The road to Bungie releasing Marathon was a rocky one, but as of March 5 it successfully landed on the market and enjoyed a relatively stable launch. From there though, Marathon is seemingly struggling to hold onto its player base, and with a new budget figure coming from a reliable source, Bungie might be in a little trouble.
According to a new report from Forbes‘ Paul Tassi, known for his frequent coverage of Bungie titles and insider access to the company, Marathon had a budget of over $200 million, potentially crossing beyond $250 million. He expresses strong confidence in this figure, saying he “can confirm” it to be true, and that the massive amount of cash doesn’t include ongoing maintenance or new content.
This is an eye-watering budget for a game, yet it’s not particularly surprising either given the ballooning cost of games development and Sony’s desperate push for a live-service hit. What’s tricky though is that it’s uncertain whether Bungie’s gigantic investment is really paying off. These kinds of always-online shooter games rely on an active player base to keep things going and invest in the ecosystem, and that seems to be where Marathon struggles.
Whilst it had over 88,000 concurrent players over on Steam when it launched, Marathon has since dropped to around 36,000 players at its weekly peaks over the weekend. The decline has been gradual but it’s still strikingly noticeable, with a little over 25,000 players checking in on the game within the last 24 hours at time of writing.
With such a huge budget, these relatively low (relative to the scale) player numbers combined with their continuing decline is a concerning sight. Live service games can always turn things around with just an engaging update through adding new content, so it’s far from the end of the line. As Tassi puts it himself, “this is not a game that is about to face some sort of imminent shutdown”, and Bungie have pledged to support it for “many years” – but it might be one that needs to find a way to get more players.
There’ll be more to come from Marathon, and we’ll be reporting on it all. Check back often to GameObserver for the latest gaming news, written for humans and by humans.
