Marathon Player Count Falls to Ground-Level Figures After Sony Reports $765M Bungie Loss

The player base for Marathon continues to decline. The current maximum number of concurrent players in Marathon is 11,261, which occurred around 8:20 P.M. Pacific Time on May 11. While this number is low enough to speak of, there is an especially surprising fact about it: it even exceeded the number from the previous Sunday. This means that more players were found playing Marathon on weekdays than during the whole weekend.

As you might guess, the discussion around the game is far from positive, though it has been less intense recently. Back when the game became an issue and controversy arose in full swing. However, right now, people seem to be stopping caring about the title. Even criticism, which used to come regularly, has stopped, and people seem to have forgotten about Marathon.

Even with more general tracking platforms such as Flopathon, the same downturn trend can be observed.

Indeed, the monthly trend has once again begun to decrease rather than stabilize as could potentially have happened. As seen in previous trends, the curve has continued to decline. Moreover, there are mentions of the marathon's weekend performance and how it failed to reach 15,000 players, whereas previously the number of participants was slightly above 20,000.

It should also be noted that, not long ago, the peak number of players reached approximately 88,000 within several months, putting everything into perspective. As mentioned above, the percentage of losses appears significant enough to cause problems. Namely, the player base decreased by approximately 25 percent over only several weeks.

At the same time, when talking about retention and noting that the game does not even have its second season yet, which will take place in June, the situation seems much worse. There is a gap between now and then, during which nothing but the current numbers and expectations for new content may occur.

Another point raised is that Marathon is experiencing an all-time low, with around 11,616 active players on a Sunday evening, down from 16,528 last weekend. The reduction itself is around 5,000 users in a week. Alongside it, other problems such as cheating in ranked mode and concerns about the game’s overall status are also mentioned, contributing to a negative perception of its future.

The community is split on whether the declining player count is due to a lack of engagement or to poor retention over time.

Another way of looking at this problem is the "wellness check" on the game, which has a very clear message. While some claim that users will just move on because they are only here temporarily, others believe the game lacks sufficient engagement to retain them in the first place. The debate then turns to the players' sentiments and arguments within the community.

Some have argued that the gameplay itself is enjoyable enough, but there aren't enough players to make an impact. Other arguments state that the issue here is not the enjoyment but the game's retention rate, leaving you with two sides arguing from completely different angles: one focused on the gameplay experience, the other on retention rates.

There is also a lot of frustration when discussing the media's portrayal of the game and their views. The common argument is that certain members of the press and publications that covered the game originally supported it despite the fact that its numbers were already decreasing, and only after did they start making the switch towards discussing problems with retention, the absence of any casual options in the game, and the need for further changes.

Conversely, such statements are also criticized, with counterarguments claiming that, while tracking tools and community spaces are used to an extreme degree, active players may still be enjoying the game despite the problems. It is the discussion of whether the charts or actual experience should take precedence.

Attention then turns to the financial implications of Sony’s investment in Bungie.

While Sony's $765 million impairment loss related to Bungie's underperformance in Destiny might seem like a mere accounting issue on its own, it paints a very different picture from the company's plans. In particular, it should be remembered that Sony spent more than $3.6 billion to acquire the company, with the hope that the purchase would prove profitable in the long run.

However, the situation developed in a way that caused the company's value to plummet to less than half its purchase price, which explains the heated nature of the discussion. The fact that these two games, Destiny 2 and Marathon, don’t seem to mesh well under the same studio’s direction is also noted.

This is particularly because both are meant to continue for some time to come and offer live service. Sony officially confirms that it will not drop Marathon anytime soon and is committed to supporting it. It should be noted that while the company gives an official assurance, it does so amidst the dwindling number of players in the game.

Another thing that one encounters here is the juxtaposition of expectations and realities. For example, the game Marathon was apparently very promising from the beginning, with many people playing it after its launch and sales exceeding a million copies. Moreover, the majority of those who bought it were PC players, not PlayStation gamers – making it an interesting point of discussion regarding platform success.

One might even notice discussion of upcoming Sony games and people’s opinions on them. Some of these upcoming games are met with great doubt, considering everything that happened recently.

However, there are also developer communications about bug fixes and policy changes.

This is seen in exploits that players use due to map bugs to gain an advantage over others. These are followed by bug fixes and compensation for players who were adversely affected by these exploits. At least this is recognized as some form of active developer support, even though it does not affect the overall sentiment toward the game.

Moreover, during further discussions, one can observe how the bigger debate revolving around Marathon evolves beyond its population. Instead, it becomes a question of trust, expectation, and sustainability in the crowded market for live service games.

The one thing you'll notice is that the criticism is coming from a poor communication and direction angle, while the defense claims that initial issues with a live service are par for the course and that the game has the potential to overcome them with appropriate changes. There is validity on both sides, yet neither seems able to convince the other of their perspective.

At the end of the day, the numbers are still going down, and we’re seeing numbers that will be considered relatively low for what is a budget-heavy multiplayer game. Either way, the impression is that this game is going unnoticed instead of taking the world by storm. We have a AAA game from a AAA studio, a huge write-off from a publisher, and players still leaving despite all the arguments.