• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Marathon had a budget of >$200M

Another Sony money wasted on Gaas trash. Guaranteed next to flop are the ugly abomination and dei Horizon gathering and another ugly gaas Fairgames if it still exist.
 
Fake said:
This is fucking absurd.

6 years, more than 200m and still release with only 3 maps?

This has to be money laundry. Insane incompetency.
Click to expand...
Poorly managed studio. Sounds like Luke Smith's poor management which goes pretty far back. He was let go in 2024, most likely neck deep in Marathon's development which most likely set the stage for any delays. Dude is a wad of shit, always cocky in ViDocs and such.
 
Last edited:
Hawkeye2890 said:
If they had just used that to make Destiny 3. Guaranteed would have at least made their money back.
Click to expand...
Absolutely. When Sony bought these dumbasses I thought awe hell yea it's about to get real, thought time for destiny to kick back into high gear. Hahaha

And we get marathon, and destiny is bout dead.. Fuck off bungie
 
Most AAA budgets nowadays are bonkers. You have to wonder how something costs 200, 300, 400 million to make. How long does it take them to model 1 character, make a map, etc? Seems like an awful lot of money for some pixels on a screen. We all know how much we achieve in our day to day jobs, where we're actually making something or doing something tangible.

Regardless of the cost, the game actually plays really well for those of us that are playing it. Calling it trash because you want it to fail doesn't mean it is actually trash regardless of how much you want it to be.
 
eSGnBDDDVNN3DG2E.jpg
 
Hawkeye2890 said:
If they had just used that to make Destiny 3. Guaranteed would have at least made their money back.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure that would be a guarantee based on Destiny 2 dwindling numbers.
Bungie as a company are out of ideas for Destiny and they've also burned their playerbase too many times. Reference how many times over the years, they've put a "we are listening" blog post.

Some players would definetly return for a new Destiny launch, but I also think they would quickly drop it again when they see that Bungie hasn't done enough to differentiate it from D2. And unless they've totally revamped their monetization model, I wouldn't jump back in either.
 
Timberwolf25 said:
I'm not sure that would be a guarantee based on Destiny 2 dwindling numbers.
Bungie as a company are out of ideas for Destiny and they've also burned their playerbase too many times. Reference how many times over the years, they've put a "we are listening" blog post.

Some players would definetly return for a new Destiny launch, but I also think they would quickly drop it again when they see that Bungie hasn't done enough to differentiate it from D2. And unless they've totally revamped their monetization model, I wouldn't jump back in either.
Click to expand...
I dont follow Destiny, so all I can go on is what I've read and how they'd rip gamers with locked out content and pushing endless mtx and such. So maybe D3 wouldnt be a good fit anyone.

Problem with them is they are so pigeon holed into sci-fi shooters, if you think of it they still got D2 milking to the last drop. So they cant make another sci-fi shooter that looks, plays or has similar modes or else it's overlap in terms of content and style.

If shooters are their thing, then make a different setting shooter. But since they got to keep doing sci fi they back themselves into a corner when dont have to. So no wonder they pivoted to crazy neon art and extraction hoping it'd work out.
 
I hope all of this is true. Every live service project from Sony needs to fail miserably.

That said, unfortunately this has much less impact than most people here think. This generation has been financially incredible for Sony, they're making more money than ever. In fact, that's exactly why they've been able to afford burning all that money on failed projects and still come out on top.
 
Fake said:
This is fucking absurd.

6 years, more than 200m and still release with only 3 maps?

This has to be money laundry. Insane incompetency.
Click to expand...
Fake said:
This is fucking absurd.

6 years, more than 200m and still release with only 3 maps?

This has to be money laundry. Insane incompetency.
Click to expand...
HR departments and diversity councils and a fragile group of devs working from home costs a lot of money
 
ResilientBanana said:
Poorly managed studio. Sounds like Luke Smith's poor management which goes pretty far back. He was let go in 2024, most likely neck deep in Marathon's development which most likely set the stage for any delays. Dude is a wad of shit, always cocky in ViDocs and such.
Click to expand...
He was working in a completely different game that was cancelled. But yeah just make up whatever the hell you want.
 
Here is quick math. Bungie stated that around 300 employees were on it for years. Let's assume that bulk of game was made in last 4 years (it was developed longer than that)

4 years
300 employees x 100 000 annual salary (avr) = 120 mil
Add to that marketing budget. Yeah 200mil is right.

Also bungie employess earn more than 100k per year.
It doesn't cover other expenses like legal, HR, buildings, amortization etc.
 
The real winner is Bobby Kotick. Earned a massive amount of money from Activision COD and Bungie destiny.

When Fortnite started blowing up and the warning signs appeared, sold one of them to the idiots at Microsoft and got rid of the other which went all the way to the idiots at Sony
WXQmNpAYFz7zIxDa.jpg
 
Last edited:
Alex Scott said:
I don't believe this. Just like how Concord supposedly cost $400 million. Total BS. $100 million likely. $150 million possibly. But $250 million? No way.
People who claim marketing cost another $200 million make no sense. Where is that even going? Streamers?
Click to expand...
You underestimate how many people in tech were hired in the last 15 years who contribute next to nothing to the final product.

That viral video of the girl (at Twitter?) showing her day to day was just eating, checking emails and doing yoga got the ball rolling with post lockdown layoffs.
 
If true just imagine you spend 200 million on some studio like Bend or Bluepoint to let them do an Uncharted side project. Guaranteed successful investment.
 
Dr. Samuel Hayden said:
Click to expand...

Is $200 million really that big of a deal for a high profile game made within the last five years? I was always under the impression that a median between $150 to $300 million dollars was the norm for a typical 'high profile' AAA game, when you look at the number of people in the credits involved in any production.

Spider-Man 2 has a budget of $300 million, Cyberpunk had a budget of $350 million? The upcoming Wolverine game has a budget of $300 million. Typical COD game nos is getting close to $400 million all in? I guess an online extraction shooter with a stripped down story line seems like it would be $200 million.

This game started development in 2020 and was completed in 2026 with a crew of like.. 300-400 people? That seems about right. Even though there was a lot of weird shady shit around stolen art from a random twitter/ x.com user. At least they compensated the person for.

I do understand the money that has to be recouped from this project. I don;t even know what the numbers are like right now in terms of sales and long term prospects.
 
MrCunningham said:
Is $200 million really that big of a deal for a high profile game made within the last five years? I was always under the impression that a median between $150 to $300 million dollars was the norm for a typical 'high profile' AAA game, when you look at the number of people in the credits involved in any production.

Spider-Man 2 has a budget of $300 million, Cyberpunk had a budget of $350 million? The upcoming Wolverine game has a budget of $300 million. Typical COD game nos is getting close to $400 million all in? I guess an online extraction shooter with a stripped down story line seems like it would be $200 million.

This game started development in 2020 and was completed in 2026 with a crew of like.. 300-400 people? That seems about right. Even though there was a lot of weird shady shit around stolen art from a random twitter/ x.com user. At least they compensated the person for.

I do understand the money that has to be recouped from this project. I don;t even know what the numbers are like right now in terms of sales and long term prospects.
Click to expand...

The issue is less the budget, and more what all that time and budget bought. The game has 3 maps, no story, no cutscenes, no campaign, and the visuals are actually quite simple, almost seeming to be targeting gaming cellphones, a Playstation Portable, or Switch 2. It really defies explanation what that many people pretended to be doing for that long, and release this as the end result. $250+ million would make sense if it was Destiny 3, even if it was being lambasted for being "content lite" like vanilla D1 and D2. But this is on a whole 'nother level
 
Last edited:
Paul Assi without citing actual verifiable sources, guy is so jaded with Destiny hard to take anything he says about Bungie seriously
 
StreetsofBeige said:
That's the sad thing. But the game was supposedly started in 2019/2020. So you got a chunk of Bungie working on it for 6 years. And that even includes a 6 month delay as the game was supposed to release in Sep 2025.

You'd think a lot of highly paid employees with Halo and Destiny experience would know how to make a shooter game that sells. Instead you got:

- A niche extraction shooter
- Crazy blinding visuals
- Plagiarized artwork
- No SP campaign
- 1 mode
- A handful of maps. And they arent even Tarkov or ARC map sizes
- No SBMM, which leads to good gamers with top gear curb stomping
- Trio focused teamplay where solo mode was tacked on during Xmas development, with Ranked and Cryo not even allowing solo
- No meaningful content until Season 2 which is three months from launch. In the these three months it's weekly gameplay tweaks to fill the gap
- $40

If the game launched on time in Sep, the game didnt even have solo queues or prox chat either. Add it up and who knows where the money went.
Click to expand...
Yeah, the fairly low amount of modes and maps makes this even weirder. At least, I would've expected it to have a good chunk of content ready. But that doesn't seem to be the case. So I guess the development had to be one big clusterfuck.
 
Last edited:
Cakeboxer said:
That's just plain stupid. Somehow there are usually jobs and livelihoods tied to things like this.
Click to expand...
Plain stupid is your lala land pie in the sky comment... by your "logic" nobody should want any company or business not matter how incompetent and/or harmful to "loose money" ... if a company is polluting the waters of some city as soon as it closes the better and a lot of people will loose jobs and livelihoods whitout being at fault, if a company you invested time and money on their products and expected support now suddenly change focus and no longer consider you their consumer and gives you a big fuck you.... you rightfully can wish that it bombs , and guess what ? Its your god damn right because its a business and not charity, incompetence should not be rewarded ever specially in a capitalist business. Sux for the little guys but again its real world business and not the resetera retarded fantasy world.
 
Bernardougf said:
Plain stupid is your lala land pie in the sky comment... by your "logic" nobody should want any company or business not matter how incompetent and/or harmful to "loose money" ... if a company is polluting the waters of some city as soon as it closes the better and a lot of people will loose jobs and livelihoods whitout being at fault, if a company you invested time and money on their products and expected support now suddenly change focus and no longer consider you their consumer and gives you a big fuck you.... you rightfully can wish that it bombs , and guess what ? Its your god damn right because its a business and not charity, incompetence should not be rewarded ever specially in a capitalist business. Sux for the little guys but again its real world business and not the resetera retarded fantasy world.
Click to expand...
I get your point, but you're getting a little too emotional here. We're talking about Sony, a company that sells entertainment products - not the Roxxon Corporation secretly poisoning the planet. You can criticize companies without going straight into the "I hope they go bankrupt" mode while pretending all consequences magically don't affect real people.
 
MrCunningham said:
Is $200 million really that big of a deal for a high profile game made within the last five years?
Click to expand...


It is and it should sound an alarm that we are getting used to these insane figures as if they were normal. They are not.

Only a huge AAA open world would justify this kind of money. Budgets have spiralled out of control and it has nothing to do with quality or scope. Headcount bloat and poor management are the culprits.
 
Cakeboxer said:
I get your point, but you're getting a little too emotional here. We're talking about Sony, a company that sells entertainment products - not the Roxxon Corporation secretly poisoning the planet. You can criticize companies without going straight into the "I hope they go bankrupt" mode while pretending all consequences magically don't affect real people.
Click to expand...
Shall we start a GoFundMe for them?
 
I see the new cope is about Paul Tassi lying. Sure, the dude that built his career around Destiny, has been covering Bungie for ages, and has multiple contacts in their company is just making up stuff for funsies.
 
If Sony really wanted to waste money on something that might be worth it now, they should have remastered M.A.G. I bet it will do really well now.
 
analog_future said:
Between this, and Concord development costing $400 million, like what in the fuck was Sony possibly thinking? My god
Click to expand...

That Men_in_Boxes Men_in_Boxes was right and that GAAS is THE future of gaming. So might as well spend over a half of a Billion dollars on two games (Not including ongoing live service costs). Jim Ryan should be arrested for where he was taking Playstation!

Where's the pitchfork?
 
A waste of money... They could have made three AA games with ingenuity or original, artistic features.


Video game analysts and PlayStation are so desperate to lure audiences to this garbage, to prevent a Concord 2... which will never happen.

I'm happy to play the Fatal Frame 2 remake (that game got a great remake with awesome extras).
 
missiles said:
To think Sony are sitting on multiple dormant but beloved franchises that fans are literally begging for sequels, but they went all in on this.

Simply a masterclass in corporate incompetence.
Click to expand...
This is where I applaud the new Capcom and Konami... because they're paying attention to player feedback and have grown a lot...

We should already have a Bloodborne, a Gravity Rush sequel, and still have Bluepoint and Japan Studio.

But Sony insists on only wanting Horizon (mediocre), The Last of Us, and God of War. A shitty imbalance...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Marathon Season 2 Trailers
2
76
449
Zacfoldor replied
  • Featured
Marathon |OT| A Shell of its Former Self.
|OT|  108 109 110 111 112
6K
9K
sodstall replied
Marathon - Reviews Thread
3 4 5 6 7
316
4K
Gamer_By_Proxy replied
Sony to double down on Marathon
3 4 5 6 7
323
1K
Sohurmk833 replied
Look like there are no physical copies of marathon
35
918
DryvBy replied
Top Bottom