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

The words "Death March" came to mind while watching it.

My grandma's cremation had more uplifting vibes.



Uh Oh Wrestling GIF by WWE
 
I think the only road here is to come out with a public announcement of pulling the release date 'for now' while we listen to community feedback and strive to make this game the one we dream of and we look forward to updating you in the future.

And probably just permanently shelving the game while teasing a Destiny 3 promo of some kind in 12 months time.
 
Stupid, they should've just made Destiny 3 I only know one person in my sphere interested in Marathon. I tried my best to get into it but it looks boring plus I don't trust Bungie to launch a feature complete game I'm already in an abusive relationship for years with Destiny 😅 no way I'll go through that with them in another game.
 
  • 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.
I don't think any amount of delays could help this game.
 
bungie better comes up with destiny 3 (and being good), otherwise they are fucked.

Worst acquisition from Jim
Destiny 3 is a 5 year - optimistically - project. That's not going to do anything for them anytime soon.

This game needs to be delayed quite a bit though. The one thing it had going for it was the cool art direction that is basically non-existent now.
 
I don't think any amount of delays could help this game.
Agreed.

Even if Bungie fixes all the gameplay issues and resolves the stolen art debacle with antireal making her happy, this game is tainted forever. And like everything in life, it's always a bigger thing when people can see it with their own eyes.

Let's say Bungie got caught using some copied netcode. Some guy breaks into the game sees netcode is a copy of his work and he lists 1000s of lines of code. I dont think anyone would care. But if it's something visual, people can easily understand it better and see the colours and designs being duplicated and then take sides.

Oddly, the other times Bungie got caught stealing art over the years never blew up like this. Maybe it's because Marathon was already half trolled on so people piled on. Or perhaps it's because the theft is way more than just a nerf gun pic. But this time it blew up everywhere in 24 hours across all game sites and popular streamers.

It's so big, even the Bungie guy in the chat openly admitted it and apologized, and Bungie admitted it on one of their Marathon twitter profiles within 24 hours.

Sony can still release the game and see how many dedicated fans will play the game not caring about the theft, but everyone will rag on it until it disappears like Concord/Firewalk closing down. Thats when everyone died off talking about it.

Making it worse for Bungie is that the game still has 4 months to go and a beta test later. So that's a lot of ammo and runway for people to still rag on it. At least for Concord, the beta test laughed at was only 2 or 3 weeks till launch. But this time there's 4 months of filler time.
 
I usually roll my eyes whenever I hear someone talk about the "corporate greed" but I think this right here is probably the best example of it. Sony spent 4 billion on Bungie, 400M on Concord, and who knows how much on Fairgame and Factions and all their other GaaS projects thinking they were gonna 10x their money and pop out another Fortnite. 5 years later and billions of dollars wasted and they have absolutely nothing to show for it.

They could've made a dozen single player games for franchises that millions of people everywhere love and adore and yeah I know they would've made only a fraction of the money they hoped to make with their GaaS ambitions but they would've still been in the green. Instead of that they're now billions in the red and outside of Helldivers 2 every single project failed. And HD2 alone won't come anywhere close to justifying the billions they spent.

Corporate greed.

And the only thing saved them was the fact that Xbox is a dumpster fire that's been burning for ages and Nintendo switched focus to the handheld market and cornered it. If the core market starts to migrate away from consoles to handhelds, Sony is cooked. A PlayStation handheld has no chance competing with Nintendo in 2025.
 
I usually roll my eyes whenever I hear someone talk about the "corporate greed" but I think this right here is probably the best example of it. Sony spent 4 billion on Bungie, 400M on Concord, and who knows how much on Fairgame and Factions and all their other GaaS projects thinking they were gonna 10x their money and pop out another Fortnite. 5 years later and billions of dollars wasted and they have absolutely nothing to show for it.

They could've made a dozen single player games for franchises that millions of people everywhere love and adore and yeah I know they would've made only a fraction of the money they hoped to make with their GaaS ambitions but they would've still been in the green. Instead of that they're now billions in the red and outside of Helldivers 2 every single project failed. And HD2 alone won't come anywhere close to justifying the billions they spent.

Corporate greed.

And the only thing saved them was the fact that Xbox is a dumpster fire that's been burning for ages and Nintendo switched focus to the handheld market and cornered it. If the core market starts to migrate away from consoles to handhelds, Sony is cooked. A PlayStation handheld has no chance competing with Nintendo in 2025.
No wonder Sony's profit margins sunk like a rock the past few years.

Their top lines sales have grown phenomenally. But their bottom line profits of about $2B have stayed the same for 6-7 years (with exception of Covid bump to $3B one year).

When companies double sales, profits should go up too. But at their gaming division it's barely moved. Too much money blown on R&D dev on failed projects.

And they keep gunning for it too. As crazy as it sounds, they bought and shut down Deviation games lead by Jason Blundell. I guess nothing was going right, so they shut them down. Next thing you know, Sony opens up another studio called Dark Outlaw lead by Jason Blundell again making another GAAS game. Weird.

And for Bungie, the studio is tanking, layoffs etc... Instead of just being modest with what's happening, what do they do? They carve out Bungie people to work at a new LFG studio for another GAAS game.

So you can see what Sony is trying to do. The GAAS push is still there, but to minimize any negativity they just shift people around into newly branded studios.
 
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No wonder Sony's profit margins sunk like a rock the past few years.

Their top lines sales have grown phenomenally. But their bottom line profits of about $2B have stayed the same for 6-7 years (with exception of Covid bump to $3B one year).

When companies double sales, profits should go up too. But at their gaming division it's barely moved. Too much money blown on R&D dev on failed projects.

And they keep gunning for it too. As crazy as it sounds, they bought and shut down Deviation games lead by Jason Blundell. I guess nothing was going right, so they shut them down. Next thing you know, Sony opens up another studio called Dark Outlaw lead by Jason Blundell again making another GAAS game. Weird.

And for Bungie, the studio is tanking, layoffs etc... Instead of just being modest with what's happening, what do they do? They carve out Bungie people to work at a new LFG studio for another GAAS game.

So you can see what Sony is trying to do. The GAAS push is still there, but to minimize any negativity they just shift people around into newly branded studios.
It's always been "arrogant Sony" when they get greedy, but now it's more like "retarded Sony" if they're still on this GaaS bullshit.
 
What idiot thought going on with that twitch stream after all the plagiarim news was a good idea?

stupid sex and the city GIF
I'm assuming they did it because they already delayed it once and were worried delaying it again would equate to a negative reaction? But yeah, I'm not sure why they didn't connect a negative reaction to the whole plagiarism thing, lol. They're just doing everything to themselves.
 
I don't understand why these companies keep making shit nobody wants. Make a really cool single player Marathon with a good MP component, and I guarantee it would have sold better than this will. But no, they've gotta chase that GAAS money.
 
The only person I know that uses LatinX is a Salvadorian Woman that uses her husband's 300K job a year and her Instagram to get companies to let her shill products. Not even joking.
That sounds about right. Gotta keep up certain appearances for the shill money.

I've never ever known anyone in real life to ever say this. All the Latin folks I've ever known think it's absurd.

Man, at this point I'm just more interested in everything revolving around Marathon's outcome more than the game itself. What a goddamn mess.
 
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I don't understand why these companies keep making shit nobody wants. Make a really cool single player Marathon with a good MP component, and I guarantee it would have sold better than this will. But no, they've gotta chase that GAAS money.
Its a funny thing because way back, the big name shooters had good SP campaign and MP modes. Pick your poison which one one to focus on, or be a gamer who likes both and blow through SP on a weekend and then MP for the rest.

For one price, you get the best of both modes. And somehow studios could figure out how to do both well and on time and budget. And back then, online gaming was a new thing on consoles. Yet, they figured that part out too.

Now it seems many shooters just do one (usually MP focus with GAAS mtx), and the budget and time is still through the roof.
 
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I'm assuming they did it because they already delayed it once and were worried delaying it again would equate to a negative reaction? But yeah, I'm not sure why they didn't connect a negative reaction to the whole plagiarism thing, lol. They're just doing everything to themselves.

At the very least turn off the dang comments. Internet 101 shit right there
 
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That sounds about right. Gotta keep up certain appearances for the shill money.

I've never ever known anyone in real life to ever say this. All the Latin folks I've ever known think it's absurd.

Man, at this point I'm just more interested in everything revolving around Marathon's outcome more than the game itself. What a goddamn mess.
We joke constantly that we don't know if she's ever working anymore. Again, not mad, I gotta respect that she figured out how to work the system for free shit and vacations all over the world: Saw a live questioning she did about vacation spots, 2 months ago me jokingly saying go to Bora Bora is where she ended up with a blog about traveling as a LatinX couple while showing off products and clothing! I wish I was making this up!
 
The schadenfreude is strong with this game and the obnoxious vocal minority are doing their best to try and bury it. There are players that are actually enjoying the game and hopefully that sentiment is shared when more people get a chance to play. I haven't had an invite to get into the alpha but I'm hoping I'll get a chance to try it when the beta rolls out. If it sucks I'll not entertain it but I won't shit on it until I've given it a go. I get the feeling a lot of people shitting on this have not tried it and have no intention. It's just the usual console war bullshit.
 
The schadenfreude is strong with this game and the obnoxious vocal minority are doing their best to try and bury it. There are players that are actually enjoying the game and hopefully that sentiment is shared when more people get a chance to play. I haven't had an invite to get into the alpha but I'm hoping I'll get a chance to try it when the beta rolls out. If it sucks I'll not entertain it but I won't shit on it until I've given it a go. I get the feeling a lot of people shitting on this have not tried it and have no intention. It's just the usual console war bullshit.
This vocal minority has been right a lot of times this gen... from suicide squad to concord ... but hey than again if its just a minority the game will be perfectly fine nothing to worry about.
 
I get the feeling a lot of people shitting on this have not tried it and have no intention. It's just the usual console war bullshit.

You're defending blatant plagiarism of an artist's entire work from a company that has a history of stealing others' work with "you haven't even played it" and blaming it on the nebulous "console war"?

That's quite a take. I'd say it's a clownish one but it's so bad you've blown past clown and straight to being the whole circus.

The feedback from the alpha tests from those who did play it was poor. ARC Raiders looks like they're light years ahead of what Bungie is offering with Marathon. Bungie has been a mess for years. They have been pissing on the good will of their Destiny fan base for at least the last 4-5 years, and Marathon looks like a hurried rip off of a project trying to leech off some of those precious GAAS dollars.
 
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Personally, I think Bungie's only good game was Myth.

They made all their way to the top thanks to the Xbox hype machine. Now the crash will be hard...
 
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.
Exactly its mind boggling to me too.

Anyway, if I believed in Karma then Bungie has a disaster coming to them and its name may just be "Marathon".

What they did with the Destiny "Content Vault" was THE dirtiest move I've had happen to me as a gamer in my entire gaming history.

Bungie deserves reprocussions for removing half the game + DLC that people paid a lot of money for and they never did jack shit to preserve the content they removed. I don't want Bungie to die but damn it they deserve to.
 
Sony destroyed the studio, bad management

LOL, LMAO even

Have you been paying attention for the past 10 years ?
Bungie destroyed themselves by nickel and diming its fanbase, being technically incompetent and just plain ol' greedy (sunsetting their DLCs/expansions), that, and the apparent case of resting on their laurels by thinking that the goodwill they amassed all these years (from the Halo days even) would be able to carry them eternally.

Man, i enjoyed Halo 1/2/3/ODST, Destiny 1 (before they turned it into Diablo in space ) but, they've been fucking up since Destiny 2 , they only have themselves to blame.
 
Ii88888u
Personally, I think Bungie's only good game was Myth.

They made all their way to the top thanks to the Xbox hype machine. Now the crash will be hard...
Now thats just silly ...Halo revolutionized console fps and every Halo was damn good in both single and multiplayer. Destiny did a lot well too.

Problem with this dev is the way they treat their audience, bad management, taking shortcuts and greed
 
Sony destroyed the studio, bad management

Remember when people cheered because Bungie was separating from Activision as they believed Activision was behind all of the bad decisions that was plaguing Destiny 2? Only for Bungie to double down on shitty decisions, get even greedier and lazier as an independent studio before Sony impulse bought them? Those were the days!

Bungie has been fucking up since the launch of the original Destiny. Activision's poor reputation with gamers in general gave Bungie cover for their poor management and now some are trying to use Sony's recent failures in the GAAS space to deflect blame from Bungie.

Bungie's current state is entirely of their own making.
 
Ii88888u

Now thats just silly ...Halo revolutionized console fps and every Halo was damn good in both single and multiplayer. Destiny did a lot well too.

Problem with this dev is the way they treat their audience, bad management, taking shortcuts and greed

Maaaaan, remember firing up Halo CE on the OG Xbox for the 1st time ? Remember the hype for Halo 2 ? Remember the Godly campaign of Halo 3 AND the amazeballs MP where you'd spend hours on Xbox live shit talking with your mates and getting called a n*gga/w*tback/to go fook yourself constantly by strangers ? Ahhhhhh, those were the days and i sure do miss them.

How the fook did we get from there to...whatever Marathon is I'll never understand (not to mention all the D2 nickel.and.diming and lazy bullshit).

Just like Nydius Nydius said, the sheer incompetence they've been displaying for years now is really something else, if anything, this is a purely self inflicted wound, screw them...
 
Exactly its mind boggling to me too.

Anyway, if I believed in Karma then Bungie has a disaster coming to them and its name may just be "Marathon".

What they did with the Destiny "Content Vault" was THE dirtiest move I've had happen to me as a gamer in my entire gaming history.

Bungie deserves reprocussions for removing half the game + DLC that people paid a lot of money for and they never did jack shit to preserve the content they removed. I don't want Bungie to die but damn it they deserve to.
Probably because their legacy of gaming for the last 20 years is all Halo and Destiny. Both sci fi shooters. Both big sellers.

So when the team pitches a third sci fi shooter, everyone in the room assumes it'll be a third winner.
 
Agreed.

Even if Bungie fixes all the gameplay issues and resolves the stolen art debacle with antireal making her happy, this game is tainted forever. And like everything in life, it's always a bigger thing when people can see it with their own eyes.

Let's say Bungie got caught using some copied netcode. Some guy breaks into the game sees netcode is a copy of his work and he lists 1000s of lines of code. I dont think anyone would care. But if it's something visual, people can easily understand it better and see the colours and designs being duplicated and then take sides.

Oddly, the other times Bungie got caught stealing art over the years never blew up like this. Maybe it's because Marathon was already half trolled on so people piled on. Or perhaps it's because the theft is way more than just a nerf gun pic. But this time it blew up everywhere in 24 hours across all game sites and popular streamers.

It's so big, even the Bungie guy in the chat openly admitted it and apologized, and Bungie admitted it on one of their Marathon twitter profiles within 24 hours.

Sony can still release the game and see how many dedicated fans will play the game not caring about the theft, but everyone will rag on it until it disappears like Concord/Firewalk closing down. Thats when everyone died off talking about it.

Making it worse for Bungie is that the game still has 4 months to go and a beta test later. So that's a lot of ammo and runway for people to still rag on it. At least for Concord, the beta test laughed at was only 2 or 3 weeks till launch. But this time there's 4 months of filler time.

What they did with the Destiny "Content Vault" was THE dirtiest move I've had happen to me as a gamer in my entire gaming history.

Bungie deserves reprocussions for removing half the game + DLC that people paid a lot of money for and they never did jack shit to preserve the content they removed. I don't want Bungie to die but damn it they deserve to.
Fuck off with the faux outrage. Nobody who actually played the game felt this way.

Nobody who actually played Destiny gave a shit about the content they removed.

You couldn't pay me to play the Red Wat again for love nor money
 
Remember when people cheered because Bungie was separating from Activision as they believed Activision was behind all of the bad decisions that was plaguing Destiny 2? Only for Bungie to double down on shitty decisions, get even greedier and lazier as an independent studio before Sony impulse bought them? Those were the days!

Bungie has been fucking up since the launch of the original Destiny. Activision's poor reputation with gamers in general gave Bungie cover for their poor management and now some are trying to use Sony's recent failures in the GAAS space to deflect blame from Bungie.

Bungie's current state is entirely of their own making.
When it comes to blame in any place, it comes down to whom people beeline to first.

If a game under Activision stinks, who gets blame first from gamers? Gamers probably point their fingers at Bobby Kotick first and not the coders or team in charge of maximizing mtx revenue. He likelyhas nothing to do with making the game as he's more interested in high level business stuff or spending time doing cameos in Moneyball. But since he's well known, he'll get a bullseye first.

With this Marathon debacle, who gets blame? So far the only person some people are blaming is maybe the Art Director guy since he's the boss and was the one talking about it first on the live chat. How comes they dont blame Pete Parsons or Hermen Hulst like Kotick would get flak for being a greedy guy? Who knows. But some people just get a bigger target on their forehead than others.
 
Marathon was originally pitched by higher-up "good old boy" Bungie leadership, and as far back as five years ago devs were telling them what would and wouldn't work and were often ignored. Many have said previously that it needed to have some sort of PvE component.
They are using the term "gold old boy" incorrectly, right? Even in a more general way.
 
I would throw this and fair games away for a tax write off and move on to new projects. There is no future with these games, you can't save them by dumping in more money and going thru the motions. Reuse what you can and think next time you fuck with our video game pipeline.
 
they havent made anything good since halo reach. just shut them down already.
They'll be gone. But not yet. They are still churning out Destiny 2 content. No point shutting them down yet or rebranding the studio, or shifting them all in house. Just let them work in a Bungie branded studio.

Destiny 2 will probably last longer than Marathon. Once it's time to close up Destiny 2, so goes the studio. They shut them down or find a buyer selling them off at pennies on the dollar compared to the $3.6B they paid for them. Or Pete Parsons does another independent studio deal breaking off and they find another big corporation themselves to partner up or get acquired.

They've already laid off half the people the past few years and shifted over some Bungie people to a new SIE branded studio to make a new game. They dont even want it labeled with the Bungie logo. So they are already half way shutting it down.
 
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If they needed their next game to be a success so badly then they shouldn't have chosen to make an extraction shooter.
 
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