Marathon's Next Play Is Not As Obvious As It Seems

Marathon is a solid extraction shooter that has struggled to find the larger audience that it desperately needs to survive, and Bungie and Sony might have to go back to the drawing board to ensure that the game avoids the worst-case scenario. Playing Marathon requires a learning curve and dropping $40, and it’s really hard for live-service games to attract players when there’s a paywall involved. It’s been a rough first few months for Marathon, but the extraction shooter still has promise.

The good news is that there is still time for Bungie and Sony to pivot and make Marathon a free-to-play game. Bungie’s newest game recently had an uptick in players with Marathon‘s free-to-play week. It was a step in the right direction, and its increased player numbers was a sign that going free-to-play might be inevitable.

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If All Else Fails, Bungie Can Use the Free-to-Play Method as Marathon’s Hail Mary

To help push Marathon Season 2, Bungie hosted a free period from June 2 to June 9, which was extended by two days to June 11 to make up for server issues that plagued players at the promotional event’s start. It wasn’t an ideal kickoff, but it still managed to bring fresh gamers into the fold. Bungie’s hope was that players who enjoyed their time with the extraction shooter would spend the $40 by the time the free event was over, but that wasn’t really the case.

With each day that passed during the free week, the Marathon player count continued to drop. The week saw a peak of 40,000 players, so losing players instead of gaining them as the week went on isn’t a good sign. It’s hard to say what exactly caused the player count to dip, but the learning curve definitely might be daunting to get over when there’s only a week to get used to the game. With other free-to-play options out there that are more straightforward, some players may simply have seen learning Marathon as an inefficient use of time if they didn’t intend on buying the game once the promotion ended.

Going Free-to-Play Isn’t a Cure, But It’s Better Than Nothing

Marathon may have failed to retain a lot of new players with its free week, but it still demonstrated that gamers are far more willing to try it out when there isn’t a paywall attached to the experience. Of course, some extraction shooters like ARC Raiders are a paid product, but Embark Studios’ hit is a juggernaut that is incredibly hard to directly compete with anyway.

Marathon Can Still Turn Things Around, But Sony May Need to Temper Its Expectations

For Marathon to maintain a healthy, dedicated player base, Sony has to accept that it’s not going to topple ARC Raiders from its throne. Marathon is a far more niche take on the extraction shooter genre, and it’s simply not going to appeal to every competitive shooter fan. Marathon‘s cool lore and more complex gameplay gives the game its own identity, but the $40 price tag is likely keeping its own audience away.

The price is probably isolating longtime Bungie lovers, too. There is plenty of debate among Bungie fans right now about whether Marathon is to blame for Destiny 2 ending. Destiny 2 no longer receiving updates was likely caused by a lot of complicated factors, but it at least had the benefit of being free-to-play. Bungie has already demonstrated with Destiny 2 that it has what it takes to build a live-service game that thrives under the free-to-play model, so that makes Marathon‘s price even more frustrating.

Sony’s live-service games have not gone well. The failure of Concord was a great example of how many gamers will avoid a live-service game if it isn’t free-to-play. There’s no way to see into the future and know if going free-to-play will save Marathon, but it’s a risk worth taking.