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DekutheEvilClown 5 hours ago
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BraLoD said:
DekutheEvilClown said:

Marathon was only made by 300 people out of Bungie's entire staff at peak development. This was after Project Payback got cancelled in summer of 2024 and the team got moved onto Marathon. Before that it was unknown how many people were in development, but this was certainly not a big priority game. Maybe 150 out of Bungie's ~1200 staff.

The crazy expectations for this game come from a lot of misunderstanding and inflated development costs because people don't understand it was a side project for Bungie. The entire studio is no hinging on this game. Destiny 3 is still a guaranteed money maker one day. The IP rights alone are worth hundreds of millions.

People also overlook the fact that Destiny 2 was a platinum(top 12 based on revenue) game on steam ever year since Sony purchased them up to 2025(when it was silver). The floor for Platinum is almost certainly in excess of $100m+ a year. So the game was very likely make several hundred million a year for a good few years after the purchase.

Bungie overpromised on revenue targets and didn't deliver. They paid the price for that and might pay a further price, but that's not the same as the studio being on its last legs or something. Bungie will hav easily generated revenues in excess of half a billion since the purchase. Compare that to some single player studios that might go 5-6 years without a release and have almost no revenue for the last 2-3 years of that. Arrowhead didn't release a game for about 9 years and we're getting full funded by Sony. 

If Marathon is a side project where is the main game? Destiny made money but it has slowed to a crawl.

Do you honestly think Sony will be ok with waiting like 5 years for Destiny 3 to release while Destiny 2 is dead and Marathon is likely also dead? With 900 people working there that whole time no less.

Arrowhead has like 100 people working there and Sony did not pay 4B to get it. Expectations on Bungie delivering a consistent very high cash flow must be insane.

Well, bungie have 600 employees somewhere working on something. So, I guess we'll find out one day but I'd be shocked if it's not Destiny 3. That employee count also doesn't include Project Gummy Bears which got moved to in-house at Sony along with all employees. The fact Sony took full control on that one gives me the impression that was the one they had the highest hopes for out of it, Marathon and Payback. They took control at the same time that payback got cancelled and Marathon got stepped up in production.