Square Enix has had nothing to do with the event of Bungie’s big live-service gamble, Marathon. But a former Square Enix executive who has shared some insightful commentary up to now on all manner of video game industry issues has a number of words for the state of Marathon inside Bungie-owner Sony’s marketing umbrella, they usually’re dire.
Pointing to the sport’s current Steam CCU, Jacob Navok believes it’s that lack of a persistent marketing push that is playing an enormous role in the sport’s (relative) lack of lasting impact. Listed below are his thoughts in full.
Jacob Navok Finds Sony’s Lack Of Faith Disturbing
“Sony owns a ton of digital real estate on the PlayStation dashboards to push Marathon,” Navok said on Twitter. “Its lack of promoting push to support the numbers speaks to the dearth of religion from the platform holder.”
Navok, a former Director of Business at Square Enix Holdings, regarded Marathon’s present Steam CCU as “brutal” before following on with the above critique. To be clear, on the time of his CCU evaluation, the sport’s 24-hour peak was 16,639. This was, as he noted, “an almost 2k loss in peak” relative to the prior day. As of this moment, the 24-hour peak is even lower, at 15,714—nevertheless it’s smack-dab in the course of the work week. You will see higher highs again over the weekend. Nevertheless, it is a downward trend overall.
Now, how does any of that factor into the Steam version? Well, Marathon’s a multiplatform game. Sony’s promoting for the PC version is just as vital as its PS5 and Xbox Series counterparts. More so, even, given all of the reports that the vast majority of the sport’s playerbase is on PC. Not giving Marathon enough money to maintain the player-consciousness ad blitz ongoing is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, you are saving money! However, you are letting things slip.
Interestingly, Marathon was the most-played game on Xbox right across the time that Navok blasted Sony’s handling for the Steam CCU state:
“The #1 most played game by hours on Xbox this month was Marathon,” Twitter user DomRock replied to Navok. “If MS owned it, it will be the largest game since Halo.”
Personally, I do not think I’d go that far. But I get the purpose. Marathon could really use a push right about now across the board.