I hope
Men_in_Boxes
does not use the "You don't understand live service games" excuse this time
He's a weirdo but right once in awhile. The CCU crowd doesn't know the difference between playerbase, active users, and concurrent users. They would look at the following graph and pontificate that the game lost "90% of it's players" and about how incompetent the devs are.
Only the CCU graph shown is for one of the most successful live service games in the market with over a million DAU. Its also built around seasonal wipes where the population tapers off as players finish the season's objectives. The pattern has been consistent since the game's release.
Now compare the CCU graph of the successful game (that Gaf adores) to a CCU graph of Marathon's first season and you'll notice a similar pattern.
The number of active users would have to be proportionally similar to the highly successful game to support the same CCU curve and nothing about the CCU data comes off as unusual for a game structured around seasons. The data is obviously insufficient to draw any more conclusions. Determining owners/MAU/DAU requires modelling and assumptions. Projecting future retention rates is similarly impossible since Marathon is still in it's first season; it may very well be that the playerbase isn't coming back.
Nothing about the data available publicly points to the game being a failure yet. Marathon itself isn't the problem: its launch would be considered fine for a developer without as much bloat as Bungie. Hence, Sony is both investing further in Marathon to build from a solid foundation and ordering layoffs at Bungie to refocus it's efforts. I hope it works since I find Marathon fun even if not for everyone.
CCU talks seldom go beyond "Number go down. Industry failing because ____ pet peeve" or "Number big. Every opinion I have about the industry is now correct". The discussions often devolve into something resembling an Orwellian 2-minutes hate rather than any meaningful discussion about a game. I find the choice to pay any attention to games one dislikes baffling when the alternative is to talking about or playing games one enjoys.