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[Pop]

Playstation leadership these last two gens have been retarded

Im not surprised but I'm not buying it

 

[rkofan87]

I don't disagree, but I don't think their current situation is really all that dire.

They've successfully braved the launch critics and consumer response to the state of the game at launch. The game reviewed well. It's just very hardcore and has niche appeal.

If they can keep the current audience engaged and if Sony is willing to invest, they can work on expanding massively the areas of the game that can bring in more casual players (e.g. PvE elements), while leveraging the existing playerbase as valuable test group to obtain feedback.

The main point is that they're not having to rush towards a release date in order to start being able to claim revenue. They're not under those kinds of time pressures. So they can take their time and work on making the overall game better.

They did this with D2. Year 2 and 3 were lightyears better than D2 at launch.

what the hell are you talking about 12,000 players is good are you high

 

[clarky]

for those saying make it f2p how would it support ongoing costs, is the games economy geared that way?

They have a cosmetic shop and battle pass, both are lackluster. For once the earnable skins in the game a many and better for the most part.

It'll go on gamepass and PSN sooner rather than later. Going full FTP would make the cheating situation even worse than it already is.

 

[Signalis]

 

[rkofan87]

They are in damned if you do, damned if you don't situation with Marathon and Bungie.

I don't agree with the damned if you don't situation
nobody's really going to care if Bungie gets shut down because this is not the same people who made Halo

 

[seb85]

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

But are players?

 

[Fbh]

for those saying make it f2p how would it support ongoing costs, is the games economy geared that way?

The microtransactions would probably have to be completely revamped for it to work as a F2P.
While it has a battle pass and cosmetic microtransactions, no one is buying them. The game is in like 250th place on the Steam sales charts which include both the revenue from the game sales AND the microtransactions. It's literally being outearned by no name $5 indie games.

 

[Forth]

Season two might only be a month away but Bungie needs to deliver and they need to keep delivering.
If my job was on the line you can believe that I would absolutely deliver if it meant keeping my job.
A new map and event just isn't going to cut it, they need to blow us away and as much as I hope they do, personally I just don't believe they can and I really want them to prove me wrong.

 

[KenaiPhoenix]

They should just kick the door and hurt the bungie leaders get it hurts: its money.

If they leave just grab the IPs and search someone else, is not like they are doing such a great job to begin with

 

[falconhoof]

I think I've worked out how Marathon could be considered a success despite its rapidly falling CCU

It's all revealed in the term "having a blast"

What that means is Marathon, the pinnacle of the #OmegaGenre is like the TikTok to old media. Players experience the game in very short sessions, that's the "having a blast", they can get their entire fulfillment in one short hit. No need to waste hours playing the game when you can have a blast in a few seconds. This means a CCU of ~8K is in fact a massive number.

This is a breakthrough in gaming. Blast havers are at the forefront of a new era.

Look, let's break this down with numbers.

| Game                       | Date UTC       | Coverage h  | Avg CCU | Peak CCU | Player-hours | DAU range           | DAU midpoint |
| Marathon [Blast Edition]   | Thu 2026-05-07 | 24.0        | 8,680   | 13,384   | 208,318      | 2,975,971-4,166,360 | 3,471,967    |
| Marathon [Normie Brain]    | Thu 2026-05-07 | 24.0        | 8,680   | 13,384   | 208,318      |    69,439 - 166,654 |   104,159    |

Using the new "Blast Edition" metrics of a few minutes per daily active session instead of hours the DAU goes from ~100k to ~3.5M!! That's more players than copies sold. That's how you know a game is popular.

 

[yurinka]

what the hell are you talking about 12,000 players is good are you high

12000 players connected at the same time in Steam.

These aren't 12000 players playing at any moment during a day (DAU), week (WAU) or month (MAU) in PC+PS5+Xbox.

Companies care about their revenue, average revenue per user, profitability, user retention and active userbase in all platforms combined. Not about CCU in of the stores of the game.

It seems to have sold around 2M-2.5M game units (+ addons) in all platforms combined during the first two months, with users who bought it rating it 85.13% in Steam and 4.51/5 stars (90.2%) in PS5, with the media rating it 82% and according to Sony and the estimate I did having a good user retention.

Season two might only be a month away but Bungie needs to deliver and they need to keep delivering.
If my job was on the line you can believe that I would absolutely deliver if it meant keeping my job.
A new map and event just isn't going to cut it, they need to blow us away and as much as I hope they do, personally I just don't believe they can and I really want them to prove me wrong.

I agree (and pretty likely Sony and Bungie too) that the stuff planned for season 2 (it isn't a new map btw, it's a variation of one of the existing ones) won't set the world in fire, and won't attract many new and existing users.

I assume that when they said to be working to engage existing players and attract new ones they were thinking on a longer term, not just season 2.

I'd personally prefer to get a single campaign, or at least a 1-3 players PVE only option to play the existing game and maps without player controller rival runners (they could be still be there but controlled by the CPU). But I'm aware that this requires a good chunk of resources and time, that also could affect the negatively amount of people playing the normal PvP modes, that also could negatively affect Destiny 2 and that their focus for Marathon was PvP.

But I'd personally prefer it over new characters, maps, modes, weapons or skins.

 

[calico]

They're losing money on it hand over fist right now.

 

[Spooky Scary Skeleton]

I don't agree with the damned if you don't situation
nobody's really going to care if Bungie gets shut down because this is not the same people who made Halo

Couldn't care less what fans and anti-fans of this game thinks about this situation.

I'm talking from Sony's point of view. Either way, Sony is taking or going to take a huge chunk of finance. It looks like they are willing to keep rolling the dice and hope Marathon hits big at some point and keep riding on hopium and let it bleed money for another quarterly report, which is looking grim. Or they can just amputate it now, take a huge chunk of investment with it but doesn't bleed their money for who knows how long.

 

[Gamer79]

Their money to waste

 

[YCoCg]

 

[Hollywood Hitman]

 

[StreetsofBeige]

How is this not lost money? Sony paid it out already to buy them.

In an analogy (not perfect but off the top of my head), lets' say there's a car worth $20k everywhere.

A guy is amped up and pays a dealer $30k.

He overpaid $10k. Now he can claim that extra $10k is worth it if the car is great holding value and there's tons of people willing to bid it up and buy it from him for $30k.

But if the interest isnt there to maintain the extra $10k of value, then he overpaid and he should just eat reality it's worth the same $20k as it should had been. So that extra $10k he paid is a write off of lost money.

 

[rkofan87]

Couldn't care less what fans and anti-fans of this game thinks about this situation.

I'm talking from Sony's point of view. Either way, Sony is taking or going to take a huge chunk of finance. It looks like they are willing to keep rolling the dice and hope Marathon hits big at some point and keep riding on hopium and let it bleed money for another quarterly report, which is looking grim. Or they can just amputate it now, take a huge chunk of investment with it but doesn't bleed their money for who knows how long.

I have no idea what Sony is thinking here unless they know something we don't which I don't think they do
I thought Sony was more business savvy than this

 

[Knight of the Round]

I mean, they figured it out. Even if their games fail, they'll just raise the console's price by a hundred bucks and claim it's because of Iran or something.

 

[CrustyBritches]

Bungie was $3.5 billion. Marathon development budget was $250 million, likely not including marketing, and not including on-going costs. It sold 1.2 million and generating basically nothing from mtx. It has been in consistent free fall since launch, losing 15-20% of players WoW. If you're generous this game has maybe made $50 million. So on the bright side, only $3.8 billion to go and it's all gravy from that point on.

 

[IntentionalPun]

How is this not lost money? Sony paid it out already to buy them.

Yeah impairment losses are called losses because they get reported as an expense.

At best he's playing semantics here.

Also nobody ever actually valued Bungie at $3.6 billion so there is that too.

 

[N30RYU]

Double down on losses... Double the losses.

 

[ValiantInstance]

This feels like when the owners of a sports team come out to publicly back a manager who's under pressure, only to sack them the next week. Kiss of death.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

If / when Marathon turns it around, I expect late stage Japanese WWII levels of Harry Carey on NeoGAF. Very few members will remain amongst the rubble.

 

[Sgt.Asher]

I could see Marathon going the same as the KFC Double Down.

 

[Plague Doctor]

Well when you buy something for an inflated price, realize it is worth far, far less.... then acknowledge publically it is worth far less than you bought it for

you got to slap lipstick on a pig to save face.

An underperforming, bloated pig....

That will be decimated soon

 

[Knucklepux]

Translation: we are absolutely going to heavily monetize more and target our whales to keep this bitch afloat and recoup out losses as much as possible

 

[Fbh]

If / when Marathon turns it around, I expect late stage Japanese WWII levels of Harry Carey on NeoGAF. Very few members will remain amongst the rubble.

 

[rkofan87]

This feels like when the owners of a sports team come out to publicly back a manager who's under pressure, only to sack them the next week. Kiss of death.

I hope so in my mind Bungie needs to die already

 

[rkofan87]

I could see Marathon going the same as the KFC Double Down.

and hopefully take Bungie with it.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

The only person who might be more optimistic than me on GAF would be Yurinka. Neither of who believe Marathon is a guaranteed long term success. We just live outside of tribal lines.

A lot of people thought it was DOA though. That's not going great right now.

 

[VGA-Games]

It's really expensive to develop Video Games for the Modern Audience

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

 

[Kronark]

"I didn't lose money at the casino. My earnings from that craps game just did not reach my expectations, so I downwardly revised my business plan and impared the full amount of the fixed assets related to my house."

 

[Metnut]

Even if the game will always be a bust, Sony can't just Concord all of these games every time and expect to retain credibility.

There are some people who like this game but wider audiences want no part of it (including myself). Sony will need to keep the lights on for a while here and try to improve things.

Expect the new Horizon slop to have a long leash too given the IP involved. Fairgames? 50/50 whether it even gets released IMO.

 

[Guardian Monkey]

How is this not lost money? Sony paid it out already to buy them.

In an analogy (not perfect but off the top of my head), lets' say there's a car worth $20k everywhere.

A guy is amped up and pays a dealer $30k.

He overpaid $10k. Now he can claim that extra $10k is worth it if the car is great holding value and there's tons of people willing to bid it up and buy it from him for $30k.

But if the interest isnt there to maintain the extra $10k of value, then he overpaid and he should just eat reality it's worth the same $20k as it should had been. So that extra $10k he paid is a write off of lost money.

Its a tax write off during record profits.

 

[Hero_Select]

Even if the game will always be a bust, Sony can't just Concord all of these games every time and expect to retain credibility.

There are some people who like this game but wider audiences want no part of it (including myself). Sony will need to keep the lights on for a while here and try to improve things.

Expect the new Horizon slop to have a long leash too given the IP involved. Fairgames? 50/50 whether it even gets released IMO.

Dont forget Gummy Bears

 

[clarky]

Dont forget Gummy Bears

Maybe gummy bears is code name for D3.

Even if the game will always be a bust, Sony can't just Concord all of these games every time and expect to retain credibility.

There are some people who like this game but wider audiences want no part of it (including myself). Sony will need to keep the lights on for a while here and try to improve things.

Expect the new Horizon slop to have a long leash too given the IP involved. Fairgames? 50/50 whether it even gets released IMO.

Thats the thing, the game isn't a bust, it's just a very odd product. It's like the movie equivalent of a studio spending 250 million dollars making Primer

 

[Don Carlo]

The risk is obvious though: extraction shooters are already a crowded market, and Marathon had mixed reactions during early testing phases.

 

[I collect VHS tapes]

lol amazing, this makes me happy to hear as this is guaranteed entertainment in the coming months

CCU thread can live on!!!!

What? It's got a 4.5 with 11.6K review on PSN. I have a PSN player nearly every single match whether I'm playing on PS or Steam.

70% of the user base is on PC per CCU thread

 

[Shubh_C63]

The finance doesn't makes sense but I also believe they will keep supporting Marathon for atleast 2 years.

If Season-2 does even slightly the same number as Season-1, I think Sony considers Bungie a prestigious studio and will burn money till it can reverse the fortune and restructure them.
Horizon Hunter Gatherers has to be really AA for Sony to support it like they're doing with Marathon. My wish is they burn the studio down like they burn my will to play Destiny.

 

[Guardian Monkey]

Whats the daily user count. We cant know that unless we know the average user play time. The ccu doesn't work in a vacuum. They could still have decent retention if the hours played per day per player has dropped significantly. I'm not saying that there hasn't been a drop in player count but unless we have access to another variable we aren't going to know where that stands.

It doesn't look great right now, but I'll just keep playing it as long as it's running unless the wheels fall off.

 

[KimDongHwan]

Whats the daily user count. We cant know that unless we know the average user play time. The ccu doesn't work in a vacuum. They could still have decent retention if the hours played per day per player has dropped significantly. I'm not saying that there hasn't been a drop in player count but unless we have access to another variable we aren't going to know where that stands.

It doesn't look great right now, but I'll just keep playing it as long as it's running unless the wheels fall off.

My math might be super wrong but wouldnt it be like, let's assume each gamer plays exactly for 30 min, and lets say Marathon CCU on average is 10k - after 30 min a complete new batch of gamers comes in to play another 30 min and so on. Wouldnt that at max be: 10000*24*2 = 480000 gamers per day? which would still be really low?

 

[CrustyBritches]

Whats the daily user count. We cant know that unless we know the average user play time. The ccu doesn't work in a vacuum. They could still have decent retention if the hours played per day per player has dropped significantly. I'm not saying that there hasn't been a drop in player count but unless we have access to another variable we aren't going to know where that stands.

It doesn't look great right now, but I'll just keep playing it as long as it's running unless the wheels fall off.

I think we have a Firefox extension for that.

 

[Bernardougf]

Obviously they will.. until they dont

 

[The Mad Draklor]

Whats the daily user count. We cant know that unless we know the average user play time. The ccu doesn't work in a vacuum. They could still have decent retention if the hours played per day per player has dropped significantly. I'm not saying that there hasn't been a drop in player count but unless we have access to another variable we aren't going to know where that stands.

It doesn't look great right now, but I'll just keep playing it as long as it's running unless the wheels fall off.

It's competing with the likes of Femboy Futa House and Bunny House 2.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

The finance doesn't makes sense but I also believe they will keep supporting Marathon for atleast 2 years.

The only thing dictating the support will be the amount of players

 

[R6Rider]

So they say.

We'll see how long they support it (and how they support it).

 

[Tajaz2426]

So 30k CCU incoming?

They doubled down, so from 15k or so, I'm thinking somewhere in the ballpark of 7k?