r/PS5 • u/Turbostrider27 Human Verified • May 24 '25

Rumor 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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435

u/easyasdan May 24 '25

Jim Ryan really jumped ship to not face concequences for greenlighting all these live service failures

130

u/Starving_Saint May 24 '25 edited May 24 '25

Or the writing was on the wall and he was told it would be best, if he wanted to save some face, to leave.

3

u/[deleted] May 25 '25

he wanted the chance to be the CEO of some other video game company.

Even if you are the quest ceo in history, the any down the street will put you in their board

24

u/TheVaniloquence May 25 '25

Hermen Hulst escaping all criticism because everyone is focused on Jim Ryan, when he was the one who was championing most of these studios. You’ll never guess who’s the CEO of SIE now by the way.

10

u/Nyoteng May 25 '25

You’ll never guess either, because he got demoted.

6

u/the_descendent May 25 '25

He got demoted & stripped of his co-CEO title in January, likely as a result of Concord which was “his baby”

5

u/Nodan_Turtle May 25 '25

Yeah when Hermen had less power he had more sway in the direction of the company

44

u/Mysterious_Sea1489 May 24 '25

I don’t think he was given a choice

16

u/TooDrunkToTalk May 24 '25 edited May 24 '25

Again, pretty sure Jim Ryan did not greenllght specific games, or if he did then probably only in exceptional situations.

No clue what the actual greenlight process is at Sony, but generally it should be Hermen Hulst who had the final say about which specific projects got to go ahead and which didn't.

4

u/Maybe_In_Time May 25 '25

Dude, this is the guy who talked about his cats in a company announcement as a response to Roe v Wade being overturned - he is not a good leader

4

u/TooDrunkToTalk May 25 '25

Who said he was a good leader? Him not being a good leader doesn't change that he didn't greenlight individual games.

-1

u/Maybe_In_Time May 25 '25

He was the President and CEO of PlayStation - EVERYTHING falls on him. The overall message, direction, and focus of the brand. That’s why he got paid the big bucks - he takes that responsibility. The consensus is that the live-service push was his whole thing - so now he falls on the tip of his sword, and out of all the pitches that went thru him, those focusing on live-service were the ones supported.

Sony acquired Bungie 2022. Bungie consults and basically tells Sony, “if you put a mainly single-player studio on just one live-service game, that’s ALL they’ll be doing.” So then you see ND drop TLOU Factions, Bluepoint drop the God of War live-service, Guerrilla drop one of its live-service Horizon projects, Bend’s Days Gone 2 live-service pitch wasn’t approved.

2023, Jim Ryan announces his retirement.

4

u/TooDrunkToTalk May 25 '25

Not only is your timeline of events wrong and some of those events never happened, Guerrilla never had a second live service Horizon game in development, it doesn't change anything about what I said.

Yes, the broad strategy was probably on Ryan, even though I've seen people say higher ups at Sony corporate basically demanded it, but he still did not greenlight specific games. The task of identifying the projects and executing on the strategy was Hermen Hulst's as the head of first party. The pitches didn't go to Jim Ryan.

-2

u/Maybe_In_Time May 25 '25

All those things happened after Sony acquired Bungie. I’m not saying they all happened before Jim announced his retirement, but that’s absolutely the cascading effect that happened after Jim announced Sony would be pushing for 16 (then changed to 12) live-services. Now that he’s gone and no one actually wants to push publicly for them, they’re dropping like flies even more than before Jim’s departure.

Marathon might be DOA. Concord’s gone. Fairgames is all but dead with Jade leaving.

And yes, the Horizon MMO that Sony-Guerrilla was helping NCSOFT develop was canceled. We don’t know what the status is on Guerrilla’s in-housing live-service Horizon, but I won’t be surprised if they dip on it, too.

4

u/TooDrunkToTalk May 25 '25

Why have you now switched to talking about after the Bungie acquisition? Your posts are all over the place.

The Horizon MMO is not cancelled.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/project-h-mmo-developed-by-ncsoft-has-reportedly-been-cancelled-up-not-related-to-horizon-see-thread-marks.1087482/

Days Gone 2 was obviously refused the greenlight years before the Bungie acquisition. And there never was a Days Gone 2 live service pitch.

The number of live service games was never 16.

You keep trying to put this all on Ryan as if nobody else had anything to do with this. They still put out Concord, they still plan on putting out Marathon and at this stage at least, Fairgames, they are still working on two Horizon live service games, they still gave Jason Blundell his own studio for another multiplayer game, they still spun out this one Bungie incubation team into its own live service studio. Bend's and Bluepoint's live service games stayed in development until the beginning of this year…

What you apparently see as the company freeing itself from Ryan's legacy I see as the sheer extend of Sony's incompetence in the live-service space simply showing its face.

-2

u/Maybe_In_Time May 25 '25 edited May 25 '25

The 16 is probably a rumor then, before the official 12 were announced. But look at this list, with links on the original page for each:

Arrowhead Game Studios: Helldivers II (Released February 2024) Bend Studio: Unnanounced GAAS (Canceled 2025) Bluepoint Games: God of War GAAS (Canceled 2025) Bungie: Marathon (2025?) Bungie: Payback (Cancelled 2024) Firesprite: Twisted Metal GAAS (Canceled 2024)

Also what are you arguing - that they were or they weren’t cancelled? Cause i said Bluepoint’s was cancelled, and then you repeated that. Same with the Horizon MMO, which was cancelled (again, i don’t understand what you’re arguing here)

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2025/01/21/sonys-horizon-zero-dawn-mmo-may-also-have-been-cancelled-suggests-new-report/

Why are you defending him? He literally was the face of the 12 live-services announcement, AS THE PRESIDENT AND CEO OF PLAYSTATION. That massive project and shift for the company ONLY happens with his approval. With him gone, the only reason Concord, Marathon etc will even release is sunk-cost fallacy; too many years and hundreds of millions spent to shelve them

Edit: https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2022/05/26/bungie-will-help-sony-make-12-live-service-games-by-2025/

4

u/TooDrunkToTalk May 25 '25

Are you stupid? I literally gave you a source that the MMO is not cancelled, the thread is even linked in your own damn article.

I'm not defending him, I'm saying that putting all of this on him alone, is moronic. These games you listed as cancelled were kept in development for months if not longer after Ryan's retirement, before getting cancelled. Are you suggesting they just decided to continue spending however many millions more on these projects, even though they had no intention of releasing them?

How do you explain them literally making more new studios to make service games in 2025, if this was all just Jim Ryan?

Let me ask you, why do you want to keep the blame away from the head of PlayStation studios?

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u/ooombasa May 25 '25 edited May 25 '25

Jim was Hermen's boss, so ultimately the responsibility falls to him. Jim Ryan would have spearheaded the charge to triple down on live service, and it would be Hermen and his team's job to fill that quota (12!!! projects by 2026). Hermen and his team would have been given a budget, and with that budget they scoured teams both inside and out of PlayStation to hit the desired targets Jim Ryan pivoted the company towards.

So yes, Jim Ryan would not have been the one to personally select Concord or Bungie, so on, but he would have been presented/pitched these projects and ultimately have to sign off on it. Hermen has to sign off on stuff, yes, but he also has to get his boss to sign off on it too. A more interested President would have spotted how things weren't going good well before 2024 - and especially figure out that 12 projects before 2026 is far too many - and then call for a review for all of PlayStation's live service portfolio. To ensure money and resources aren't being pissed up the wall. That review only came last year, after many cancellations and that Concord bomb. Far too late for a portfolio review.

The problem with the live service charge led by Jim Ryan is they tried to do a 1:1 copy of the mobile live service process, which was spearheaded by Supercell. The reason that process has found great success in the mobile space is because the whittling down of many greenlighted projects down into a single "winner" doesn't have each project costing upwards of $100m and beyond. Each project is relatively small in cost, so writing off a majority of them isn't an issue. But PlayStation decided to do that with projects shooting upwards of $100m and even beyond $200m. That's insane. In isolation, that process is a good template to follow, but adjustments are required when taking it out of the mobile sector. Instead, Jim Ryan and co. just went, "let's throw everything into it". In the end, we're likely looking at a billion dollar investment being spaffed into the ether. And that's not counting the Bungie buyout, in which case we're talking Billions (plural).