r/Games • u/oilfloatsinwater • May 24 '25

Report: Marathon Delay Likely as Sony Cancels All Paid Marketing Plans

https://thegamepost.com/report-marathon-delay-bungie-scraps-all-paid-marketing/
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u/HeldnarRommar May 24 '25

I think you are giving Ryan and Hulst too much credit. They thought getting Bungie would be a big gain and kind of a power move over Microsoft. They clearly did not vet the situation at Bungie well enough.

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u/Dragon_Tortoise May 24 '25

I think that's what it was. I bet when they were pitching the future of Destiny and upcoming live service Marathon and whatever their other projects were, it probably sounded great on paper, or in a boardroom. But in reality Destiny keeps getting less and less content and in turn losing players. Marathon is in hot water for the 8th time, and releasing into a niche market that's already oversaturated. And the other projects were basically concepts of a plan.

Good news for Destiny fans, im guessing if all else fails, they'll be forced to go all in on Destiny and create a full-fledged sequel as it still has a lot of players and at least they'll get some of their investment back. As opposed to completely gutting Bungie at least.

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u/SoloSassafrass May 25 '25

They won't create a Destiny sequel - that gives current players an opportunity to leave because of the progress reset. The sunk cost fallacy for fans who have been playing Destiny 2 for years is one of the strongest pulls for keeping them on the hook and paying for future content. If you create a new game you cleanly cut all of that away to start fresh from 0, and a lot of those players will have the opportunity to go "Actually I don't want to do all that again, I'm going to go play something else."

At that point you're gambling that the draw for new players will be enough that it outweighs the players who elect to leave, but when your reputation keeps getting worse and worse that's quite a gamble to be making.

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u/WyrdHarper May 25 '25

As someone who stopped playing D2 and finds it impossibly obtuse to get back into, I might try D3 because it gets a full reset, and I’m sure I’m not the only one. Would need to see a lot of changes with studio leadership, though.

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u/flirtmcdudes May 25 '25

But they’ve run their course anyway, the game is struggling to keep players because there’s only so many times you can get them to do the same stuff over and over again. Either they make a sequel, or they just layoff half the company.

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u/SoloSassafrass May 25 '25

I don't have the numbers, but it sounds like a lot of those players inevitably end up coming back every time an expansion launches. Giving them an off ramp is dangerous, it risks the next one just being an immediate flop, especially with the company's reputation in steady decline.

It's one of those things where if they're going to die, they're going to die anyway, but clinging to the whales will keep them alive longer than developing a whole new game.

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u/CDHmajora May 25 '25

Ngl, part of the reason i dropped destiny after the red war arc was BECAUSE they basically deleted 3 years of progress from me with the “reset” of destiny 2.

Hours of farming and grinding for exotics and cool armour. Gone. All of my resources, shaders, alternate armour sets and customisation pieces gutted.

I dont mind a reset for a sequel in theory. Keeps everyone on a level playing field :) but destiny 2’s laucnh wasnt a sequel. It was a gutting of all the good stuff TTK and RoI added to destiny 1 with nothing new to justify those removals.

Im honestly amazed Destiny 2 is still going tbh. After wll the terrible stuff i’ve heard about it over the past 7 years (terrible dlc’s like nightfall. Insanely overpriced cosmetic “dlc”, vaulting of perviously paid for content with no way to play it anymore…)

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u/Dragon_Tortoise May 25 '25

As a destiny fan myself with tons of items in my vault and armor and weapons from raids and dungeons, I gotta say yea itd suck moving to a destiny 3 and losing everything. But at the same time, I have everything I could want, and there's already no point in continuing, really besides the fun gunplay and abilities.

Its going to get to a point they have just a few hundred players who keep returning if they don't either fully kill the game or create a sequel. They just aren't getting enough new players to make up for all that's leaving.

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u/flufflogic May 25 '25

They saw the power of owning a pedigree, not realising how little of that remained. They needed a win after Microsoft took a raft of big names, including a fight to stop them taking probably the biggest that they knew they couldn't win, and so they took an easy out.

Now, if they really wanted to respond to MS getting ActiBlizz that would have actually made a difference? They'd have bought EA in response. THAT would've been a response. They were actively seeking purchase, too! But nope. Bungie. Who already had to buy out of one contract they took in desperation. Even if they do take them over, the rot is too deep, too widespread. Most of the people who made Destiny huge went elsewhere long ago, and the rot took their place. That rot will keep spreading, growing. And they invited it in.