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SpicyboiJosh has Marathon

Mar 7 @ 2:13am

All of you are overestimating how big of an audience "hardcore" extraction shooters have.

37,000 players for this niche sub-genre of game is surprisingly good.

"Hardcore" extraction shooters, again, are a very niche sub-genre of competitive game. Close to 40k at 5 in the morning (on the east coast of the US) is pretty damn good. Really, the only other game you could compare it to would be Tarkov, and let me just check really quick, they have 14,000 playing right now. These games aren't for everybody. As for Arc, I love Arc Raiders, its a fantastic game and I am so glad they're keeping the player retention that they are, but, it's clearly more casual focused and Marathon was never going to reach those heights.

Just for arguments sake, I looked up the current numbers of other extraction shooters:

Escape From Tarkov: ~14,000
Arena Breakout: Infinite: ~18,000 (F2P)
Grey Zone Warfare: ~1,600
Hunt Showdown: ~18,000
Dark and Darker: ~7,700

and of course;

Arc Raiders: ~96,000

Anybody complaining about numbers is either rage baiting, or a straight doomer.

Arc Raiders is thriving off of the casual audience, which none of the games listed above are for.

Last edited by SpicyboiJosh; Mar 7 @ 2:14am

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Showing 1-15 of 29 comments

minothorine

Mar 7 @ 2:17am

wow playing for fun is fun,who knew?

cute funny hyperborean gigachud

Mar 7 @ 2:17am

This game is made with a budget and expectation of not being hardcore, not being niche. Also tarkov steam numbers are meaningless when the vast majority have been playing the game for years off steam.

Ask yourself, do you really think this game had a budget comparable to hunt showdown ?

Lycor1s17

Mar 7 @ 2:20am

Niche game for a game being developed with at least 200-250 Million USD excluding hardware, marketing, toilet paper for offices etc? That's a new standard for a game development for sure, yeah...

SolusiRadikal has Marathon

Mar 7 @ 2:22am

If Sony want to bet on the long term, this game actually got a redemption chance.

Ominosity

Mar 7 @ 2:25am

Nobody is overestimating the genre. Everyone is using the money spent to make the game as the core of deciding whether or not it is a flop. You have to make your money back plus more, and a lot more generally, to be a success.

This game likely can't.

SpicyboiJosh has Marathon

Mar 7 @ 2:26am

Originally posted by cute funny hyperborean gigachud:
This game is made with a budget and expectation of not being hardcore, not being niche. Also tarkov steam numbers are meaningless when the vast majority have been playing the game for years off steam.

Ask yourself, do you really think this game had a budget comparable to hunt showdown ?

What does budget have to do with anything?

And you're right, it's not exactly a "hardcore" extraction shooter. I would say it's in-between Tarkov and Arc in accessibility. BUT, the low TTK is absolutely going to turn the "casual" gamers away and Bungie should've known that.

This game is FUN. Like, I really enjoy it, and I also REALLY enjoy Arc.

I'm just glad there is an alternative for those who want a more competitive pvevp experience.

Currently Marathon has 1/3 of the current active players which, in my opinion, whilst comparing it to other ES current players, this game isn't doing bad.

ARC: 95,000
Marathon: 38,000

Kell

Mar 7 @ 2:31am

Originally posted by Lycor1s17:
Niche game for a game being developed with at least 200-250 Million USD excluding hardware, marketing, toilet paper for offices etc? That's a new standard for a game development for sure, yeah...

Can I get a source on those dev costs? I keep seeing people throw these numbers around but Bungie never shared what they spent on making the game

Randy Bobandy

Mar 7 @ 2:31am

Originally posted by SpicyboiJosh:
Originally posted by cute funny hyperborean gigachud:
This game is made with a budget and expectation of not being hardcore, not being niche. Also tarkov steam numbers are meaningless when the vast majority have been playing the game for years off steam.

Ask yourself, do you really think this game had a budget comparable to hunt showdown ?

What does budget have to do with anything?

And you're right, it's not exactly a "hardcore" extraction shooter. I would say it's in-between Tarkov and Arc in accessibility. BUT, the low TTK is absolutely going to turn the "casual" gamers away and Bungie should've known that.

This game is FUN. Like, I really enjoy it, and I also REALLY enjoy Arc.

I'm just glad there is an alternative for those who want a more competitive pvevp experience.

Currently Marathon has 1/3 of the current active players which, in my opinion, whilst comparing it to other ES current players, this game isn't doing bad.

ARC: 95,000
Marathon: 38,000

Budget has a lot to do with this game. Hundreds of employees have worked on this game for years, and I don't believe the current numbers really justify this game's financial success.

SpicyboiJosh has Marathon

Mar 7 @ 2:39am

Originally posted by Jim L. VEVO:
Originally posted by SpicyboiJosh:

What does budget have to do with anything?

And you're right, it's not exactly a "hardcore" extraction shooter. I would say it's in-between Tarkov and Arc in accessibility. BUT, the low TTK is absolutely going to turn the "casual" gamers away and Bungie should've known that.

This game is FUN. Like, I really enjoy it, and I also REALLY enjoy Arc.

I'm just glad there is an alternative for those who want a more competitive pvevp experience.

Currently Marathon has 1/3 of the current active players which, in my opinion, whilst comparing it to other ES current players, this game isn't doing bad.

ARC: 95,000
Marathon: 38,000

Budget has a lot to do with this game. Hundreds of employees have worked on this game for years, and I don't believe the current numbers really justify this game's financial success.

That's understandable, I can absolutely see your point from a financial standpoint.

But you also need to understand that only a handful of games, and this is taking into account that there are 234,984 currently available on steam, EVER break 100,000 concurrent players.

There are 234 other games ahead of this one on the "All Time Peak" list and a huge majority of those games are either single player, co-op or your house hold names, e.g., GTA and Call of Duty.

What also needs to be considered is that this game wasn't just released on Steam, but also PS5 and Xbox. We'll never know the true number of players that this game is able to keep.

Ominosity

Mar 7 @ 2:46am

Originally posted by SpicyboiJosh:
Originally posted by Jim L. VEVO:

Budget has a lot to do with this game. Hundreds of employees have worked on this game for years, and I don't believe the current numbers really justify this game's financial success.

That's understandable, I can absolutely see your point from a financial standpoint.

But you also need to understand that only a handful of games, and this is taking into account that there are 234,984 currently available on steam, EVER break 100,000 concurrent players.

There are 234 other games ahead of this one on the "All Time Peak" list and a huge majority of those games are either single player, co-op or your house hold names, e.g., GTA and Call of Duty.

What also needs to be considered is that this game wasn't just released on Steam, but also PS5 and Xbox. We'll never know the true number of players that this game is able to keep.

Data isn't that hard to come by. We can get a good read on how many console players there are by looking at past games we do know numbers for or have a good idea on. Even looking at Bungie games specifically for their particular fanbase.

There's generally a ratio that runs something like 30/70 up to 50/50. So go with the most generous, 30% PC 70% console split. They're financially flopping.

#10

Lycor1s17

Mar 7 @ 2:51am

Originally posted by Kell:
Originally posted by Lycor1s17:
Niche game for a game being developed with at least 200-250 Million USD excluding hardware, marketing, toilet paper for offices etc? That's a new standard for a game development for sure, yeah...
Can I get a source on those dev costs? I keep seeing people throw these numbers around but Bungie never shared what they spent on making the game

Okay, let's do some simple math, shall we? (Minimum estimate and being generous)
Current employee: 850
Salary range : 85K - 140K per year
Dev cycle : At least 4 - 5 years
Salary alone: 85K * 850 * 4 = 289.000.000 USD (Lowest estimate)
*Excluding hardware, marketing budget, software, office logistics, etc

There's also a fact that Sony bought Bungie for 3.7 Billion USD and you know the rest how it goes from here.

Last edited by Lycor1s17; Mar 7 @ 2:52am

#11

Randy Bobandy

Mar 7 @ 2:54am

Originally posted by SpicyboiJosh:
Originally posted by Jim L. VEVO:

Budget has a lot to do with this game. Hundreds of employees have worked on this game for years, and I don't believe the current numbers really justify this game's financial success.

That's understandable, I can absolutely see your point from a financial standpoint.

But you also need to understand that only a handful of games, and this is taking into account that there are 234,984 currently available on steam, EVER break 100,000 concurrent players.

There are 234 other games ahead of this one on the "All Time Peak" list and a huge majority of those games are either single player, co-op or your house hold names, e.g., GTA and Call of Duty.

What also needs to be considered is that this game wasn't just released on Steam, but also PS5 and Xbox. We'll never know the true number of players that this game is able to keep.

I do understand that. Bungie also had to understand that before beginning the development cycle for this game. Why would they greenlight a bunch of their employees from their already inflated team, with their over inflated salaries and expenses to create a game over the course of 5 years for a small niche of gamers?

That just doesn't make any business sense for me; this game should have been handled by a much smaller team if that was the case.

#12

Ominosity

Mar 7 @ 3:02am

Originally posted by Jim L. VEVO:
Originally posted by SpicyboiJosh:

That's understandable, I can absolutely see your point from a financial standpoint.

But you also need to understand that only a handful of games, and this is taking into account that there are 234,984 currently available on steam, EVER break 100,000 concurrent players.

There are 234 other games ahead of this one on the "All Time Peak" list and a huge majority of those games are either single player, co-op or your house hold names, e.g., GTA and Call of Duty.

What also needs to be considered is that this game wasn't just released on Steam, but also PS5 and Xbox. We'll never know the true number of players that this game is able to keep.

I do understand that. Bungie also had to understand that before beginning the development cycle for this game. Why would they greenlight a bunch of their employees from their already inflated team, with their over inflated salaries and expenses to create a game over the course of 5 years for a small niche of gamers?

That just doesn't make any business sense for me; this game should have been handled by a much smaller team if that was the case.

Decisions aren't made by a wise council. Some suit says "Extraction shooters are hot right now make that instead" after they're 2/3rds of the way through developing a puzzle based RPG or something and there you go. Not that this is the exact story here, just in general I mean. There isn't always a "why" that makes any sense. A lot of the time it's just some exec who thinks he's smarter than he is. And who has no idea what the numbers are for players interested in a subgenre because they just see "shooter."

Last edited by Ominosity; Mar 7 @ 3:03am

#13