‘We’re in It for the Long Haul’: Bungie Rejects Rumours It Could Move on from Marathon After Unremarkable PS5 Sales
Update []: Marathon has been out a few weeks now and it seems like those playing really like it. The challenge for Bungie is that it hasn’t sold particularly well.
So far we only have estimates of 1.2 million units, but they’ve been roughly corroborated by a source close to the studio. To make matters worse, only about 19% of those copies were sold on the PS5.
But in the aftermath of disasters like Concord and Highguard – which performed many magnitudes worse than Marathon, for the record – there’s been some speculation about whether Bungie will move on.
Well, in a quote spotted on the game’s official website, the studio said it’s “in it for the long haul”.
“We are in it for the long haul with Marathon. We look forward to many years of steady improvements to every aspect of the game. Thank you for taking this journey with us!”
The quote is connected to comments about the game’s overall PC performance, so we’re not sure how much we’d recommend reading into this. Ultimately, Sony will have the final say on how long Marathon gets supported.
But while the extraction shooter is clearly pretty niche, it does appear to have attracted a small but dedicated audience. Whether that’s enough to sustain it long-term remains to be seen.
Original Story: Earlier today, analytics firm Alinea released its sales estimates for first-person shooter Marathon. They looked low to us, but double-sourcing from Forbes suggests they may be close to the truth.
According to the report, the Bungie extraction shooter has sold 1.2 million copies since launching on 5th March, with the vast majority of the copies purchased through Steam. That amounts to about $55 million in raw revenue.
It adds that it predicts just 217k players purchased the game on the PS5 – a pretty miserable 19%.
Daily active users peaked at 478k at launch across all platforms, before dropping to 345k the following weekend. They went back up to 380k this past weekend (21st March and 22nd March) following the release of hyped endgame raid, Cryo Archive.
To reiterate, these numbers are guesstimates, but Forbes claims it’s got confirmation from a Bungie employee that they’re roughly in the right ballpark. So, somewhat accurate, then.
And the problem is that they’re pretty unremarkable for a game of this scale.
Bungie is one of the most expensive and prestigious studios in the business, and this is its first proper new title in close to a decade. Its budget will have been through the roof, and Sony will have likely attached high expectations to it.
So, what happens next? Well, Forbes reports that it’s business as usual for now, and Bungie will continue to execute on its current content plan.
The game has been getting good reviews – we gave it a 9/10 – and word of mouth seems fairly strong among those few people playing. The problem is: are there enough players engaging with it to make this endeavour worth it?
Earlier today we saw Epic lay off over 1,000 workers due to a dip in Fortnite players. It’s going to be interesting to see how Sony squares the circle here, because while these numbers aren’t disastrous, they’re very, very soft.
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