield reveal early in June and it launching close to this window

And I can promise BF right now not even announced was more fun to play than the Marathon Alpha was (for me)
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How many gaas titles this gen that had doomed written all over their dev cicle got to be saved and achieve success ? Honest question.
 
Shambolic. The falloff is mental

We all know the scenario. They will release a shite game and update it along the way till it becomes good. Nothing new here
 
Bernardougf said:
How many gaas titles this gen that had doomed written all over their dev cicle got to be saved and achieve success ? Honest question.
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Which leads to what would be considered a success?

Just my 2 cents in no way in its current form will Marathon sniff HellDivers 2 success

As is I keep saying Marathon is in a lot of trouble

Sony didn't listen with Concord, they still have time to try and save this game.
 
notseqi said:
I can't imagine why this hasn't happened yet, unless they are seriously offering under market/time/effort value or the artist is holding it for ransom.
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If she is smart, she would take her time to find a hotshot lawyer willing to do this for a percentage of the settlement and no upfront cost. Brand identity is worth 6 or even 7 figures
 
The fps genre is one of the stalest. It needs real innovation. Goldeneye was innovative. Turok was innovative. Metroid prime was innovative (yea, ex Turok devs), Modern Warfare 4 was innovative. Why would I play Marathon? What do they have?
 
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