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[falconhoof]

Crimson Desert and Slay the Spire 2 both would have beaten it pretty easily I would assume, if included.

It's just so hard to say without any sales data. I guess we could use CCU counts.

If anyone is smart with numbers maybe they could crack the code this chart presents. Three releases, two of them massively, consistently higher than the other. All have reduced over time, yet for two of them, even though they're lower, they're still higher than the third.

It's just so hard to figure out. Does more players mean more sales? Does a flat line scraping its self along the gutter point to a sign of lower sales? Does the fact that one's peak is lower than the other two's low points? Man if we had someone with an IQ higher than 10 I think we could figure this one out.

Anyone want to take a shot at this puzzle? Which of these sold more and made more mullah?

 

[cormack12]

3 pm completed hour. Looking bad. It's getting worse by the hour.

Today 13.8k
Yesterday 15.2k
Monday 15.1k

At 11 am it was -2% and at 12 pm it was -6%. Now down about 8-9%. The decline rate is actually getting worse when it typically improves during Euro hours vs erratic Asia/Aussie morning hours which is peak time there. Then US peak usually improves on the rate so it's not as bad. The next few hours wont budge much as per daily trending, but it'll pick up at the 7 pm hour when US gamers log on after dinner. Will be interesting if US gamers pick up the slack.

If it doesnt and holds down 8-9%, it'll hit the low 18-18.5k with an outside chance of the 17s if the rate gets worse. Peak last few days were 19.4. and 19.8k.

Ive been told it was just the 4th best selling game so I expect these numbers to bounce back

 

[Zacfoldor]

Honestly, there is no reason to need to justify being here. The fantastic data is enough. We are learning patterns for how steam ccu charts are affected by things like sales, holiday, launches, ect. This will guide our understanding in the future. Because of this we will better predict the performance of other games.

Now these points of data make a beautiful line.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

It's just so hard to say without any sales data. I guess we could use CCU counts.

If anyone is smart with numbers maybe they could crack the code this chart presents. Three releases, two of them massively, consistently higher than the other. All have reduced over time, yet for two of them, even though they're lower, they're still higher than the third.

It's just so hard to figure out. Does more players mean more sales? Does a flat line scraping its self along the gutter point to a sign of lower sales? Does the fact that one's peak is lower than the other two's low points? Man if we had someone with an IQ higher than 10 I think we could figure this one out.

Anyone want to take a shot at this puzzle? Which of these sold more and made more mullah?

The crazy thing about that chart is the amount of time and money put into making those 3 games is actually the reverse of the sales.

Tip for all you soon to be entrepreneurs itching to run a business with a wad of cash you scraped up. Bigger budgets doesnt mean better products or sales. If a product has gangbuster sales potential, good idea to put resources there. If it's destined to be one of those third tier forgettable products, you want those products developed and running along with limited people and money. Like in gaming when people bring up skeleton crew budgets.

 

[Lokaum D+]

Honestly I am surprised just how many times Marathon remains in Steamdb trending page.
The game is officially behind Hunt Showdown and in a week will fall below The Finals and Arena Breakout (per daily active users page), metric I was seeking.

No way in 6 months CCU gonna increase. No game except Apex Legends were able to triple their CCU count within 6 months.
Hunt took 2 years to triple their CCU, and all others (ReadyorNot, GrayZone, Squad, Payday2, Division2) took 2-4 years to reverse their fortune.
Arc Raiders, Helldivers, TheFinals and many others never outdid their launch.

I actually liked Marathon and its lore but I don't think Destiny PvP addicts like I thought earlier could even stick to it for 2 years. No way.

World having more players than Wilds make me happy

 

[Zacfoldor]

The crazy thing about that chart is the amount of time and money put into making those 3 games is actually the reverse of the sales.

Tip for all you soon to be entrepreneurs itching to run a business with a wad of cash you scraped up. Bigger budgets doesnt mean better products or sales. If a product has gangbuster sales potential, good idea to put resources there. If it's destined to be one of those third tier forgettable products, you want those products developed and running along with limited people and money. Like in gaming when people bring up skeleton crew budgets.

Exactly:

Amazon tried to beat Steam, but despite being "250 times bigger," it still lost

A former Amazon Games executive has explained why, and how, the company's plan to take on Steam never worked, despite all it tried.

www.pcgamesn.com

Amazon tried to beat Steam, but despite being "250 times bigger," it still lost

You can't quickly buy your way to becoming a top industry game developer, publisher, or especially platform unless you also get lucky(or unless you are MS and bought acti-blizz, lol). However you can waste untold fortunes trying.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Exactly:

Amazon tried to beat Steam, but despite being "250 times bigger," it still lost

A former Amazon Games executive has explained why, and how, the company's plan to take on Steam never worked, despite all it tried.

www.pcgamesn.com

You can't quickly buy your way to becoming a top industry game developer, publisher, or especially platform unless you also get lucky(or unless you are MS and bought acti-blizz, lol). However you can waste untold fortunes trying.

This Evans guy at Amazon made his first mistake already just reading that small article. He assumed Amazon is Goliath.

That's not the way business works. That's like saying Amazon is about 15x bigger than McDonalds in market cap, they try their luck at opening up burger joints and fail. They arent Goliath. McDonalds is.

Brute forcing a win throwing money around only works sometimes. More likely if that company is already top dog in that particular industry, so steamrolling the competition throwing money around might work like crowd out strategies like the big dog paying special multiyear vendor deals to lock up eye level shelf space which smaller companies cant afford. Or a big company offers a retailer $1M/yr to purposely delist competing products and put theirs in. It happens. I've even been part of analyzing those signed off deals. Big money thrown around is more like a finishing touch to keep them on top, while their core business is actually rock solid to begin with.

Goes to show right off the bat that Amazon guy had no clue what to do.

 

[falconhoof]

First time we're seeing the European dip happen under 15K CCU

 

[Plague Doctor]

First time we're seeing the European dip happen under 15K CCU

The sale is working!

 

[Hollywood Hitman]

Man 14k right now

 

[Conflict NZ]

Will it get above 20K again?

 

[falconhoof]

Man 14k right now

Correction:

 

[CrustyBritches]

Div2 12.2K vs Marathon 13.9K. Getting closer.

 

[mdkirby]

It's a chase of a bygone era wherein streamers or raid level players were, I guess, correlated to success of the game as far as enhancing sales or increasing exposure(rough example might be xQc in Overwatch heyday or Emongg)

The reality is, as you said, it's designed where that era is long gone.

We speak of sweats, toxicity and elitism as prevalent in games like this. The average age of a gamer now is 41(mid 30s in the US, some growth even in the 50s bracket).

These people, by and large, are *not* equipped nor willing to deal with those aforementioned things. They "outgrew" it and don't have time for it.

And that is a pretty massive audience to have on the outside looking in, if I'm honest.

Yerp, I and my friends are all in that group (ie mid 40s). I'm one of the lucky ones in regards my gaming hours, my wife is more than happy to let me game on the PlayStation as she crochets on the sofa. Most my friends have kids so have far less gaming time.

I almost exclusively play single player and will happily spend £1-2k/yr on gaming software. As will most my friends who are all relatively upper income. Yet AAA in the west has all but abandoned us, old school gamers who actually spend money.

We have so so so little inclination of time to play GaaS. We do a little bit of helldivers for maybe a night every couple of months. A lot of them have got into slay the spire 2, which as a Miltiplayer fits nicely into their gaming habits and lifestyle….marathon 100% would not. Not a single person on my friends list owns it.

There's only a relatively short window where people have the free time and inclination to commit to such a game, and it's principally 16-24 males…not exactly known for vast disposable income…and many of them are already addicted like crack heads to another GaaS. It's just insane to me that the whole industry pivoted to trying to appeal to such a narrow segment…bizarely often with product that are intentionally designed to be authentically unappealing to them

 

[OuterLimits]

Outselling Pokemon is not bad for "Early Access".

Crimson Desert and Slay the Spire 2 both would have beaten it pretty easily I would assume, if included.

Yes, by a significant margin. It isn't surprising though that Marathon is high on March charts based on the estimated million or so sale numbers since most of the player base is located in the U.S.

The problem of dwindling player numbers though likely means the game won't continue to chart well in future months. Even with the modest 25% off sale right now, it couldn't hit 15k during EU peak times today and the overall steady decline each week continues.

If Sony/Bungie were pleased about sales numbers, they would be happily proclaiming it in social media posts/press releases.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

#OmegaGenre = #CreativeBankruptcy

 

[Hollywood Hitman]

I said it before I've no aversion to sweaty or difficult games I just don't actively seek them out to flex my gamer e dick or something. I'm just not in the business of losing my shit. That's why trials was good, it was brutal at times but when I won and got my gear it was mine.. Losing it? Fuck.. I mean FUCK that... Ain't got time for that

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

I said it before I've no aversion to sweaty or difficult games I just don't actively seek them out to flex my gamer e dick or something. I'm just not in the business of losing my shit. That's why trials was good, it was brutal at times but when I won and got my gear it was mine.. Losing it? Fuck.. I mean FUCK that... Ain't got time for that

I don't say things like this very often, so these words carry a lot of weight...

Marathon is the best PlayStation Studios game ever made, bar none.

 

[Hollywood Hitman]

I don't say things like this very often, so these words carry a lot of weight...

Marathon is the best PlayStation Studios game ever made, bar none.

Dude I mean why even bother at this point, you're so disingenuous in this discussion it's not even funny to see your ship sink anymore

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Dude I mean why even bother at this point, you're so disingenuous in this discussion it's not even funny to see your ship sink anymore

I am nothing if not sincere. There's honestly nothing that comes close. Maybe Helldivers 2?

 

[CrustyBritches]

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

I tried to tell yall...This is the future.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

7 pm completed hour.

15.1k. As suspected the US time slots bailing out the worse declines earlier in the day. About -6% vs yesterday same time.

If this holds up, peak will be about 18.6k which will be a new low. Looks like the -20% off on Steam/Xbox not working.

 

[Hollywood Hitman]

7 pm completed hour.

15.1k. As suspected the US time slots bailing out the worse declines earlier in the day. About -6% vs yesterday same time.

If this holds up, peak will be about 18.6k which will be a new low. Looks like the -20% off on Steam/Xbox not working.

This is so fascinating to watch man, I swear I never in my life realized what was missing was seeing the CCU of a dying bungie game

 

[Roman Empire]

Just when I thought I was out of this thread, you guys bring me back in.

 

[Rocco Schiavone]

I don't say things like this very often, so these words carry a lot of weight...

Marathon is the best PlayStation Studios game ever made, bar none.

 

[Roman Empire]

Had to go to that Reddit Weekly Steam Numbers in the Marathon sub and shit is just as hilarious as in here.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

This is so fascinating to watch man, I swear I never in my life realized what was missing was seeing the CCU of a dying bungie game

I find it amazing a discount deal had no meaningful effect except a small bump yesterday. Already lost back any CCU today like it never happened.

I dont think in history of sales tracking at work spanning 25 years have I ever seen a discount deal lead to basically zero effect. Even a shitty 10% off deal spikes up the sales units even for bottom tier ragtag product lines.

It should be a guarantee sales prop up all week during each day of the weekly deal.

 

[Moridianae]

I tried to tell yall...This is the future.

I've got to be honest with you, man. With 44%(maybe more) developers looking to leave gaming development, a graveyard full of live-service failures for one chance at success, and an industry absolutely rife with layoffs..

It doesn't sound like a good future, or one that a great many people will be interested in partaking in at the volume this industry seems to hope for.

 

[Hollywood Hitman]

I've got to be honest with you, man. With 44%(maybe more) developers looking to leave gaming development, a graveyard full of live-service failures for one chance at success, and an industry absolutely rife with layoffs..

It doesn't sound like a good future, or one that a great many people will be interested in partaking in at the volume this industry seems to hope for.

That 44% was of a smaller subset, not 44% of all devs, just saying.

But yea gaas games especially extraction will be most all shit, it's just a shitty genre

 

[apocaliptic]

The only move that can help the game would be to put it on gamepass for free.

 

[Raven117]

World having more players than Wilds make me happy

It just bums me out that Wilds was so much of a miss after the awesomeness of world

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

I've got to be honest with you, man. With 44%(maybe more) developers looking to leave gaming development, a graveyard full of live-service failures for one chance at success, and an industry absolutely rife with layoffs..

It doesn't sound like a good future, or one that a great many people will be interested in partaking in at the volume this industry seems to hope for.

You should have seen this coming.

Over the last 5 - 10 years, whenever a publisher would have a big E3 esque showcase, NeoGAF would complain that most of the titles looked like crap.

You guys were right. It was mostly crap. We don't need those titles anymore.

Most of the Extraction games that I'm looking forward to will fail, but I don't need them all to hit. When the cream rises to the top, gamers win. IE...more of Bungie is now working on Marathon than pre launch. This is a blessing.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I've got to be honest with you, man. With 44%(maybe more) developers looking to leave gaming development, a graveyard full of live-service failures for one chance at success, and an industry absolutely rife with layoffs..

It doesn't sound like a good future, or one that a great many people will be interested in partaking in at the volume this industry seems to hope for.

A lot of that is their own self doing.

A lot of gaming and tech ramp ups came from covid where sales spiked up as everyone was stuck at home. Also the same time Floyd riots happened. And interest rates rock bottom so money was cheap to get.

Add it up and that time had a wild west of studios ramping up, a bunch of DEI/Wokey politics thrown in, ultra low interest/loan rates. Fast forward a few years after covid and people's purchasing habits and lives were back to normal and cost of doing business increased.

But those studios were still living off factors that would had fit if 2020 continued. But society changed. But they were too stupid to rein in costs and change their game by the time 2024-2026 came about as release time.

Very few industries went wacko ramping up like tech companies did. Everyone else was smart enough to know covid and 1% mortgages and rock bottom business loans werent going to last forever (my mortgage bottomed out at 1.15% which was insane). Things will normalize at some point so dont go monkey shit building tons of new factories and hiring 1000s of people to run them just because sales increased due to hoarding. But some reason game companies assumed covid sales trends were concrete metrics to go wild on hiring, spending, and making some crummy games to boot.

 

[Moridianae]

A lot of that is their own self doing.

A lot of gaming and tech ramp ups came from covid where sales spiked up as everyone was stuck at home. Also the same time Floyd riots happened. And interest rates rock bottom so money was cheap to get.

Add it up and that time had a wild west of studios ramping up, a bunch of DEI/Wokey politics thrown in, ultra low interest/loan rates. Fast forward a few years after covid and people's purchasing habits and lives were back to normal and cost of doing business increased.

But those studios were still living off factors that would had fit if 2020 continued. But society changed. But they were too stupid to rein in costs and change their game by the time 2024-2026 came about as release time.

Very few industries went wacko ramping up like tech companies did. Everyone else was smart enough to know covid and 1% mortgages and rock bottom business loans werent going to last forever (my mortgage bottomed out at 1.15% which was insane). Things will normalize at some point so dont go monkey shit building tons of new factories and hiring 1000s of people to run them just because sales increased due to hoarding. But some reason game companies assumed covid sales trends were concrete metrics to go wild on hiring, spending, and making some crummy games to boot.

Damn. Were you able to keep it or is it variable? Mine is 2.5% which was as low as we found when we got our home during COVID.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Damn. Were you able to keep it or is it variable? Mine is 2.5% which was as low as we found when we got our home during COVID.

I'd been on variable forever. Never had a fixed ever. But to be honest, I didnt lock in so I fucked up. By the time I scouted fixed rate mortgages, it was already at 3%. I was at 1.15%. So I gambled rates wouldnt move up so fast so soon, but they did. Rates ramped up in 2022 fast, so by year end I was probably breaking even. But 2023-24 it kept going up. I think my peak mortgage rate roughly peaked at 6% I think. But then rates came down. I think I'm at 3.25% or 3.35% now. So not terrible, but my mortgage rate was roughly 2% for a decade, then it tanked below 2% for a couple covid years. Then rocketed up from 2022 to around 2024. Last few years chopped back down into the 3s.

I know a guy who locked in a 10 year mortgage at 2%. And one guy 1.8% for 5 years. They locked in around early/mid 2021. Damn!

Anything under 3% is a good rate. It was abnormal to have such low rates for a decade and then went down even more during covid. It was such a stupid event because inflation was going up, so the logical thing is mortgages/loans rates should go up too. But gov panicked and reduced rates so every bank's loan/mortgage rates reduced too. All the while food inflation was like 10%. So it made no sense and helped contribute more to inflation until rates rocketed up. And because it was such a knee jerk reaction anyone hit with big loan/mortgage rates later when it came to renewal time is hooped. For me I dont care because I can float it, but gov fucked up a lot of people's finances because they didnt smoothly solve covid/inflation/rates. There's going to be many people come renewal time whose new rates are going to be double. And to me that's on gov not knowing what the hell they were doing.

 

[Bernardougf]

I'm sorry I can't really read a 125 page thread..
But is there a reason why people are watching this game so closely and basically counting the days until it shuts down? I didn't play it, so I actually don't know what is so bad about it. Is it too difficult or there isn't enough to be done in the game?

I don't think this game is going anywhere any time soon. I could be wrong, but this Bungie after all. They've had worse times during Destiny 1 & 2 imo.

I'll speak for myself, i see Sony's push for live service games as an absolutely misguided straregy that failed miserable with several games failing and/or canceled and with studios closing directly or indirectly because of it, on top of that because of this aggressive gaas push (and other factors) Sony first party single player (you know the thing that made sony what they are for 4 previous gens) output this gen was abysmal with few games mostly bad sequels, remasters no one asked for and studios going MIA for the whole gen because they were sidelined making shitty gaas that were eventually cancelled. And to finish we had the bluepoint case. Basically Sony's worst gen by a mile as first party content is concerned.

So now we go to marathon, its the first new game from bungie the flagship gaas studio from Sony, the game that should be the crown jewel of Sony gaas portfolio, and its absolutely a dogshit failed product catered to a super niche audience, nonetheless this game failing would still represent the fail of sony gaas push endeavors and maybe the final nail on its coffin, so maybe next gen we can have sony back to its roots.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

If it doesnt and holds down 8-9%, it'll hit the low 18-18.5k with an outside chance of the 17s if the rate gets worse. Peak last few days were 19.4. and 19.8k.

If this holds up, peak will be about 18.6k which will be a new low. Looks like the -20% off on Steam/Xbox not working.

Right on target! And as expected, US peak improved on the earlier decline rate a touch.

10 pm completed hour CCU. Peak reached at 18.4k. A new low
All time peak was launch day 88.3k. Today's peak at 18.4k is -69.9k or -79%

Today vs yesterday: 18.4k vs 19.8k (-1.4k or -7%)

Yesterday's low 5.5k. If the rate holds, low tonight will be 5.1k

Wed vs Wed: 18.4k vs 24.6k (-6.2k or -25%). Big patch day and Steam sale doing nothing. WoW back to back days at -25%, so it's actually getting worse than historic -20%

Alternate method to estimate peaks and valleys (ballpark ratios)
On normal weekdays, 3.3:1. For example, a peak 20k will have a low of 6k. For Fri/Sat, gamers stay up playing so the ratio is 2.5:1

Steam Rankings
Daily Active Users 99
Global Top Sellers 46 (-20% sale boost this week)
Weekly Top Sellers 81 ending Apr 21 (was 67 last week)
Top Rated Games 5,738 (84.28%)

 

[Chupanibre]

Man... I really thought you guys would be off of this by now. Talk about dedication.

 

[Guilty_AI]

Man... I really thought you guys would be off of this by now. Talk about dedication.

its all for the sake of crushing Men_in_Boxes GAAS dreams

 

[Bernardougf]

its all for the sake of crushing Men_in_Boxes GAAS dreams

He will just leech itself to the next "omegagenre game and continue his delusions, as another user just said, so many good gaas games to champion and the guy sells his sanity for dogshit without a future games. Go figure.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

To give an idea on weekly trending:

Launch Thursday 88.3k
1st Wed 60.6k
2nd Wed 51.7k
3rd Wed 39.8k
4th Wed 32.8k
5th Wed 25.4k
6th Wed 24.6k (day after patch)
7th Wed 18.4k

 

[Guilty_AI]

He will just leech itself to the next "omegagenre game and continue his delusions, as another user just said, so many good gaas games to champion and the guy sells his sanity for dogshit without a future games. Go figure.

Men_in_Boxes if you want a forever game just buy doom and play mods for the rest of eternity

 

[Hollywood Hitman]

Man... I really thought you guys would be off of this by now. Talk about dedication.

That's like expecting sports fans to not talk sports in the off season, come on now

 

[Bernardougf]

To give an idea on weekly trending:

Launch Thursday 88.3k
1st Wed 60.6k
2nd Wed 51.7k
3rd Wed 39.8k
4th Wed 32.8k
5th Wed 25.4k
6th Wed 24.6k (day after patch)
7th Wed 18.4k

 

[Negotiator101]

Season 1 is the worst season in Marathons existence. It'll only improve from here.

You forgot to take your meds?

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Men_in_Boxes if you want a forever game just buy doom and play mods for the rest of eternity

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Stolen from purple board. Even the biggest shooter supporters US, Canada, UK are almost over 100.

You can tell there's huge MM issues causing people to not bother as Aussie and Japan sales rank 151 and 145. Those two countries used to be among the countries right up there at launch with the above countries being much higher ranked playing countries. Now they are blended in with the rest of the countries which were always low ranking to begin with.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

You forgot to take your meds?

The nature of Live Service is constant addition and refinement.

Season 2 > Season 1.

You don't know it yet, but Marathon is going to drive you all to the looney bin.

 

[Negotiator101]

The nature of Live Service is constant addition and refinement.

Season 2 > Season 1.

You don't know it yet, but Marathon is going to drive you all to the looney bin.

I know you're being sarcastic but this game will be closed in 6 months or Bungie will have significant layoffs or both and from a once top 3 developer in the world to this that's a crying shame.