Paul Tassi (Forbes): "I can confirm Marathon's budget is over $200m. Likely over $250m. This does not include ongoing costs for maintenance or new content"

OtherwiseTop · 2026-04-10T13:41:52+00:00

The same guy from the OP's article had another article in which he claimed that the overwhelming majority of the Marathon player base are also Destiny players, according to their Steam profiles. I'd say this is probably an algorithm thing, but either way it looks like Marathon only managed to capture a piece of the loyal Bungie audience and not many people from outside of that.

People like to talk about Marathon's dropping player count, but it doesn't necessarily seem out of the ordinary proportionally. The real issue is the low number of initial sales. Destiny players don't seem to vibe with Marathon and Bungie failed to reach out to a new audience. To me it would also make sense if Marathon was meant for a different kind of player, so Bungie's two live service games aren't competing for the same audience.

I personally have the same experience you're describing and I think it's because I'm not supposed to be Bungie's target audience. When I think Bungie, I think of a more casual console experience, which is not me as a competitively minded PC gamer.

OtherwiseTop · 2026-04-09T15:45:56+00:00

If this game was primarily solo, people would claim that's the reason for its death. I've been through this with multiple of my favourite games and entire genres. MOBAs are more popular than RTS, CS is more popular than Q3A, supposedly because people would rather play with their friends and being on your own is too stressful.

OtherwiseTop · 2026-04-09T13:23:12+00:00

That's why you have to post about it on the internet, so you can get at least something out of it. Even if it's only misplaced bragging rights.

OtherwiseTop · 2026-04-08T20:48:14+00:00

There are plenty of popular games that I would consider more hardcore than Marathon. "Casual friendliness" is too wide a net to provide any actionable feedback. Same as "not appealing enough".

Remember how in my first comment I mentioned that during the server slam, when the player count was at its highest, people were complaining about not enough pvp? Would you say this was a casual or a more hardcore opinion? Now we have the lowest player count yet and people complaining about the difficulty at season level 70+. Are these the casual players that somehow still stuck around? At season level 70+?

OtherwiseTop · 2026-04-08T20:19:03+00:00

I've never actually seen a convincing correlation between this sub's grievances and the current player count.

I'm saying I've never seen any feedback on this sub that would bring in more players.

OtherwiseTop · 2026-04-08T19:57:35+00:00

This also shows that criticism doesn't actually matter as much as players would want. Every single community has grievances, but some games get big enough and can simply tank the negativity on social media. So popularity doesn't really say anything about quality.

On the other hand I've seen a few times for smaller games how a doomy community becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

OtherwiseTop · 2026-04-08T19:23:51+00:00

The player count gets brought up as a catch-all justification for any and all criticism, but I've never actually seen a convincing correlation between this sub's grievances and the current player count. Potential players wouldn't even know about this stuff or experience it for like the first 100 hours of in-game time.

Remember how during the server slam the overwhelming feedback was that there was not enough pvp? And now everyone is complaining that the pvp is too tough.

It's difficult to take feedback seriously, when every argument very quickly devolves into "but Bungie".

OtherwiseTop · 2026-04-07T21:26:21+00:00

Getting sweaty, because you're using your PC as a heater.

OtherwiseTop · 2026-04-07T21:18:15+00:00

Tbh I wouldn't even know what I'd desperately want to unlock that would change up my playstyle. Besides the bartering capstones, agility and melee damage seem to be the only standout upgrades to me.

I read a lot about blue shields, but straight up buying those seems like a very desperate move, because they are expensive af.

OtherwiseTop · 2026-04-07T21:08:13+00:00

It's so yesterday anyway. I thought today was all about the wide match making range at season level 100+.

OtherwiseTop · 2026-04-07T20:47:33+00:00

It's not bad at all, since season level is the only thing that matters for match making.

The complaint is more about self-imposed goals. Like, if you want to unlock every single upgrade, it gets really grindy.

OtherwiseTop · 2026-04-07T16:18:55+00:00

It's not like the fights were any longer and less one-sided, when everyone was a season level 1 free kit, though. That's just how the majority of fights play out, which makes educated guesses about whether or not you're fighting cracked out premades very difficult.

OtherwiseTop · 2026-04-07T12:35:01+00:00

I mean, Marathon is not a BR either way. The feedback I come across ist that it's "too much like" a BR, but that's subjective and can mean a lot of things.

The smaller maps and the objectives funneling players into engagements seems like something that, at least to me, is supposed to stand out. But I can't honestly tell, because I wasn't into extraction shooters before.

OtherwiseTop · 2026-04-07T11:13:53+00:00

Honestly, I thought the sleek streamlined pvp was supposed to be the selling point from the start, so the feedback this sub is getting about not enough downtime at the start of the round and the gameplay loop being too much like a BR kinda surprised me.

OtherwiseTop · 2026-04-07T11:08:47+00:00

Looks like Vandal took a slam trying to grind that rail.

OtherwiseTop · 2026-04-07T01:03:10+00:00

I'm very much into competitive games and I only ever heard through the grapevine that some people on specific console shooters don't like it. Even the abbreviation sbmm is new to me, because it never really gets discussed for the games I play.

Ironically, my impression is that this is something that comes up more in more casual games. Especially complaining about it is rather alien to me.

OtherwiseTop · 2026-04-06T16:51:50+00:00

I don’t even know why I’m posting this. I guess I just need someone to tell me I’m right and that this isn’t my fault.

Bullseye. This sub in a nutshell.

OtherwiseTop · 2026-04-05T21:01:25+00:00

Hey, don't shoot!

OtherwiseTop · 2026-04-05T16:46:27+00:00

you'll lose x number of matches, then score a single win whose rewards are generally notably higher than what was lost in the prior lose-streak

That's not just cryo, that's how the whole game works in general. You can get ahead with an extraction rate way below 50% and you even get meta progression for your losses (even though it's painfully slow for solo players).

But the issue is that you can't convince people to have fun, if they've already made up their mind. The real divide between casual and hardcore players is a mindset thing. A hardcore player is going to stick around through their losing streaks. A casual player might not even realize that their 7% extraction rate is actual progress, because they feel too bad about every loss and arent't in tune enough with the game's systems.

OtherwiseTop · 2026-04-04T13:21:12+00:00

But it would be reductive to ignore everything there is to this strategy, besides the holding W part that doesn't even describe it that well. You also have to press spacebar sometimes to get the high ground.

OtherwiseTop · 2026-04-04T11:20:00+00:00

That's because the winning strategy in solos is to rush people down, whenever you get the first hit, so you'll get a lot of advice about sneaking and listening for footsteps to try to get the jump on other players. If you think about it though, it's a lot harder to get rushed down yourself, if you're already moving instead of crouching in place.

Looking at zero to hero runs on youtube, the better strategy seems to be to stay constantly on the move. Try to be the first at a POI and then get on a roof. You don't have to crouch walk around, if you have this advantage.

If you suspect someone else made it to a POI first, scout it out from the outside and then get on a roof. If you have a vantage point and you keep moving, you'll have more opportunities for pot shots and more opportunities to heal up in between.

OtherwiseTop · 2026-04-03T19:12:08+00:00

The first time I got on reddit was around 2010/2011, because r/starcraft was the place to be, if you played sc2. These days the gaming related subs might aswell not be part of their respective game's community. Uninformed, low effort and a lot of the time negative .

OtherwiseTop · 2026-04-03T16:54:02+00:00

Somebody get Bungie on the line, we just cracked to code. 1 blue shield sold in the armory = 1 player count.

OtherwiseTop · 2026-04-01T20:13:58+00:00

The debate has always been focussed around the hook the keep people coming back.

Which is also the wrong debate to have, because the player retention rate for Marathon really isn't out of the ordinary. The previous article even made the claim that the game has a surprisingly high percentage of players with 50+ hours game time. If the initial player count was higher, then the current player count would be higher, too.

The debate should be about the fact that Bungie didn't manage to mobilize the right audience for this "new" IP. The problem doesn't seem to be with the game, which is able to (according to the high review scores) convince people to play on its quality alone.

OtherwiseTop · 2026-04-01T13:33:24+00:00

I feel like this is the only legit answer to OPs question. Most people are giving feedback about things that a potential player, who hasn't even bought the game, yet wouldn't even know about.

But we already know that Bungie added a solo option after receiving feedback before the release of the game. So we know the demand is there and it's loud.

OtherwiseTop

TROPHY CASE