As you're probably aware, the development of Marathon has been long and tumultuous, and as is so often the case, time is money in the gaming industry. Now, Forbes journalist Paul Tassi reports that the game has been extremely expensive to develop, making it yet another in a long line of AAA titles with a live-service model that may struggle to turn a profit:
"I can confirm Marathon's budget is over $200 million. Likely more than $250 million. That does not include ongoing costs for maintenance and new content now."
Last week, it was reported that the game had sold 1.2 million copies, a figure Tassi says he has verified. About 70% of players are on Steam (the game is also available on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S/X, and on the latter, it ranks 106th on the list of most-played games), but many have dropped off since release. While it's nowhere near a Concord-level crisis, Tassi sums up the situation as follows:
"...it's a must-win in Sony's floundering live-service push. You have to take context into account here, and there are higher expectations and more pressure on Marathon than most. It needs more players. It needs to stop losing players. It needs to make money going forward from its microtransactions."
We don't know how Sony internally views Marathon, but in due course, a quarterly report will likely be released presenting this to investors. Simply put, Marathon is an expensive bet on an uncertain market, and Bungie's, and above all the game's, future unfortunately feels anything but secure.