Support NeoGAF

[ValiantInstance]

Assuming the road map holds true and no big unknown things happen like F2P or a secret PvE mode happens, nothing major is going on till June Season 2 wipe and new nighttime dire marsh map.

So for next 2 months till June, it's a bunch of gameplay tweaks (which included their adjusted matahmaking algorithm) and that's kind of it.

Sony/Bungie IMO will do something big. There's no way for 2 months they let the CCUs keep trending down hoping the June update majorly boosts it back up. Maybe PvE mode is too hard to implement well, so probably 50% off deals or F2P week or something. Maybe even F2P for all in May. Or as a first step, make it a sub plan game on PS+ and Xbox (right there you got 100M potential gamers to download it to test it out and some may stick with it). Time it with upcoming June update.

Also add in Ranked mode for all 24/7. No ifs, ands or buts. This would make any current weak gamers and any newbies join in from above feel better playing against each other and not get wiped out by vets. The game doesnt have enough gamers like a COD game with shitloads of gamers in old games with trashy unranked mode where everyone jumps into the pool and every team is a mish mash of good and weak gamers balancing each other off anyway.

So let me get this straight, there are no new maps in season 2 (i.e. for the next 6 months)? Oh it's over, I've been complaining about Battlefield 6's lack of content but this roadmap makes Dice look competent.

Also don't get the appeal of the wipe. Fair enough for gear but why would you want your progression wiped? So you could play 100 hours and in June it's like you never even opened the game?

 

[Hollywood Hitman]

The problem isn't the game, the problem is the severe literacy crisis in most countries. This isn't even slightly joking, the average person is actually a drooling moron incapable of reading a full sentence.

 

[Plague Doctor]

Hey gang,

We are coming up on a new milestone where the CCU thread is 30 pages more than the OT thread.

 

[Hollywood Hitman]

Hey gang,

We are coming up on a new milestone where the CCU thread is 30 pages more than the OT thread.

 

[cormack12]

So let me get this straight, there are no new maps in season 2 (i.e. for the next 6 months)? Oh it's over, I've been complaining about Battlefield 6's lack of content but this roadmap makes Dice look competent.

Also don't get the appeal of the wipe. Fair enough for gear but why would you want your progression wiped? So you could play 100 hours and in June it's like you never even opened the game?

Its not a wipe, its a free prestige for all players

 

[StreetsofBeige]

So let me get this straight, there are no new maps in season 2 (i.e. for the next 6 months)?

Technically, there is a new map in Season 2 June. Dire Marsh gets a night version. But in the road map, that new map and recent cryo are the biggest content drops from now till August Season 3. The rest are small tweaks, new items, a new class etc...

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Game is trending to a low tonight of about 11.5k to 12k. That should happen roughly around 6 am based on often trending back up around that time. Then it slowly trends up all day till peaking somewhere between 10 and 11 pm.

Using a typical weekday 1 : 3 ratio of low peak to next day high peak. Whatever it finishes at late night, triple it.

If this game bottoms at 12k, tomorrow should be approximately 36k peak. Using other methodologies like -14% vs Sunday peak (happened consistently twice already), that would be a 34k peak, since Sunday topped at 40k.

So ballparking it, tomorrow should be about 35k peak if either of these trending norms holds tomorrow. And the low gets down to 11k, with possibility of high 10s. If Mon to Weds keeps tailing off, there's chance it'll dip below 10k by late night Weds. Then on cryo Thursday, it'll probably increase over Weds as cryo days show a pop both times.

 

[hyperbertha]

That's because the industry has too much money floating around giving studios too much time and funds. Many dont listen to gamers and just make whatever they feel like. If you think of it, who really cares anyway. The industry is very transient where employees rotate companies all the time so whether Marathon does well or not many people who worked on the game are probably already working somewhere else on another game. So whether it succeeds or fails is old news already. They got paid.

Rumours are the game cost $250M. Who knows if that is even true. Even if someone dipped it down to $150-200M, that's still a lot of money. Just to show how stupid it is, consider the situation.

- Let's say about $200M cost to make
- Extraction genre is small. At the time Hunt and Tarkov were the only known games. Hunt sold 6M copies after 6 years. But sales would be much lower years ago. Tarkov who knows how many since it sold with its own launcher
- ARC sold 14M copies but nobody would had known it'd sell this many copies. ARC and Marathon's original launch date were only a month apart
- So at the time before either game launched, the genre wasnt a big seller
- Marathon is even skewed more to hardcore gamers, initially had no solo queue, no prox chat and a crazy art style. Also the graphics were actually worse during last summer's beta. And cryo now is even skewed to harder core gamers (no solo either)

So add it up and based on what was known last year and during development, there is no way anyone could assume an extraction game would sell tons to make back a huge dev budget. Someone could say.... Well, ARC sold 14M copies, so sales were there. Thats hindsight 20/20 because at the time nobody would expect ARC to sell that. Maybe 2M? Maybe 5M? In the ballpark of Hunt? Perhaps. Not 14M. At that amount, youre getting to COD territory.

Marathon would logically be assumed to be a low seller too right from the start. So having a huge dev budget from the start wouldnt even make sense to do unless someone at Sony/Bungie assumed it'd be a giant seller taking over Destiny reins. But Herman and Jim Ryan must had loved it when they bought Bungie believing in 2022 a Marathon extraction game would be huge. Doesnt really make sense. But they still did it.

There's a 'fad' that seems to hold forever. Singleplayer with decent story. If only these studios heard of it

 

[mdkirby]

Holy shit, i've never been so entertained by a game that i don't even play , for free haha keep going Marathon Defense Force

It's been entertaining but I had more entertainment from abandoned, a game that didn't even really exist. Man those were some wild weeks.

 

[Moridianae]

All they have for late April/May is a balance update?

Oof. Doesn't ARC have a major content update in April? Doesn't bode well for continuing to hold players here, as that will surely make a dent.

 

[pepeno]

sub 10k minimum incoming. Sunday was actually worse than saturday which is wild considering sunday is always better for almost all games. And this is GAAS game. I think it will peak sub 30k today as i predicted few page sback.

 

[IAmAnAgnostic]

Another day another all time low.
Competition seen here.

 

[Roman Empire]

Wow, Asia, Oceania, UK want nothing to do with the game at all. Peak hours are when US folk get off work, then the numbers plummet like crazy for the next 10 or so hours. It is a crazy disparity.

 

[Topher]

Wow, Asia, Oceania, UK want nothing to do with the game at all. Peak hours are when US folk get off work, then the numbers plummet like crazy for the next 10 or so hours. It is a crazy disparity.

That's most games though

 

[Fake]

The problem isn't the game, the problem is the severe literacy crisis in most countries.

Are you suggesting a Marathon price increase or just PS5 price increase?

 

[Roman Empire]

That's most games though

Not to mention how Nintendo has a huge presence in Asia and the whole mobile market there is by far the most profitable. US folk might need to carry Marathon as a whole, but the question is "for how long?". Those numbers don't seem too good for a studio the size of bungie, but only time will tell.

 

[Arsic]

 

[Negotiator101]

Game is trending to a low tonight of about 11.5k to 12k. That should happen roughly around 6 am based on often trending back up around that time. Then it slowly trends up all day till peaking somewhere between 10 and 11 pm.

Using a typical weekday 1 : 3 ratio of low peak to next day high peak. Whatever it finishes at late night, triple it.

If this game bottoms at 12k, tomorrow should be approximately 36k peak. Using other methodologies like -14% vs Sunday peak (happened consistently twice already), that would be a 34k peak, since Sunday topped at 40k.

So ballparking it, tomorrow should be about 35k peak if either of these trending norms holds tomorrow. And the low gets down to 11k, with possibility of high 10s. If Mon to Weds keeps tailing off, there's chance it'll dip below 10k by late night Weds. Then on cryo Thursday, it'll probably increase over Weds as cryo days show a pop both times.

Is it brown trousers time at Bungie yet?

 

[Spyxos]

It is still not dead?

 

[AeonGaidenRaiden]

Im sure EVERY developer wants to keep the lights on forever, but if theres no playerbase, someone at the top will pull the plug because its bleeding money.

 

[Negotiator101]

Im sure EVERY developer wants to keep the lights on forever, but if theres no playerbase, someone at the top will pull the plug because its bleeding money.

Yeah exactly, the fact they are already trying to claim it will be supported for years and improvements will continue, after 4 weeks seems desperate to me. No sales celebration or hours played at least I didn't see anything like that?

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Holy crap. As posted above, the low was 11.3k. I think Pepeno above is correct, it's accelerating worse than norm.

My comparison rates that held steady for 2 weeks are getting worse. Sunday to Monday drops were -14% each. Week over week drops are about -19%. They range from -15 to -23% for days (excluding Cryo days which mess things up). It's early and numbers are always weird in the morning, so we'll have to see where it finalizes at. But right now, the 7 am completed hour comparisons.

Compared to yesterday (Mon vs Sun): 12.3k vs 18k (-5.7k or -31%)

Mon vs Mon: 12.3k vs 17k (-4.7k or -28%)

I'm not joking when I say this. The numbers looked so bad I checked it over a few times thinking I made a mistake using the wrong data points. But it's trending to about -30% either way. To give an estimated peak today, using last Monday's peak of 44.4k and using sample decline rates:

At -20% = 35.5k
At -25% = 33.3k
At -30% = 31k

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Is it brown trousers time at Bungie yet?

 

[Bernardougf]

Holy crap. As posted above, the low was 11.3k. I think Pepeno above is correct, it's accelerating worse than norm.

My comparison rates that held steady for 2 weeks are getting worse. Sunday to Monday drops were -14% each. Week over week drops are about -19%. They range from -15 to -23% for days (excluding Cryo days which mess things up). It's early and numbers are always weird in the morning, so we'll have to see where it finalizes at. But right now, the 7 am completed hour comparisons.

Compared to yesterday (Mon vs Sun): 12.3k vs 18k (-5.7k or -31%)

Mon vs Mon: 12.3k vs 17k (-4.7k or -28%)

I'm not joking when I say this. The numbers looked so bad I checked it over a few times thinking I made a mistake using the wrong data points. But it's trending to about -30% either way. To give an estimated peak today, using last Monday's peak of 44.4k and using sample decline rates:

At -20% = 35.5k
At -25% = 33.3k
At -30% = 31k

Kinda like a cascade event ... more players abandon, more difficult to find matches and than even more leaves...

 

[Cakeboxer]

The biggest issue i see with Marathon is that the people who are still playing it probably know it doesn't look that great. So the question is: Will they still invest money into the game, or not? Personally i wouldn't. If i'm going to spend money on a game, i need to be confident that it will still be around for years.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Kinda lika a cascade event ... more players abandon, more difficult to find matches and than even more leaves...

That makes sense.

Doing these morning comparisons arent reliable as full day rates as I noticed as the day progresses, any big decline rates improve a bit. It may still be a decline, but not as bad.

That means the Asian region hours are dropping faster than US/Europe. Which goes hand in hand with harder to find matches over there so players are likely to bail from the game.

 

[Bernardougf]

The biggest issue i see with Marathon is that the people who are still playing it probably know it doesn't look that great. So the question is: Will they still invest money into the game, or not? Personally i wouldn't. If i'm going to spend money on a game, i need to be confident that it will still be around for years.

Everyone's knows this game is doomed ... even the nay sayers its just superficial to save face... i doubt anyone sane is dropping real money on this game (and those awful skins) because it wont last.

 

[SEGAvangelist]

This place is like those liberal media Covid death updates.

 

[Mondai]

When will companies learn that trying to cater to the "hardcore gamer" audience doesn't work since they are the biggest whiners.

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

This place is like those liberal media Covid death updates.

Its an entire thread dedicated to the death spiral of a game, maybe not the thread for people that don't like this sort of talk?

 

[Sohurmk833]

This place is like those liberal media Covid death updates.

Nah we're working with real numbers here.

 

[SEGAvangelist]

Nah we're working with real numbers here.

 

[OuterLimits]

Marathon players currently. 14.8k. Rank 118.

Destiny 2. 7k. Rank 205.

Sony spent 3.6 billion to get these amazing results.

 

[Madserb2023]

Marathon players currently. 14.8k. Rank 118.

Destiny 2. 7k. Rank 205.

Sony spent 3.6 billion to get these amazing results.

Irrespective if Marathon does somehow keep going, that is a lot of money for this. While the Bethesda deal was more like 7b, that's only double what Sony paid for Bungie, and to put it into perspective, Skyrim has more daily players than both combined currently.

 

[MayauMiao]

It is still not dead?

Bungie is trying its best.

 

[calico]

Is it a real acceleration per se, or is it because we are currently referring back to the 'artificially boosted' (for want of a better term) high of the Cryo release?

 

[Timberwolf25]

Is it a real acceleration per se, or is it because we are currently referring back to the 'artificially boosted' (for want of a better term) high of the Cryo release?

Cryo staunched the bleeding temporarily and even had a slight bump during the weekend compared to the previous weekday. Overall, it was still a dip week on week if you compare weekend to weekend or weekday to the same weekday (if I understand it correctly).

It seems like Sunday was a big dropoff and could be the point where the slide really gets momentum. We'll see when Cryo comes back on if another bump occurs, but I suspect it will be smaller if any at all.

 

[SmokSmog]

Bungie is trying its best.

 

[diffusionx]

The biggest issue i see with Marathon is that the people who are still playing it probably know it doesn't look that great. So the question is: Will they still invest money into the game, or not? Personally i wouldn't. If i'm going to spend money on a game, i need to be confident that it will still be around for years.

At some point this becomes a downward spiral where even the people who like it decide it's not worth it to invest more time and money into it, and then it collapses from there. These games rely heavily on network effect, people need to believe other people are playing it too.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Quick update.

10 am completed hour vs last Monday. -26.5%

If that holds up, peak will be about 32.5k

 

[TheMan]

Another day another all time low.
Competition seen here.

Schedule 1 fell off. That game was hot for a minute

 

[Kronark]

Holy crap. As posted above, the low was 11.3k. I think Pepeno above is correct, it's accelerating worse than norm.

It's not that crazy to expect this. As player counts get lower you eventually hit a death spiral where matchmaking gets impacted and fuels further falloff. We've already seen reports from players that the OCE region had heavy queue times and could not match make with cross play turned off. They opened it up to merge it with the Asia region and now people are queuing into high ping games with non-english speaking team mates. That's enough to have people walk away.

NA / EU are probably healthy enough to not see this behaviour yet but with the falling player count we'll probably get to stage where it's harder to queue into games unless you're playing at prime hours. This kind of stuff will chip away at the game.

 

[Hollywood Hitman]

Lono talking today about how the rabid fans of the game will attack its own fans if they even remotely suggest anything different or wrong, it's so true

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Lono talking today about how the rabid fans of the game will attack its own fans if they even remotely suggest anything different or wrong, it's so true

I have noticed this among my own people.

 

[PeteBull]

Those delayed reviews were literally:

9/10 from both ign and pc gamer, 5/5 from gerstman
Even paid off sellout professional journos cant do shit when this titanic is sinking

 

[Plague Doctor]

Lono talking today about how the rabid fans of the game will attack its own fans if they even remotely suggest anything different or wrong, it's so true

The Haters Baseball team is a little packed these days. We ran out of uniforms.

He's going to have to stay with Team Shill.

 

[JimRyanGOAT]

Game should be F2P

 

[Arsic]

The biggest issue i see with Marathon is that the people who are still playing it probably know it doesn't look that great. So the question is: Will they still invest money into the game, or not? Personally i wouldn't. If i'm going to spend money on a game, i need to be confident that it will still be around for years.

Honestly I don't feel too worried to invest because both for concord and Highguard I got all my money refunded back.

I think there is too much bad press or some kind of law that if something fails in a short time you're better off refunding it to the consumer.

That said they need WAY better skins to start making money on MTX. Currently there's next to no reason to buy a skin.

 

[Toytown Assassin]

Quick update.

10 am completed hour vs last Monday. -26.5%

If that holds up, peak will be about 32.5k

We had our clock change over on this side of the pond this Sunday so hour v hour tracking may be a tad off for a week.

 

[falconhoof]

Sad to see that they stopped tracking the kill count after the 20th. Would have been nice to see when they actually hit their target.

Also it was funny to see the page titled "We did it", what did you do exactly? Bungie had already decided when the map was shipping, all you did was push buttons without any wires attached to them to make you feel valuable.