Basil

[Basil @Basilithe]

@MaraJunot Such an iconic voice

I may have moved on from Destiny but it is amazing how a voice can bring back a rush of good memories and move one so deeply; the thought of fun nights ordering pizza and raiding with the team, weekends playing through a new dungeon.

Thanks for this, Ikora.

[Basil @Basilithe]

@glorpinity You have been saying for months season 2 was not going to save it? You said like last week it was going to get 100k+ players 😂😂. Revisionist history having ass.

[Basil @Basilithe]

@GuujiGaming @StellarBlade I guess there's a reason they called it Stellar Blade Blood Rain and not SB 2. I can see your point of view. I'm ok with another character but I want a woman, not a like 15 yr old tomboy that looks like they belong in a Kpop boy group.

[Basil @Basilithe]

@GuujiGaming @StellarBlade I think they just want to support the company by any means necessary. Which is never a good thing. Hopefully they tweak it or at least give us body type options. Maybe they bring in another Instagram model that's not Zenny to scan in and hype everyone up.

[Basil @Basilithe]

@aiiygatorz How much money do you make shilling for an anti consumer company that not only screws over players with some of the greediest practices, but also screws over its own employees by not telling them the project they're working on is going to get axed, even knowing ahead of time.

[Basil @Basilithe]

@shrimp_rider What is personal about posting numbers and analysis of what those numbers mean? If anyone is taking it personal, it's you marathon fanboys that go REEEEEEEE when someone posts a damn objective chart that has no agenda or opinion, it's just data.

[Basil @Basilithe]

@Geezaws2 @trulyyblu so your logic is.... if more people bought Marathon, it would have more players.... like no shit, that's the point. No one bought this shit game and it's why the numbers are low. A game on free week, potential to gain millions of players, and it's losing out to Destiny 2 😂

[Basil @Basilithe]

@MarathonDevTeam An extra 2 days will do nothing, people already know you're incompetent.

[Basil @Basilithe]

@vesseloftauceti The copium here is at overdose levels. All it's been for Marathon since it came out is excuses with no real world reflection or logic.

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[Basil @Basilithe]

@johnjacob00777 @MattSousaMMA @itzTizzleYT How are they getting money when it's free to play? Also, context matters. What else came out on or around Tuesday? Absolutely nothing of interest. You can have a C- and still be #1 in an empty class or a class full of retards.

[Basil @Basilithe]

@Gehenna450820 @Crimsn_ Those who still trust Bungie tried the game and just did not like it or connect with it. Going from Destiny where the entire point is to grind for loot that you keep to a game where a simple mistake can destroy hours of progress just does not work with Destiny fans

[Basil @Basilithe]

@Gehenna450820 @Crimsn_ It's not that hard to understand. After years of seeing what Bungie did to Destiny the general gaming public does not trust Bungie at all. So when a new game/season launches it's not excitement it's "Oh it's that predatory company that took content from people" & other negativity

[Basil @Basilithe]

@Epic_Amans @PaulTassi 😂😂😂😂

"You think it's fair to compare them at the exact same time? Compare Marathon at peak times and Destiny at 3 am ET on a Tuesday!"

[Basil @Basilithe]

@SuperJuiceBoi "The only 100k players Marathon saw were the 100k that quit the game."

lmao best response I've seen to this glorpinity dumbfuck

[Basil @Basilithe]

@TheOldWeirdPro you shouldn't have to subsidize a game for a billion dollar company and beg them to make what you want. You people are pathetic, continuing to support the company like a desperate ex that not only burned you, but its own employees and not just once, several times.

[Basil @Basilithe]

@JayViperTV Bungie: Please try, it's free!

Gamers:

[Basil @Basilithe]

@BradfordFoxx @MiltyTheGreat They have literally said it is. You just wanting it not to be does not make it true.

https://t.co/Mqfzo57jgb

[Rhys Elliott @superhys]

Marathon has sold 1.2M copies across Steam, PS5, and Xbox (@alineaanalytics estimates).

It hasn't exactly made the splash Sony and Bungie wanted, even if the game underneath the surface is a MASTERWORK of design.

Looking at the split between Steam, PS5, and Xbox, Steam is clearly the main platform for Marathon, accounting for a little under 70% of the audience (800K copies sold). Meanwhile, PS5 takes about 19% (217K) and Xbox (including console, PC, and cloud) accounts for a bit over 11% or 133K.

Marathon is technically a first-party Sony title, so seeing the home console struggle to break 20% of the volume is a notable data point for the ongoing platform-agnostic debate. PlayStation Studios online games will almost certainly continue being multiplatform (despite Sony reportedly pulling back on PC releases).

One topic that came up in a lot of conversations at GDC this year was why Marathon hasn’t hit the same stratosphere as Arc Raiders. On paper, they’re both extraction shooters, and Marathon has the Bungie pedigree – the house that built the gold standard for gunplay in Halo and Destiny.

My answer: Players understand the Arc Raiders loop within 30 minutes, while Marathon's UI acts as a massive filter, chewing up newcomers and spitting them out before they can experience the depth of Bungie’s signature gunplay and Marathon's awesome gameplay loop.

The Steam copies sold during each game's respective Server Slam paint a picture there. Arc Raiders saw a massive 80% jump in copies sold during its three-day Server Slam. Marathon, meanwhile, saw a 49% increase in the four days following its Slam (Day -7 to -3).

Despite the friction-heavy start, the data suggests that those who survived Marathon’s onboarding are loving life. We’ve been tracking cross-platform DAUs, and while there’s the expected post-launch leakage, many players are sticking with it. After peaking at 478K total DAUs on its first Saturday, Marathon has settled into a respectable rhythm, holding 345K DAUs as of yesterday and averaging 380K DAUs across the weekend.

On Steam, Marathon’s average playtime has climbed to 27.8 hours, significantly outpacing the console averages on PS5 (16.5h) and Xbox (17.3h). Even more telling than the averages: 22% of the Steam audience has surged past the 50-hour mark, and nearly 7% have already logged over 100 hours.

PlayStation and Bungie are at a crossroads here. They can:

1. Double down on Marathon with a long-term Rainbow Six Siege- or No Man’s Sky-style recovery plan, which is something I heard @ChrisRGun smartly mention last week on Sacred Symbols. While this could be a sunk-cost fallacy in action, it could eventually yield the audience the game’s mechanical depth deserves.

2. Shift focus toward the inevitable Destiny 3 or another project, mitigating the escalating opportunity cost and cutting their losses, so to speak.

Doing both is an expensive proposition, given the high overhead and burn rate of operating out of Bellevue, Washington. With Sony recently demonstrating a lower threshold for underperforming studios and projects, the margin for error has vanished. Whatever happens, the next six months will determine whether Marathon becomes a cornerstone of Sony’s live-service portfolio or a cautionary tale of vision exceeding accessibility.

I’m hoping it’s the former, because Marathon fucking rocks. Big analysis on the free Substack, with lots more data and thoughts (link in bio)

[Basil @Basilithe]

@glorpinity (Ran out of characters)
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHhHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA

[Basil @Basilithe]

@glorpinity I came here just to laugh

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHHAAHAHAHAH