Report: Marathon Delay Likely as Sony Cancels All Paid Marketing Plans

asdasdasdbb said:
PS+ and third party GAAS is so much of the revenue right now, you can see why they felt why they needed to chase it.
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I don't blame them for chasing the revenue, I blame them for the brain dead execution of it.

No reliance on multiplayer IP
No single player campaigns to bolster the MP efforts
No F2P titles
No licensed properties
With maybe the exception of Horizon Online or Horizon MMORPG which we've seen nothing from them, they haven't utilized anyone out of China or Korea who are well known for making successful live service games

How hard would it be to make a Monster Hunter set in the Horizon world with better polish and gameplay?

asdasdasdbb said:
Minecraft was originally a solo dev game. Microsoft bought it after it got popular.
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I didn't say Microsoft greenlit Minecraft. I just said I wouldn't have, so that I was being honest that I can't see all the trends in gaming.
 
Also, over the last week, there's been quite a few videos of industry devs coming out and sharing their stories about how Bungie is mismanaged. It paints an ugly of corporate greed and a harsh culture of a 'cool boys' leadership, corroborating the initial Tassi article.
 
simpatico said:
But where will the talent come from to make that campaign? Microsoft's game plans for Xbox sounded similarly good on paper, but at some point, you need visionary creatives. Maybe they really didn't do their homework on who was still on the Bungie payroll, or they thought the logo imbued some type of magical powers on the people wearing it.
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The myth that the original Halo crew were all gone continues to be put out there, but the reality is that you can check mobygames and the vast majority of the original halo developers worked on recent Destiny 2 expansions.
 
Mibu no ookami said:
The myth that the original Halo crew were all gone continues to be put out there, but the reality is that you can check mobygames and the vast majority of the original halo developers worked on recent Destiny 2 expansions.
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Jason Jones - gone
Marcus Lehto - gone
Marty O'Donnell - gone
Jamie Griesemer - gone
Joe Staten - gone
Paul Bertone - gone
Mark Noseworthy - gone
Luke Smith - gone
Michael Salvatori - gone

Who do you have as still there? Feel free to name some names. Maybe some entry level people from the Halo days, but no one from the inner circle. If the Beatles got all new performing members but kept the roadies, are you going to that concert? Now it's just Pete Parsons, his vintage car collection and the lowest-bidder contractor boys. Basically a brand new studio with no real senior talent.
 
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Arsic said:
Sony will survive, but the real worry is Bungie. These guys are cooked and now falling into the same heap as BioWare, Ubisoft, blizzard, etc. Major fall from grace.

At least we will always have the halo games to look back fondly on they made.
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Fuck Bungie, they are alive only because Sony bought them. They are responsible for their own failure.

Too bad our money from games/PS Plus went into this bullshit (it's like with government, we pay taxes and they spend money on something stupid).
 
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I'm starting to wonder if MS has any regrets about going third party at this point.


If they were keeping all of their first party stuff exclusive, Sony would be just handing them marketshare on a platter with all of their missteps this gen.
 
Even if they sort out the sticky fingers issues, the bigger problem is the severe discernibility issue the art style has. Every screenshot feels like looking at those ships with the dazzle camo.
 
They need to go back to their roots, stop chasing fucking flavour of the month bullshit and then taking years to bring it out, only to wonder why it's failed.
 
Herbspiceguy said:
Also, over the last week, there's been quite a few videos of industry devs coming out and sharing their stories about how Bungie is mismanaged. It paints an ugly of corporate greed and a harsh culture of a 'cool boys' leadership, corroborating the initial Tassi article.
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This isn't exactly news though.

This was already hot topic during the launch of Destiny 1.
It's also why Activision pulled out of the Destiny-deal with Bungie.

As for a delay, I don't mind. Let em sort things out.
 
I would act surprised ... but as I have said before I will more surprised if they don't cancel it.
 
Amazing news. And people say that bitchin' about games does nothing. Clueless.

Funny to think that this is the same dev. Only in name, obviously, but still, holy shit the difference in passion and talent.
 
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Wow. Out of the blue. Just like that huh Sony?

This will go PvE, and the PvP will be like the Dark Zone with different perks etc. And it is absolutely the right direction to take. I play a lot of co-op stuff and - HD2 aside - the market is kind of mediocre. The immediate competition is games like Firebreak, WWZ, Fireteam Elite, Back 4 Blood and a few others. I don't really think there has been another L4D moment as of yet. But let's see. It might just disappear tbh

Time to revisit: https://www.neogaf.com/threads/will-marathon-be-delayed-pushed-back.1683389/
 
Mibu no ookami said:
I thought the PlayMA stream was totally tone deaf and brain dead. It was absolutely unbelievable that they were ignoring the elephant in the room. I've been in rooms like that and it's stunning when there is such a lack of leadership and critical thinking. The idea that you can double down your way through a bad situation is baffling. Smart leaders go into crisis aversion mode and I don't think Sony has that. They showed that with Concord and they're showing it now.

I think they've shown an alarming trend of bad decision making and you can see it from Concord, Marathon, Fairgames, God of War Live Service, TLOU Online to Intergalactic.

Sony needs to hire outside evaluators that aren't yes men. The games they are greenlighting make zero sense and I know you can't get everything right, you're going to have some things that don't land and you're going to have some oddball decisions that turn out amazing. I wouldn't have greenlit Roblox or Minecraft, so I'm not the golden goose here, but I feel like Sony who normally has a really good track record for this stuff has been alarmingly bad recently and I'm not seeing enough consequence for that other than people losing their jobs and studios being closed.

Connie Booth caught an axe, but was she really the one who greenlit everything? How much of it was Shuhei? I don't have the answers to that, but at some point Hermen has to bear responsibility and maybe even Scott Rohde, but at the same time you have to kind of remember that SIE has been successful for the most part by not micromanaging studios, so maybe this is just a collective fuck up by a lot of internal studios, just happening at once.
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That live chat was a disaster. And that even excludes the plagiarism issue that cast a dark cloud over the entire thing. But even if you totally exclude those parts of the video and the miserable art director guy, I dont think the moustache guy and guy off camera even said many improvements. There were some like saying they are going to improve the revive mechanic and I think they said something about the inventory or UI system. But I think most of the chat was just vague or saying they are still looking into things. And then guy off camera would ramble about stuff nobody could even track what he's talking about.

And the overall vibe was made worse how bad the production was. It was like a couple of youtubers doing a podcast for the first time 15 years ago. Cheap looking, audio issues, I thought it was a bad stream or my PC was at fault cutting out. I literally checked my volume settings. Turns out the 3 guys doing the video couldnt even configure their audio settings properly, complete with echo like a bunch of people are doing an MS Teams meeting in a board room and people got their laptop mics on causing double talk. lol
 
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Probably the best thing at this point is to cancel it and save some money, avoiding more marketing and refunds couple of weeks after they'll close the game after launch.
 
simpatico said:
Jason Jones - gone
Marcus Lehto - gone - Art Director
Marty O'Donnell - gone - Music (never worked on Destiny)
Jamie Griesemer - gone - Designer (didn't work on Destiny 2) (original designers still there as of 2022: Tyson Greene)
Joe Staten - gone - Cinematics (worked on halo infinite... how did that go)
Paul Bertone - gone - Designer (didn't work on destiny 2)
Mark Noseworthy - gone - Didnt work on the original Halo
Luke Smith - gone - Didn't work on the original Halo
Michael Salvatori - gone - Additional music

Who do you have as still there? Feel free to name some names. Maybe some entry level people from the Halo days, but no one from the inner circle. If the Beatles got all new performing members but kept the roadies, are you going to that concert? Now it's just Pete Parsons, his vintage car collection and the lowest-bidder contractor boys.
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Jason Jones isn't "gone" first off.

Second, you should try listing what these people actually did. It's naturally over the course of a studios history that people are going to come and go.

Some people you listed didn't work on Halo and some people didn't work on destiny at all.

What you consider the "inner" circle is people you can name.
 
StreetsofBeige said:
That live chat was a disaster. And that even excludes the plagiarism issue that cast a dark cloud over the entire thing. But even if you totally exclude those parts of the video and the miserable art director guy, I dont think the moustache guy and guy off camera even said many improvements. There were some like saying they are going to improve the revive mechanic and I think they said something about the inventory or UI system. But I think most of the chat was just vague or saying they are still looking into things. And then guy off camera would ramble about stuff nobody could even track what he's talking about.

And the overall vibe was made worse how bad the production was. It was like a couple of youtubers doing a podcast for the first time 15 years ago. Cheap looking, audio issues, I thought it was a bad stream or my PC was at fault cutting out. I literally checked my volume settings. Turns out the 3 guys doing the video couldnt even configure their audio settings properly, complete with echo like a bunch of people are doing an MS Teams meeting in a board room and people got their laptop mics on causing double talk. lol
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It came across to me as people who were either quiet quitting or delusionally think that a couple small changes is all they need to make.

The problem with that is when you DO eventually delay the game what exactly is your excuse?

I would have held out on doing any public events until a decision was made definitively to delay, cancel, or proceed as scheduled with that game.
 
If i were in charge of the project, and didn't have another 100M+ for development, i'd transform it into a BR. I don't personally care about BR, but the art direction is extremely suiting for it because it's very easy on the eye for target acquisition. It has this washedout look that is so much easier to spot target than something like Warzone. But something tells me their shitty engine can't handle more than 30 or so players on screen, so they might not even be able to do it.
 
SILKYSMOOTH30FPS said:
Amazing news. And people say that bitchin' about games does nothing. Clueless.

Funny to think that this is the same dev. Only in name, obviously, but still, holy shit the difference in passion and talent.
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Halo 3 came out in 2007, which means 20 years ago in 2005 the game would be right in the middle of development.

Just like any company, fast forward 20 years and hardly anyone will be left. At my company, the number of people who've been at the company for 20 years is probably about 10 people out of close to 200. Maybe about 5 office people and 5 warehouse guys.

I wonder how many 20+ year club members there are at Bungie.
 
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Why pay for marketing when we are doing it for them for free???
 
Markio128 said:
Christ, this makes Man Utd's season look good.
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And they'll likely lose the very player who helped them avoid relegation

Bruno might as well take the Saudi money and move on, there's no way this club is turning things around next season
 
I just hope Pete Parsons makes everyone in the office look at his Ferrari F40 before the studio gets shuttered

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This is horrible for anyone involved on the project, but these games aren't really doing anything that isn't being done already. Why do Sony continue to go down this path when it's clearly not working out.

I've no idea why they aren't utilising their older IPs to bring about a game with a campaign and multiplayer which would decrease the risk due to it having a single player component. If the multiplayer starts to get legs then build on it from there.

Killzone, Warhawk, SOCOM, Wipeout, Twisted Metal, Resistance... Take your pick Sony.
 
StreetsofBeige said:
Halo 3 came out in 2007, which means 20 years ago in 2005 the game would be right in the middle of development.

Just like any company, fast forward 20 years and hardly anyone will be left. At my company, the number of people who've been at the company for 20 years is probably about 10 people out of close to 200. Maybe about 5 office people and 5 warehouse guys.

I wonder how many 20+ year club members there are at Bungie.
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I know, but good devs survive by hiring new talent, and not go full greed mode a la Ubisot. Funny thing is, the other portion of Bungie, 343i, is also dead. Dead to the point of needing a rebranding of the company because their reputation couldn't be more in the shitter.
 
Lucifers Beard said:
This is horrible for anyone involved on the project, but these games aren't really doing anything that isn't being done already. Why do Sony continue to go down this path when it's clearly not working out.
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They dont like their roller coaster SP game sales which are mostly frontloaded to launch. Instead of making more new big SP games that can sell 15M copies, they prefer going big on GAAS. The only big new SP game they got is Intergalactic, and there's no guarantee it will even launch this gen. Maybe it's a PS6 game.

Big companies all envy whatever industry reports they got or gaming articles they read saying COD, Fortnite, FIFA, Apex etc.... are all raking in high margin mtx. And some of these games also cost money to buy too like COD at $70.

So they went ape shit going after it, even saying "all we need is one winner to cover the rest". So they loaded up and went after GAAS including even buying out studios at the grassroots level hoping their new game would be good. Turns out a lot of the them have been cancelled outright.

If those business slides held true, right now in 2025, you'd have I think 12 GAAS released (GT + baseball + 10 more GAAS games), and also any Bungie games added on as those powerpoint slides didn't include Bungie games yet. Their master plan GAAS slides were from 2022. Name one big game company that has 12 GAAS at once (+ Bungie too). The studios that might are ones like Activision or EA who have mobile division games, or WoW or lots of sports games showing breadth of coverage. But most dont.

So they shotgunned a ton hoping something sticks. And the only new GAAS that has is Helldivers 2. But even though H2 has been a giant hit, it wont come close to covering the costs of Bungie failing and all those other cancelled studios and games. Bungie buy out for $3.6B included $1.2 billion of employee retention bonus payouts alone to keep them around. Sony isnt getting a dime back from those pay outs.
 
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Mibu no ookami said:
Jason Jones isn't "gone" first off.

Second, you should try listing what these people actually did. It's naturally over the course of a studios history that people are going to come and go.

Some people you listed didn't work on Halo and some people didn't work on destiny at all.

What you consider the "inner" circle is people you can name.
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This all took place well before Destiny 2 launched. Jason Jones is the primary share holder at Bungie but it's widely accepted that Parsons has him boxed up but does not have the leverage to oust him. His last public appearance was in 2021. Do you think he's working on Marathon? Staten was the primary mind behind Destiny. Sure, he got attached to Infinite during late development and is largely credited with salvaging it to the extent that it was salvaged. Jones and Griesemer are the fathers of the console FPS. They were the driving creatives on the gameplay systems side of things. Destiny was an extension of the Halo gameplay loop, with Staten creating the lore and universe. Luke Smith was the driving force behind Destiny 2 and at the time that was seen as a lukewarm consolation prize to the Bungie faithful. Bet they'd really like to have that consolation prize now considering what is left. Even then he was just expanding on what Staten created.

Can you share any names of people you think were fundamentally important to the creation of Halo or Destiny that are still at Bungie and working passionately on Marathon? Kinda dodged that one. Probably just an oversight...

GAF I might have found Pete Parsons alt account. In fairness, Pete will be remembered as a financial shark for taking all these millions from the publishing industry. There will be books written about the man. I'd be surprised if he didn't have deals inside of Sony before the acquisition. Any amount of due diligence on Sony's part would have immediately stopped that purchase. Backroom deals had to be made. Even now he's just biding his time until his shares mature. It's gonna make a hell of a video essay one day. I really don't see how he doesn't get his ass physically kicked by the real guys who built Bungie with their blood sweat and tears. Have you watched the video I posted? Did you know anything about these details before you started posting in this thread? Tell me more about this mobygames list.
 
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How much money have Sony lost now chasing the GaaS golden goose? I was told by Men_in_Boxes that not every one of Sony's GaaS games needed to be a hit - that all they needed was for one slam dunk to make the entire effort worthwhile - yet aside from Helldivers II almost every one of their efforts has colossally failed. Most projects have been stillborn and have completely wasted the time of top studios for this generation.

The pivot back to single player cannot come soon enough. Leave the GaaS to the companies who actually know what the fuck they're doing.
 
Hey, Sony! Have you ever thought of making sequels to Ape Escape, SSX, Sly Cooper etc. intead of throwing your money in the lake like this? I think you'd actually make some money eventually as seen by the praise for Astro Bot.
 
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