Bungie's Situation is a Literal DISASTER.. (Losing Destiny & Floundering Marathon)

[00:00:03]All right, let's speak about marathon.

[00:00:05]Now, I've made marathon videos in the past. It's been like a month since I made a dedicated marathon video. And I know this is a weird time to do it because Destiny is absolutely popping off. But Marathon is contextually important to Bungie's situation and the potential for future Destiny content, right? because Bungie are wrapping up Destiny 2's live service with the indication being that there may indeed be layoffs on the Destiny team, ultimately downsizing Bungie and leaving the studio in a position where Marathon is expected to float the entire company, which based on what we see from sales data or play counts, generally it is hard to imagine that Marathon is able to support a studio like Bungie. And that has implications on Destiny moving forward. For the Marathon fans that I will no doubt offend by talking about this whatsoever, it should be said that I've quite enjoyed Marathon and my time with the game overall. But we can't really avoid the facts. As Paul Tess reported, Marathon season 2 and free week did not turn things around. So Bungie dropped the new season. They also had a free week, which did see an uptick in player counts. I think it peaked at like 40,000 players on Steam, which is about half of what it had when the game initially launched. But importantly, after just a couple of weeks and with the end of that free week, plus the live update to Destiny 2, which has certainly pulled a lot of players away from Marathon, despite the narrative that, you know, there's no crossover between Marathon and Destiny, it's actually not true. From my personal experience and what I see online in general, most people who play Marathon have been invested in Destiny at some point. Folks that I met on Marathon, going back to Destiny 2 with Monument of Triumph, I see them all playing D2 and they've all got Maxlight Guardians and all that kind of stuff. So clearly there is a big crossover there and that has an impact on Marathon's performance. But yeah, being a couple of weeks into season 2 and the game essentially dropping back to the kind of numbers that we saw at the end of season 1 is deeply concerning for Marathon's future because it indicates that player drop off is still significant. And we do acknowledge that some of that is because of Destiny's update, but it also indicates that the free week can't have bought in a significant number of players who have actually stuck with the game, right?

[00:02:02]Which is a problem. And that is despite the fact that Marathon, as Paul Tassy points out here, has pulled out all of the stops to try and get a broader selection of players engaged. They've sped up progression, bought in a PvE mode essentially, or a PvP light mode, which to be honest just feels like PvE 90% of the time, and it doesn't really appear to have moved the needle in any significant way. Destiny fans, highlighted by Paul Tassy here, have very much noted that their dead game, which no longer gets new updates, has averaged over 100,000 concurrent Steam players one night after the new update.

[00:02:30]And we're still seeing peaks of, you know, 130,000 players on average through the week on Destiny versus Marathon getting maybe 15,000 on a good day. And there are, of course, key differences between Destiny and Marathon, Destiny being a 12-year-old franchise with a massive fan base. Obviously, it stands to reason that if Destiny gets a good update, the player counts are going to be higher than what you would see in a niche extraction shooter game, as people like to call it. But the issue with that is that Sony have publicly backed Marathon in recent earnings calls. And we know that ultimately with end of service for Destiny 2, this will be the live service that Bungie are operating.

[00:03:04]And given the costs involved in running a company like Bungie, we know that that is going to be immensely difficult to sustain. And that's why we're already hearing rumors that there will be layoffs at Bungie, which is really quite sad to see, especially when it appears that most of that will actually pertain to the Destiny 2 team with the rest being moved over to the Marathon team or potentially going to other places within Sony or other projects that they're spinning up if they're lucky. Right? So the idea that Marathon with its dwindling player counts and what appears to be not only a mountain to climb, but practically a cliff face to climb, it's very difficult to imagine that Marathon will be able to sustain what is left of Bungie even after all of the layoffs and things coming down the road. It is not helped by the fact that Marathon season 2 has had a pretty abysmal launch overall, right? There's been some good content in there, but in the first few days, there were ridiculous loot farms that players could engage with, especially those with high-end squads, right? and who have a lot of time to actually invest into the game, which really broke the economy because all of the people at the top got immensely rich. And it's not just a bit rich, it's like ludicrous vault values, crazy gear, and progression on the cradle, which actually impacts all of your stats in the game, right? It fundamentally makes you more powerful if you have all of those upgrades. And Bungie allowed this to go on for like a week and then started nerfing all of the new reward sources in the game. And they've subsequently continued nerfing other reward sources in Marathon, which just leaves a sour taste, right? because it's kind of saying if you're in our hardcore audience, you're allowed to take advantage of this, but if you're a more casual player, you're now going to have even more of a mountain to climb to actually progress because they've allowed folks to get really far ahead with it before nerfing it for essentially everyone else. And they've continued to do that actually over two different patches at this point, nerfing Cradle XP once again. And as even dedicated hardcore marathon players are saying here, loot nerfs in the middle of a season is generally seen as bad practice. Bungie should worry about respecting people's time investment.

[00:04:53]Cruiser said, "These loot and progression nerfs should only be done in the launch of a new season or wipe, never two weeks deep into a season.

[00:04:59]These changes don't hurt me, but it makes it a lot harder for casual and new players." They also nerfed, you know, some of the most rewarding components in Cryo Archive, especially for those who are not kind of consistently capable of defeating the compiler and things like that. So, that's enough about the actual mechanics of what's been going on at Bungie in terms of marathon changes.

[00:05:16]Safe to say, though, and I've played, you know, a lot of hours of marathon. I won't say how many, but even for invested players, some of the choices that Bungie are making right now actually boggle the mind, which is deeply concerning for the future of Bungie and by extension the prospect of future Destiny titles. There's been this argument, as Lyanna Rbert said, the only way to keep Bungie alive right now is to support Marathon. People keep comparing Marathon numbers to Destiny, and that's ignorant because it was never designed to do Bungie numbers or D2 numbers. My only problem with this is that if Bungie lay off the Destiny teams, then supporting Marathon won't do anything for a potential future in Destiny.

[00:05:51]Surely, right? Because they won't have the resources to make anything in Destiny. At one point, I thought this argument might have some legitimacy, right? The concept that if you support Bungie more broadly, that could lead to positive things in Destiny in the future. But at this point, I actually don't buy that argument. And I'm not saying it as a justification for everyone to say, "Hey, we should kill Bungie by killing Marathon." I mean, each to their own. But it's not my perspective. Regardless of that, however, I do not think that supporting Marathon will be helpful to the Destiny franchise personally at this point. And especially if we see layoffs down the road, honestly, I think at that point Bungie are cooked, I think it becomes inevitable that they won't be able to succeed in any capacity. So, I know that's a lot of kind of depressing stuff here, but even as a person who enjoys a bunch of what Marathon has to offer, it absolutely boggles my mind that they placed the bet on Marathon instead of Destiny. And as I've said recently, we've seen the reference point that Bungie were already at the red line before Sony acquired them because Destiny was underperforming. That's the way that people have perceived it. And I think that is some absolute nonsense because when you look back, Bungie were making a lot of money from Destiny, Witch Queen, Beyond Light, Lightfall, Final Shape. And the problem is that that money was not going back into Destiny. It was instead spent on expanding Bungie, spinning up new IPs, one of them being the $250 to $300 million project that is Marathon. And all of that money, absolutely every penny of it just about came from Destiny. So to say that Destiny was not able to self- sustain is actually a very aggravating remark to make because what's actually true is that Destiny was not enough to sustain itself and to sustain all of Bungie's other aspirations which included Marathon. Not to mention the expanded studio, which ultimately appears to have been a complete waste because they generated enough real estate to support the Destiny team and all of the Marathon teams and the other projects that Bungie was spinning up. And then in the two years that followed that actually laid off like half of the entire studio, which rendered that studio expansion kind of pointless. So that's where Destiny's money went. Destiny's huge success was largely not invested back into the Destiny franchise and instead went into other things. And those things are not paying off. And that's the situation that Marathon is currently in.

[00:07:59]I'm not saying that there's no way the game could ever succeed because I don't have the insights to back that concept up. That is kind of my gut feeling to be honest right now. Maybe something will change. But as it currently stands, I absolutely hate it, man. As a fan of both games, it's still a simple reality that Marathon is not the right choice.

[00:08:15]And unfortunately, the choice to invest heavily into this is like 3 and 5 years old at this point. And it feels like Bungie can't really come back from that decision.

[00:08:25]So, you've got kind of a mixture of things there from me. Firstly, some thoughts about how Bungie are actually handling season 2 of Marathon, the mistakes in the economy, where I ultimately think, you know, once they'd made that mistake and people were farming ridiculous highle loot.

[00:08:38]Unfortunately, it should have just stuck around because the game is unfun for anyone trying to catch up and that's a problem when you don't want to be losing a lot of players. So, that's my thoughts on the marathon part. And then the broader Bungee part is really frustrating watching them kind of fumble the bag with Marathon after of course fumbling the bag with Destiny, but then ultimately dropping one of the best updates that we've ever seen in the Destiny franchise in the form of Monument of Triumph. It's such a weird mixture of doing things really well and really badly on and off up and down over the course of years. And yeah, I know I've gone on a bit of a rant at this point, but boy is it frustrating.

[00:09:11]Ultimately, the point here is that a dreadful season 2 launch for Marathon overall is something that Bungie just really don't need. At least us Destiny players are eating good, right? On the positive side, as I've said many times, I will always focus on realities that we find ourselves in. And that's what I'm doing in this video. But holy [ __ ] is that Destiny update good? I just wish there could be more of it to come. Maybe that will be possible somehow. But it really doesn't feel easy for Bungie to get out of the situation they find themselves in. Guys, that's what I got.

[00:09:35]Give me your thoughts below. I'm sure you'll agree with some stuff. I'm sure you'll disagree with other things. And depending on which side you're on, I've probably just triggered a whole bunch of marathon fans. But to be honest, I don't care. We have to be real. And just recognize the fact that we can all opt to just play the games we like as well.

[00:09:49]You don't have to listen to idiots on the internet like me. Do what makes you happy. For the moment, cheers for watching. And I hope you have an awesome day.