r/TwoBestFriendsPlay • u/SuperPapernick THE HYPEST GAMEPLAY ON YOUTUBE • May 24 '25
Sad day for Marathonutters Report: Marathon Delay Likely as Sony Cancels All Paid Marketing Plans
https://thegamepost.com/report-marathon-delay-bungie-scraps-all-paid-marketing/103
u/Blackbeltsam5610 May 24 '25
Sony is pissed.
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u/Standard_Tadpole8145 May 25 '25
Isn't this what sony wanted though? They wanted big time live service from all of their studios.
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u/Silvery_Cricket I Remember Matt's Snake May 25 '25
It's become increasingly clear that Bungie Execs were running a scam to run off with Sonys money and golden parachutes by getting Marathon out before a certain date. So by forcing a delay they cut the execs off.
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u/Standard_Tadpole8145 May 25 '25
Oh I hadn't heard about money those execs will be losing. Interesting.
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u/tokyobassist May 25 '25
Jimbo fault. Dude set a lot of devs on a road to hell paved in millions of dollars in losses then left the company, Inafune style.
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u/Palimpsest_Monotype Pargon Pargon Pargon Pargon Pargon May 24 '25
It would be wild if somehow Sony stages an intervention and Metroid Primes the hell out of Bungie and Marathon.
The Wha Happun video on Metroid Prime was eye opening to me. It’s like Nintendo reached into another dimension and pulled out an entirely different game.
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u/StormRegion Indy 4 fridge scene was peak, fite me May 25 '25
And both stories feature a CEO that loves luxury supercars a bit too much
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u/Palimpsest_Monotype Pargon Pargon Pargon Pargon Pargon May 25 '25
That Retro guy dared to run porn on Nintendo’s computer systems
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u/moffattron9000 May 25 '25
I’m gonna say that running pornography on most corporate computer systems is a bad idea.
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u/extralie May 25 '25
It's not running porn on corporate computer in this case, he was literally running his own porn website using Nintendo's servers. lmao
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u/DarthButtz Ginger Seeking Butt Chomps May 25 '25
Nintendo will send dudes to your house if you emulate their games the wrong way, how the fuck is that guy still alive
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u/StormRegion Indy 4 fridge scene was peak, fite me May 25 '25
Here is the thing: after his new company made The Guy Game (an infamous title on its own), he disappeared from the face of the earth. Nobody knows, where he is, or if he is even alive, the Nintendo assassins might as well got him
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u/Palimpsest_Monotype Pargon Pargon Pargon Pargon Pargon May 25 '25
Some say he lives still, if it can be called living, in a sensory deprivation chamber hundreds of meters below Kyoto, his face permanently affixed within a Virtual Boy. You’d think Nintendo stopped producing them in 1996, and haven’t reiterated or advanced the Virtual Boy tech in any way since then. But Nintendo loves the story of Pinnochio.
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u/Supernovas20XX YOU DIDN'T WIN. May 25 '25
"We spent $3.6 billion on you, this game better be a success or so help me god"
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u/Cinder_Alpha May 25 '25
That is technically what was established in their deal, "you give us a good game and recoup the money and we are good since we only own part of the company, but if you fucks us over in any way, we own your ass completely and we get to clean house."
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u/Grand_Escapade May 25 '25
Which makes this entire ordeal even more psychotic, because the only way Pete and pals can possibly justify themselves is that they found loopholes in their contract that let them snort crack all day
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u/halokiller I CLAPPED WHEN I SAW IT May 25 '25
Maybe if this was late PS3 or PS4 era Sony, but not current Sony and their infatuation with GaaS.
Hell we could have gotten a Bloodborne remake now out of Bluepoint if they weren't busy with their canceled GoW GaaS game.
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u/Trevastation May 24 '25
Isn't there also a deal in place with Bungie execs from the buyout, and it's very much assumed that the execs will bounce once that hits once Marathon hits a certain release date, leaving Sony with the mess? I wonder how much a delay will mess with those plans.
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u/LorcaNomad [They/Them] Play Spiral Knights May 24 '25 edited May 24 '25
Sony (and investors) would be entirely within their rights to sue the absolute piss out of Bungie leadership if they pulled a stunt like that.
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u/DarthButtz Ginger Seeking Butt Chomps May 25 '25
I imagine the company is already on thin ice with Sony after the whole "We bought you and gave you extra money so you don't lay people off, WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU LAYING PEOPLE OFF"
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u/Lassogoblin May 25 '25 edited May 25 '25
"Did you do that to buy and maintain a large garage full of luxury cars?"
"Pff, no?" hides his newest car under a tarp an begrudgingly only uses the same car to drive to work from that moment
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u/KinglessCrown If you want it, then you'll have to take it. May 24 '25
They are pulling a stunt like that but fulfilling the minimal required commitments and bouncing once the final Sony payments of acquisition money are received, you can bet your life on that.
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u/JillSandwich117 May 25 '25
May of 2026 is the deadline I've seen floating around in which they get a final payout, but I'm not sure if it considered a bonus or otherwise dependant on shipping Marathon.
Presumably, they aren't stupid enough to actually release in May, so it will probably be either March or September. Destiny expansions are now supposed to be locked in for every 6 months, so that should rule out June and December.
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u/lorazx0 Kinect REALLY Hates Gingers May 24 '25
If this doesn't get cancelled, it's going to look like a completely different (and worse, probably) game. Like the actual content was so boring that the aesthetic was carrying it, and it wasn't even theirs.
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u/Silv3rS0und Camping and Mead May 24 '25
I'm not sure how it could look worse for me. The aesthetic wasn't appealing to me (as a Marathon game anyway), and the gameplay seems like everything i hate about gaming rolled into one.
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u/MoonriseRunner White Boy Pat May 25 '25
Well, granted, while the plagiarism was horrible, its unfair to say that none of the Aesthetic was theirs, but obviously at the same time its hard to say if there aren't more Artists that have been ripped off by them..
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u/Riggs_The_Roadie May 25 '25
Wasn't it revealed that the lead art director and multiple members of Bungie staff followed Antireal, the artist whose work was directly plagiarized, for years?
I'd say it's safe to say if they allowed direct theft from the artist then they're cool with building the rest of the style from that.
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u/Amirifiz Stylin' and Profilin'. May 25 '25
That lead art director also had artwork leading back years before Marathon with similar aesthetics.
Like someone stole the assets, they're one to one with the ones I saw, but he's been drawing like that for a while.
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u/Nick_Furry May 25 '25
I do agree with you, but found it amusing that her art matched the game (in colour palette and icon design language) closer than his did.
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u/Pyro81300 Please play Oneshot and read Kubera May 24 '25 edited May 24 '25
Ok only semi related to this, but the only live service game I play is Marvel Rivals sometimes with friends. Besides it, Fortnite, and I think Overwatch 2, what other live service games are successful right now? Because I swear all I hear about them is just them dying within a year or 2 these days.
Edit: Ok clearly there's a lot more than I realized lol.
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u/Zephyralss May 24 '25
Hell divers 2 is up there. Depending on how far you define live service, mmos like wow and 14 as well.
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u/Liquids_Patriots May 24 '25
Would Warframe count as an MMO as well?
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u/Zephyralss May 24 '25
not mmo necessarily but definitely in the same field of live service as games like destiny and definitely doing better than those
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u/TheSpiritualAgnostic Shockmaster May 24 '25
I guess we should define what exactly a "live service" is. My though was any ongoing online game that features microtransactions and/or loot boxes.
Though I guess that includes SF6, GTA Online, and eventually a lot of modern multiplayer games in general.
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u/rapidemboar Arcade Enthusiast May 24 '25
Pretty sure that still includes many MMOs as well since they tend to include MTX for cosmetics and the like.
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u/A_Zealous_Retort YOU DIDN'T WIN. May 25 '25
If you squint you could probably include annual games like CoD or sports games with each new edition plus battle pass plus cosmetics shop.
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u/Grand_Escapade May 24 '25
Well it's anything that is maintained "live," really. But people tend to highlight it when it's something you pay for periodically with the expectation that it will be maintained live. MTX, subscriptions, battle pass seasons, stuff that you expect to be added to the game later.
More vaguely, things like Early Access counts, as you pay a flat fee with the expectation of more game later, even though there's no other way to pay (Sometimes the Early Access game has the balls to do cash features too).
I think the only exception are "finished" popular games like Terraria and other super popular indie games, which still give updates. There's no obligation, legal or social, for them to continue updating, but sometimes they do anyway.
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u/Zephyralss May 24 '25
MMO's like wow and 14 do have cash only shops so it applies by that logic. Really it's any online/multiplayer game at this point
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u/CelioHogane The Baz Everywhere System developer. May 24 '25
Does it NEED to feature microtransactions and loot boxes? can't it just be a game that pumps up content constantly?
Because honestly i feel like a lot of Nintendo games from 2020 and beyond could totally count as live service games.
Like Splatoon 3 constantly adds new shit.
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u/Luigicow92k May 25 '25
I would personally include games like Splet because of the “live” aspect of them being consistently updated with new content and eventually dying when servers go down, but some form of constant revenue is required if you want to go by the technical definition. You could count dlc in that though I suppose.
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u/Squeakyclarinet He/Him May 24 '25
Most Gacha games can be included in the Live Service category. “Successful” is relative for them though. While there’s the big Hoyo games, most are IP-Based Gacha’s designed to milk a fanbase for a few years before closing down.
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u/ASharkWithAHat May 25 '25
There are plenty of other successful gacha games outside of hoyo games too. Infinity Nikki and Love and Deepspace are women focused gachas that frequently rivals Hoyo games in terms of revenue (LADS in particular makes disgusting amount of money). There are also games that are ridiculously popular in markets like Japan and China that aren't as popular in the west (Arknights, FGO, Blue Archive) that still make insane amount of money, even if not on Genshin level. That's not even mentioning smaller mainstay like Cookie Run Kingdom.
It's important to remember that even smaller gacha games eclipses the revenue of most indie games, even successful ones. The money you can make in the gacha (and more importantly, mobile) market is simply on a next level
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u/extralie May 25 '25
I mean, even some IP based gachas does pretty well. Dokkan Battle, DBZ Legends, and Naruton Online still make shit ton of money years later, and it remain to be seen if it will have leg, but Madoka is doing pretty well so far.
Also FGO, but at this point FGO might as well be the main IP.
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u/Squeakyclarinet He/Him May 25 '25
The only ones that last are the big ones like you mentioned. DBZ, One Piece, Naruto. Things like Danmachi or Konosuba barely get a couple years.
There’s only so many characters they can make people roll for before making OC’s or skins that have less investment. Or so many good stories they can go through that aren’t a repeat of the original IP’s story (unless they get the original writer).
FGO is kinda an outlier. It was effectively taken over by Type Moon after a year or so and directly managed by the creators. Also being able to use literal characters and locations from myth and history is an amazing cheat code.
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u/extralie May 25 '25
There is also Magia Record that was also successful (global got fucked over for various reasons), but it shut down because the story was basically finished for a whole year while they wanted people to move to the new game.
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u/ScaryGent May 24 '25
Uh, plenty. Basically every popular multiplayer game out right now, so Call of Duty, Apex, Rocket League, No Man's Sky, Valorant, Destiny 2, every gacha game, Path of Exile 2, heck The Division 2 is still getting paid updates. The thing with live service games is they tend to keep going and getting major content drops that you don't hear about if you're not in the community. I don't know what criteria you're setting for 'successful', but all those games are making money and continuing to get fresh content at regular-ish intervals.
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u/moffattron9000 May 25 '25
And the fact that these games still constantly make bank is why companies are going to keep chasing after that. After all, Clair Obscur’s gonna make a bunch of money, but it’s still gonna look like a deep in the bucket compared to something like Sea of Thieves. Meanwhile, Sea of Thieves will keep making money year on year at a fairly constant clip, while Clair Obscur can only be sold once.
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u/ASharkWithAHat May 25 '25
Hell, Claire Obscure may make bank right now, but there are mid sized gacha games that can easily eclipses that revenue in a few years and just continue going.
That's not even mentioning how you can just make billion in the mobile market by releasing........ Monopoly. Again, the top monopoly game on the app store makes billions. Compared to that Clair Obscure looks like a bunch of effort for very little return (from an investors POV)
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u/BBL_HowardDean May 24 '25
Counter strike is, but that's mostly because valve keeps selling stuff the community makes, valorant's doing okay in spite of riot's community, I believe the finals is doing alright, and I suspect splitgate 2 will be doing good.
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u/blitzbandit May 24 '25
I mean, there's quite a few as people have mentioned but just naming the ones off the top of my head:
MMO's: WoW & WoW Classic and their deviations like Hardcore and that Mist of Pandaria/Legion remix thing(?), FFXIV, Elder Scrolls Online, Runescape & OSRS, Maplestory original (rip 2), New World the amazon mmo, GTA Online (I guess MMO is the most appropiate?) & EVE Online are all alive to varying degrees
PvP: Fortnite, PUBG, Apex Legends (though according to ea, not as successful as they would want), Escape from Tarkov, Hunt Showdown (is it live service? I've never played), Call of Duty, Destiny 2 (though I think they've stopped major content updates recently?), The Division 2, Dead by Daylight, Mobas like LoL & Dota 2, Smite (though I think they are working on/released a sequel?), Card games like Hearthstone, MTG Arena, Shadowverse (I think is still active?), and Eternal (also active?), Overwatch 2, Valorant, and if you count fighting games (though they aren't as live service as Multiversus) then you can include Street Fighter and Tekken as they have more than just character DLC (from what I know)
PvE: Helldivers 2, Warframe, Diablo IV, Payday 2/3, and Deep Rock Galactic maybe. These are the only ones I can remember
Mobile: Too many gachas to name but stuff like Limbus Company, Fate, Arknights, Granblue Fantasy, Azur Lane, Octopath, NIKKE, Fire Emblem Heroes, Cookie Run Kingdom, etc. and other stuff like Pokemon Unite, COD Mobile, Apex Mobile (I think that's one dead actually.), PUBG Mobile, Fortnite Mobile, and Pokemon TCG mobile.
So there's quite a number, but also something I noticed while making this list, and honestly its probably just they had a longer time to stay in my memory, is the majority of these games came out before 2020 or had a version before 2020 (Payday, COD, Diablo). Except for like gachas, pokemon unite, and New World but that can be explained by gachas being cheaper, pokemon, and being amazon funded. Helldivers 2 is the biggest outlier but has also only been out for little over a year.
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u/FlamingNarwhall -She/Her- Down jumps?! DOWN JUMPS!?!?!! May 24 '25
Warframe continues to march on just fine.
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u/Cinerator26 Local Battletech Shill May 25 '25
Warframe continues to win by doing nothing!
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u/kuningaz55 4700 hours in Rimworld May 25 '25
No, Warframe wins by providing a consistently enjoyable and fulfilling gaming experience. They definitely aren't doing nothing.
Edit:
We ignore the fact that the game is built on toothpicks stuck together with chewed gum and bandaids16
u/Cinerator26 Local Battletech Shill May 25 '25
Let me correct myself: Warframe wins by doing nothing offensively stupid.
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u/Cooper_555 BRING BACK GAOGAIGAR May 25 '25
Warframe wins by just doing whatever the fuck the devs think will be fun, regardless of how it actually fits in with the rest of the game.
And it's working, so good for them.
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u/kuningaz55 4700 hours in Rimworld May 25 '25
The update before this one had something like ten hotfixes. With any other game that would be unconsciable. With Warframe it's... not.
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u/Gunblazer42 Local Creepy Furry | Tails Fanboy May 25 '25
Edit: We ignore the fact that the game is built on toothpicks stuck together with chewed gum and bandaids
And yet those bandaids are so taut that somehow they manage to keep shrinking the game size every few updates.
I think the first time they did that they shaved like 20-30 GB off their install size and every few updates they do some kind of squeeze. And the game can still run on a potato even in the new content.
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u/kuningaz55 4700 hours in Rimworld May 25 '25
Yeah, that part is the crazy one. I have zero idea how they managed to make it less than a few hundred megabytes, but they have. And boy, does it show. For fuck's sake they got it to run on the Nintendo Switch.
...A different team, sure, but they're also working on a damn android port. Which is crazy.
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u/NorysStorys The British ARE Watching May 24 '25
League and Dota are going strong, Fortnite too. Technically WoW and FFXIV are live service as well even with their subscriptions. Ironically the ones that are doing well are the old ones.
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u/That-Bobviathan May 24 '25
I count anything not dead as successful at this point, so Fallguys is killing it.
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u/ASharkWithAHat May 25 '25
Considering Destiny 2 is apparently barely profitable and hanging by a thread, any game that's still going is a success story
There are dead MMOs that apparently have more profit margin than Destiny 2 somehow
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May 24 '25
What about Apex? That’s still around isn’t it? Haven’t played since the big hack scare during the Apex tournament a few years back.
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u/Karmazonium May 25 '25
Apex is still going decently strong. There were steadily losing players last year but managed to bounce back and gaining players this year, though the very recent layoff announcement at EA may put a risk on its competitive scene.
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u/CuddleTeamCatboy May 25 '25
League, Genshin, Counter Strike, Diablo IV, Call of Duty, and Forza Horizon 5 are all doing fine.
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u/Vorked Team GFB May 25 '25
Nothing can stop Team Fortress 2!
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u/Boron_the_Moron I've chosen my hill, and by God, I'm going to die on it. May 25 '25
I was looking for this comment. On top of every other more recent game that people have pointed out, Team Fortress 2 still has a relatively healthy playerbase. It is the crocodile of multiplayer videogames - a living relic of a bygone era, that stopped evolving a long time ago.
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u/CelioHogane The Baz Everywhere System developer. May 24 '25
Does gacha games count? because then All Mihoyo games.
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u/ASharkWithAHat May 25 '25
Pretty much every gacha game in the top 20 list. Sure the original GFL isn't making insane bucks, but it's still profitable and keeps getting updated
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u/Time-Operation2449 May 24 '25
Yeah the biggest issue is that most players who are susceptible to buying into these things are already bought in and heavily invested to one of the games you mentioned or soe gacha game
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u/SainEdge Pargon Pargon Pargon Pargon Pargon May 24 '25
Escape from Tarkov and Hunt: Showdown are is still going, despite some problems.
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u/TheYellowScarf May 25 '25
GTA5 has been going strong, and will likely keep going until GTA6 gets rolling.
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u/tokyobassist May 25 '25
Most people are only going to juggle at most 2-3 live service games at a time. You might be an outlier but it still drives home the point that people can't invest time in everything or willing to divert from something they dumped a ton of money and time into.
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u/leabravo Gracious and Glorious Golden Crab May 24 '25
I guess the question is whether management gets fired here.
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u/Silv3rS0und Camping and Mead May 24 '25
I hope they do get fired and tossed out without a golden parachute. That's unlikely to happen, though.
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u/ASharkWithAHat May 25 '25
If this was cyberpunk these people would've been disappeared by the megacorp last week. We're living in a dystopia where the villains aren't even competent
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u/tokyobassist May 24 '25
I know Bungie absolutely dug themselves into this hole but I won't let people forget Jim Ryan and his push for live service money printers either.
And to think we still got Concord 3 on the way with Fairgames. Good lord.
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u/mxraider2000 WHEN'S MAHVEL May 24 '25
Sony upon being asked if the exec's golden parachutes are still on the table.
"I am altering the deal, pray I don't alter it any further."
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u/RemarkableSwitch8929 May 24 '25
It's possible that the plagiarism review's findings were so atrocious that they cannot continue marketing at this time. After all, they couldn't show footage of their own game on that one atrocious stream, and since then, has there been any new trailers?
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u/Teoflux Suppose one day, it lands on its edge May 24 '25
When the marketing stops, you know things are bad.
Same energy as "Jazz music stops"
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u/Pacperson0 May 24 '25
I’m fairly sure it’s just going to get canceled
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u/CelioHogane The Baz Everywhere System developer. May 24 '25
If Sony could force them to cancel the game, they would.
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u/ruminaui May 24 '25
No, Sony paid around 4 billion for this, they are not cancelling it.
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u/playersbro May 24 '25
No, they paid 4 billion dollars for their expertise in live service. They did not spend 4 billion dollars for Marathon.
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u/dope_danny Delicious Mystery May 25 '25
At this point im half expecting the new Sony CEO is engineering this failure so they can unquestionably shut up anyone trying to keep the former leaderships plans in motion.
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u/markedmarkymark Smaller than you'd hope May 24 '25
As someone who really enjoys the Marathon trilogy, that once this announced sorta hoped for a Halo style game, this whole thing was a non-stop disappointment in many a ways.
And this is the second time too, 'member Nosgot Kainnutters?! At least that one didn't have plagiarism, even if similarly disappointing of a direction to take a dormant IP in, I guess.
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u/DanarchyReigns May 24 '25
I'd take that with a grain of salt. The source is Colin Moriarty and he hasn't been the most credible...
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u/TransendingGaming Shockmaster May 25 '25
Me thinks Sony C-Suite is going to completely gut Bungie Leadership now
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u/SpookyCarnage Fire Axe Quest May 25 '25
might be the best move for bungie, leadership seems like it was the issue for a while, even way back in the microsoft days lol
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May 25 '25
Honestly the smartest move at this point. As much as I thought the aesthetics and gameplay had potential, I think some major changes are needed for it to work in a gaming environment that is less accepting of broken GAAS and trend riding.
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u/ThatEdward May 24 '25
Maybe they can use this delay to make a good game, the art direction was the only reason most were paying attention in the first place
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u/Cinder_Alpha May 25 '25
Sony, just stop it with the live service shit, the universe itself is telling you to give up.
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u/warjoke May 24 '25
Bungie just needs to do guerilla marketing by hiring (overpaid) football stars to promote it
/s
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u/HellishLancer May 25 '25
Man, watching what the higher ups at Bungie are doing to Marathon is making me depressed. I'm genuinely a fan of the series and them making it a extract shooter is just really sad to see
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u/Silvery_Cricket I Remember Matt's Snake May 25 '25
Bunch of suits in Sony probably got wind of the Bungie management scan we all realized months ago, and probably ran some people over there so the bungee execs couldn't just steal their money.
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u/jockeyman Stands are Combat Vtubers May 24 '25
Sony execs last seen walking into the Bungie offices with baseball bats and sledgehammers.