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Marathon approaching 15k CCU low (sponsored by coachmcguirk91 - still having a blast)

The problem is that the game sold so little that to actually gain new players, and not just bring back the existing owners, you need another massive marketing push.
 
TheLikou said:
It's pretty clear they are putting all their bets on the june update. It have to be THE update, the one for the ages, to completely turn the boat around and make everyone eat their words. In reality it'll probably bring an boost of 5k players at best at this point. Talk about an critical error.
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The most Marathon has ever bumped up so far are cryo launch day +18% (+9,000 CCU) and big patch day +16% (+4,000 CCU). And I'm even rounding those CCU gains up to the nearest thousand. The -20% sale on Steam did absolutely nothing except increasing the CCU maybe 1,000 gamers when I did an estimate based on usual trending compared to discount day. And since then, CCU lows still get lower despite being on deal for a full week.

If S2 fizzles out, this game is done. They dont even have an S3 roadmap stretching past the summer, so it shows they dont even have much going on there. Even Highguard had a full year roadmap to end of year.

What Sony probably did was tell Bungie you got to S2, but arent committing to S3 in any way unless proven S2 is a success. So dont even bother on working on S3 yet. If S2 fails and CCU keeps dropping, it'll be done by fall at most.
 
Hari Seldon said:
The problem is that the game sold so little that to actually gain new players, and not just bring back the existing owners, you need another massive marketing push.
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Yep, they are basically tasked with starting over.

"Okay you had 5 years to make this game perfect but nobody is playing it, so here is 45 days to recreate the gameplay loop into something different. We don't know what yet, but it just needs to retain players. Oh and also don't piss off the existing players and stay true to what the game was at launch."

Meanwhile the developers:
Nervous Key And Peele GIF
 
Hari Seldon said:
The problem is that the game sold so little that to actually gain new players, and not just bring back the existing owners, you need another massive marketing push.
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True. Maybe marketing will help.

But the Steam discount sure didnt. It was a small -20% off, but it did almost nothing to prop up the CCU except a 1 modest day bounce where instead of dropping a few %, it squeaked out a positive few %.
 
Hari Seldon said:
The problem is that the game sold so little that to actually gain new players, and not just bring back the existing owners, you need another massive marketing push.
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Yeah, I've mentioned this before. The goal of the team isn't to get back the players who stopped playing because the numbers would still be too low. They need to sell this game to a majority audience that hasn't bought it yet. That's a fucking big ask and is certainly not a few shotgun and grenade tweaks away from getting there, or a new map, or a new class.
 
falconhoof said:
Yeah, I've mentioned this before. The goal of the team isn't to get back the players who stopped playing because the numbers would still be too low. They need to sell this game to a majority audience that hasn't bought it yet. That's a fucking big ask and is certainly not a few shotgun and grenade tweaks away from getting there, or a new map, or a new class.
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Best way without trying to a big marketing push, bargain bin discounts, or trying to promote to gamers the gameplay is great for the masses.

Throw it on PS+ and GP sub plans. Or make it F2P. It's probably better to just jump to F2P for all platforms because this game resonates the most with PC gamers. Try to inch their way might not be worth the hassle and time.

A lot of gamers will try it and drop off. But at least being free, anyone can just download it and try it. A bigger -50% off deal wont entice anyone not interested since even a big sale isnt worth wasting money over. And doing weekly tweaks and telling gamers to trust us they game is good wont work either. Hasnt yet. And a Steam sale did nothing either.

But, make it a free download and any gamer will download games to try them out. I got zero interest in FF games. But back in the day, even I downloaded the FF13 demo. Not the type of game I'd ever buy, but just wanted to check out the graphics. But for those shooter gamers on the fence to try Marathon and dont feel like spending money, a sub plan/F2P push might get them to try it. And if they like it, they might buy it when it comes off plan, or at least prop up the CCU and maybe buy some mtx.

Not the type of game that will resonate with core Fortnite or COD fans. But they need a way to attract all those fringe shooter fans who want to try something different.
 
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StreetsofBeige said:
Best way without trying to a big marketing push, bargain bin discounts, or trying to promote to gamers the gameplay is great for the masses.

Throw it on PS+ and GP sub plans. Or make it F2P. It's probably better to just jump to F2P for all platforms because this game resonates the most with PC gamers. Try to inch their way might not be worth the hassle and time.

A lot of gamers will try it and drop off. But at least being free, anyone can just download it and try it. A bigger -50% off deal wont entice anyone not interested since even a big sale isnt worth wasting money over. And doing weekly tweaks and telling gamers to trust us they game is good wont work either. Hasnt yet. And a Steam sale did nothing either.

But, make it a free download and any gamer will download games to try them out. I got zero interest in FF games. But back in the day, even I downloaded the FF13 demo. Not the type of game I'd ever buy, but just wanted to check out the graphics. But for those shooter gamers on the fence to try Marathon and dont feel like spending money, a sub plan/F2P push might get them to try it. And if they like it, they might buy it when it comes off plan, or at least prop up the CCU and maybe buy some mtx.

Not the type of game that will resonate with core Fortnite or COD fans. But they need a way to attract all those fringe shooter fans who want to try something different.
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I think there are too many signals to show that giving away what they have won't bring in results. They had the free weekends before launch and Server Slam ended at about the same level as the game launch. So people were already deciding to walk away then.

The game needs to change. I'll agree with Shill in Boxes, Marathon has to be seen as the worst version of the game in its current state. Without meaningful changes there isn't going to be a sustainable audience, free or not. It needs wider appeal. It needs to figure out how to grant the sweats their happy blast time without being at the cost of the lower skilled players. Support more groups to have their fun.

One way of picturing this would be to take something like WoW and mark the clear separation between the hardcore raiders and the casual enjoyers. They both give each other meaning to be there, even if it's just the shared community space, but the enjoyment of the hardcore raider does not come at the cost of the casual quester and mount hunter.
 
You want to save marathon? Hear me out Bungie (there is nothing new to say but)

*make all characters like DOA xtreme.
*sell cosmetic swim suits, bikinis 👙 and dance moves.
* make one item of the inventory selectable by the player safe of getting lost.
*make that into an in game item drop. Like every X amount of times doing Y you get the drop of a saver. Could be quest.
*reward the players that stays into another season with a cool cosmetic only available to them.
 
GermanZepp said:
You want to save marathon? Hear me out Bungie (there is nothing new to say but)

*make all characters like DOA xtreme.
*sell cosmetic swim suits, bikinis 👙 and dance moves.
* make one item of the inventory selectable by the player safe of getting lost.
*make that into an in game item drop. Like every X amount of times doing Y you get the drop of a saver. Could be quest.
*reward the players that stays into another season with a cool cosmetic only available to them.
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Extraction shooter idea: make all characters hot girls on skimpy clothing, and when you defeat someone you get to steal their clothes, leaving them naked on the map. Make it happen Men_in_Boxes Men_in_Boxes
 
falconhoof said:
I think there are too many signals to show that giving away what they have won't bring in results. They had the free weekends before launch and Server Slam ended at about the same level as the game launch. So people were already deciding to walk away then.

The game needs to change. I'll agree with Shill in Boxes, Marathon has to be seen as the worst version of the game in its current state. Without meaningful changes there isn't going to be a sustainable audience, free or not. It needs wider appeal. It needs to figure out how to grant the sweats their happy blast time without being at the cost of the lower skilled players. Support more groups to have their fun.

One way of picturing this would be to take something like WoW and mark the clear separation between the hardcore raiders and the casual enjoyers. They both give each other meaning to be there, even if it's just the shared community space, but the enjoyment of the hardcore raider does not come at the cost of the casual quester and mount hunter.
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Hey, if they pop it on ps+ with a 20hr great single player campaign I'll give it a shot and maybe try the multiplayer off the back of it.

If not, I guess I'll just enjoy this thread instead…until there's nothing interesting to even read here.
 
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I
GermanZepp said:
You want to save marathon? Hear me out Bungie (there is nothing new to say but)

*make all characters like DOA xtreme.
*sell cosmetic swim suits, bikinis 👙 and dance moves.
* make one item of the inventory selectable by the player safe of getting lost.
*make that into an in game item drop. Like every X amount of times doing Y you get the drop of a saver. Could be quest.
*reward the players that stays into another season with a cool cosmetic only available to them.
Click to expand...

Won't save an ugly game, nothin cool about it no matter what they do. It by default is a game that first impressions killed it
 
I don't think they can save this game because PS fans hate it for what Sony did to Bluepoint, let alone the fact it sucks and looks like vomit. PC gamers are the only thing keeping it alive at this point. I wanted to save this for posterity's sake before PlayStation deletes it. The "2 Weeks to go" Marathon tweet from PlayStation the day they killed Bluepoint. I screen captured the responses.
SSnGVvqU2OWMsDgC.jpg
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This is probably the most important game to reject and kill in the history of games if you don't want PS to turn into pure GAASlop. Let's be honest, they kind of already did. Nasty.
 
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Consider THIS my bros….
Happy In Love GIF by slicedbread

Many Marathon hardcore and casual players were playing Destiny 2 before. So for every Marathon player that takes some percentage of players from Destiny 2. Destiny 2 has way better mtx on offer imho. So they are swapping people to a less profitable game.

I haven't even checked but is there a correlation between when Marathon launched and a drop in D2 playerbase? It could be quantified if I'm right.
quote inception GIF
 
Zacfoldor said:
Consider THIS my bros….
Happy In Love GIF by slicedbread

Many Marathon hardcore and casual players were playing Destiny 2 before. So for every Marathon player that takes some percentage of players from Destiny 2. Destiny 2 has way better mtx on offer imho. So they are swapping people to a less profitable game.

I haven't even checked but is there a correlation between when Marathon launched and a drop in D2 playerbase? It could be quantified if I'm right.
quote inception GIF
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That's how Destiny players feel. This is why the Destiny Community Manager was crying on Twitter the other day (Destiny players believe Bungie has purposely delayed content for the game in order to push people to play Marathon)

Regarding MTXs, I'm sure D2 has better cosmetics and such, but I don't think people feel better about them (D2 has become over-monetized).

But one thing is for certain, both games are not in a good spot.
 
mdkirby said:
Hey, if they pop it on ps+ with a 20hr great single player campaign I'll give it a shot and maybe try the multiplayer off the back of it.

If not, I guess I'll just enjoy this thread instead…until there's nothing interesting to even read here.
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Where's the Campaign coming from? They got 3 map's is it?
 
ChorizoPicozo said:
Regarding MTXs, I'm sure D2 has better cosmetics and such, but I don't think people feel better about them (D2 has become over-monetized).
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Destiny 2 let's you earn paid cosmetics for free, I'm not sure why that isn't the case with this game, you can earn plenty of other skins but yeah. Odd how ARC let's you earn premium currency for free and this one doesn't.
 
I watched a few of those "Marathon is a masterpiece", "State of Marathon" type videos that have come out in the last couple days and boy do they lie and misrepresent the numbers. Making claims like it's stabilizing when we still have 15%+ WoW drops, that this is what normally happens with extraction shooters mid wipe when you can bring up multiple other extraction shooters than don't show this kind of drop. They show a week of numbers on screen so it doesn't really look that bad.

I think it's genuinely shit those people are trying to lie to viewers to get them to buy a game they like without disclosing what the situation is really like.
 
10 pm completed hour CCU. Peak reached at 15.7k which is another new low
All time peak was launch day 88.3k. Today's peak at 15.7k is -72.6k or -82%

Today vs yesterday: 15.7k vs 16.6k (-0.9k or -5%). Might hit below 15k tomorrow as Weds are usually about -5 to 7% range

Yesterday's low 4.6k. If the rate holds, low tonight will be 4.4k

Tue vs Tue: 15.7k vs 19.8k (-4.1k or -21%). Back to the usual 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 107
Global Top Sellers 96
Weekly Top Sellers 74 ending Apr 28 (was 81 last week)
Top Rated Games 5,907 (84.04%)
 
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Now I've started extracting total hours played per title I think I can start getting a better understanding of the numbers. What I'd like to do is use the SteamDB DAU chart listing to try and get a more accurate player session length per day.

Code: 
  SteamDB DAU Chart
  #107 Marathon        - 220,887 Player Hours
  #143 Division 2        - 188,711 Player Hours
  #151 Destiny 2        - 182,742 Player Hours
  #156 Tarkov            - 250,125 Player Hours

See how Tarkov is down in #156 but has the highest played hour count. That game clearly has some long session Larry's playing it.
 
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Plague Doctor said:
EXCITING NEW CONTENT!!!!
A NIGHT version of a map you already have!

So it's exactly the map you know…. BUT WITH SIGNIFICANTLY LESS LIGHT!!!!!!! AMAZING!!!!

please BE EXCITED!
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I think we have to have a conversation about how there has been a complete overreaction to crunch culture and certain studios are taking far too long and delivering too little content. Hellblade 2 comes to mind, 7 years for a 4 hour game.

3 maps in 5 years, no single player campaign. This is basically fraud.
 
ValiantInstance said:
I think we have to have a conversation about how there has been a complete overreaction to crunch culture and certain studios are taking far too long and delivering too little content. Hellblade 2 comes to mind, 7 years for a 4 hour game.

3 maps in 5 years, no single player campaign. This is basically fraud.
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The other problem is that there are more and more people working at these studios that have fuck all to do with actual game development.
 
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ValiantInstance said:
I think we have to have a conversation about how there has been a complete overreaction to crunch culture and certain studios are taking far too long and delivering too little content. Hellblade 2 comes to mind, 7 years for a 4 hour game.

3 maps in 5 years, no single player campaign. This is basically fraud.
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In respect to HB2 Ninja Theory number about a 100 where Bungie number nearly 900 and over a thousand before the layoffs. Ninja Theory managed to at least make one of the best looking games yet, no one could question that at least.
 
Negotiator101 said:
In respect to HB2 Ninja Theory number about a 100 where Bungie number nearly 900 and over a thousand before the layoffs. Ninja Theory managed to at least make one of the best looking games yet, no one could question that at least.
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To be fair, at least Bungie's Marathon had gameplay, loot, skins (awful as it is), server to handle.

HB2 was just a walking simulator.
 
15,714 peak man, maybe 2 weeks from 10-12k peak?......

So season 2 we have a thing called The Cradle(sounds like maybe a safe space or a hub), we have a night map, we have a new shell, and we have potentially a new type of NPC being added.

On the game modes they will likely add more opportunities for BR style modes that start players off on equal footings. I'm not sure how they will handle spawn camping if at all, but less teams on the map is currently in testing.

I'm not sure it will move the needle. If the community views the game as just a pure ganking game then we may have a problem when it comes to casuals.
 
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Game is beyond dead. Ignoring the gameplay entirely, nobody is excited to pour money into a game whose characters all look like they are competing in a Statue of Liberty drag queen contest.
 
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