Is Marathon headed for disaster?

[Darc Requiem]

Hardstuck-Platinum said:

Darc Requiem said:

Having this take after they lost hundreds of millions of dollars on Concord is wild. GaaS initiatives are extremely risky. Single player games aren't as high reward as a hit GaaS title but they are also far less risky. GaaS titles require are large development commitment in both manpower and dollars post launch. Plus due to the sunk cost fallacy, a GaaS title could be superior to an existing title in every way and still bomb because of players reluctancy to ditch the GaaS game they are currently playing. These players will sunk hundreds to thousands of hours and dollars into that game. That makes them reluctant to leave it to start the cycle over again in a new title. Plus the biggest issue that publishers seem to ignore is that GaaS games are time sinks. Players aren't able to play more couple seriously at one time. This leaves the players less time to play other titles. It's like none of these publishers remember the MMORPG bubble. All these studios were trying to tap into the success of Everquest thenWoW's subsequent massive success. The end result of that being a multitude of failed games and folded studios.

Apart from what I've put in bold, I think everything you're saying is right. It is extremely risky but the PlayStation division is successful enough that they can afford to take those risks. This is not like the PS3 days where the division was genuinely struggling and at risk of closing if the PS4 wasn't successful. MS has released about four games already this year on PS5 and more are coming for the rest of the year, so if Marathon fails it's not disastrous for Sony because they've got so many games coming to their platform now anyway. So, thanks to MS and other third party publishers having a steady stream of games, it frees up Sony's first party to make those GaaS games and take those risks. Like i said, if you throw enough poo at a wall something will stick eventually so it's worth it to keep trying

I couldn't disagree with you more. Sony is trend chasing and they've abandoned what they were good at it to do so. Setting trends is the way to make money, trend chasing is rarely as successful the product that set the trend. These live services games are a crap shoot. Sony abandoned the consistent and steady income of their single player franchises for what amounts to the gaming version of a lottery ticket. That strategy is foolhardy at best. Thus far their live service initiative has netted them the biggest bomb in gaming history (Concord), numerous cancelled titles they've burned money on (TLOU Factions, Bluepoints Gaas God of War, etc.), and they've gotten nothing to show for it but two upcoming games Fairgames and Marathon that don't have a good outlook.

The one live service hit that they do have, Helldivers 2, wasn't even apart their initiative. Which just cements the point that GaaS titles are a crap shoot. The biggest hits are usually game stumbled into by accident. And forcing single player adept studios to make a Live Service games has been a consistent recipe for disaster. With Bioware's Anthem and Platinum Games' Babylon's Fall being recent examples. For anyone that watches American Football, the best analogy I can come up with is GaaS titles are like drafting a Quarterback. Everyone does extensive research on what they think is best prospect and it amounts to nothing because the "number 1 QB prospect" is rarely ever the best QB to come out of that draft. The most glaring example of this is Brock Purdy. He was the last player taken in the entire draft that year and has been the best QB taken in that draft by far.

Last edited by Darc Requiem - on 28 May 2025