The difference this time is that awful, horrible people like Pete Parsons are gone. Pretty much all of their awful management are gone. The studio got gutted. This apology tour and attempt at a turn around is much different from before, especially when continuing to exist as a studio is now the actual primary function. Attempting to turn around Destiny and Marathon, and actually meaning the words in the apology and putting them into action, is all that matters now for Bungie’s survival.

Did you like Guns N Roses? Do you like them now? Well, even less of Bungie is left than the original band.

That’s not a relevant comparison to what I was saying. I’m talking about the differences in apology tours and how some people running things that got Bungie into the state it’s in are gone now. Previous Bungie apology tours during Destiny were a joke, or just temporary enough to keep the Stockholm syndrome working. This version of Bungie may have more responsible leadership that also might be actively working toward keeping Bungie as an organization and its games alive.

Change can be a good thing. Destiny might have a future again. Marathon might see a turn around. If they kept up the same nonsense that Parsons and others at Bungie allowed, and if nothing were to change, Bungie itself could have been shut down by the end of the year. Same with Marathon. But now there’s a chance to see things succeed and transform. And it all could still fail. But there’s a way better chance than there was under previous management.

I can’t answer to the cost, as obviously they fucked that part up, but other than that aspect, it seems like that was exactly their plan. Marathon was one of like five new projects they were incubating. It was never supposed to be their next massive game that replaced Destiny, I don’t think.

I’m under the impression that this is correct. Also, Marathon ran into development problems and had a pretty big change of focus regarding shells and other aspects once Ziegler was brought in to right the ship, so to speak. And so yeahhhh, coat issues definitely come up in situations like these.

What I believe actually happened is that they absolutely thought Marathon would be a breakout hit and purposefully poured the amount of money into it that they did. The reason they thought it would be a breakout hit - hubris and group think. They are Bungie, and even though I, a Bungie employee, am skeptical about the prospects of this game, everyone else seems positive, so I will stay positive too.

That's obviously true. But it's also obviously true that if Marathon had been made inexpensively (as a secondary project) and sold how it did, they would not have to change course since it'd have been profitable.

I'm always sort of weary of devs trying to 'give players what they want' because sometimes I don't know I want something because it doesn't exist yet, and because playing to a larger audience generally means less of a laser focus on great things that might not be marketable to a big audience.

If my interpretation is true, they are not explaining the part about why they thought a large group of people would respond to their hardcore extraction shooter when that had never happened before. To me, that lessens the value of the apology tour video.

If your interpretation is true (whoops, we made a hardcore game but spent too much money), they are straight up lying in this video about what happened, which definitely contradicts the message of the video.

What I believe actually happened is that they absolutely thought Marathon would be a breakout hit and purposefully poured the amount of money into it that they did. The reason they thought it would be a breakout hit - hubris and group think. They are Bungie, and even though I, a Bungie employee, am skeptical about the prospects of this game, everyone else seems positive, so I will stay positive too.

It’s complicated. The way I had it explained to me was that Marathon started out with character customization, puzzles, and maybe larger map concepts for extraction. Concepts keep shifting or expanding, and more money gets poured into it, but it never gets any closer to launch. Years pass, more money goes into it. Chris Barrett gets let go, lawsuit, etc. Ziegler gets brought in and changes it into a hardcore hero shooter extraction game that plays more like a battle royale but with an extraction. Puzzles and mysteries and things disappear. Hardcore primary focus PvP extraction, and more money to make it be in a state that it can launch. And it does launch.

As for the why behind how they thought this game would appeal to so many people and blow up, I think that’s mismanagement and hubris, which is pretty much where you’re at with it. Ziegler telling people if you primarily want PvE, well, this game isn’t for you and they’re comfortable with that. We’ve heard it said before, but niche genre, niche hardcore focus within it, and openly saying they’re good with less players and interest and focus on the PvE portion of the PvPvE experience.

So, in my opinion, it was a matter of mismanaged development itself that kept Marathon from ever releasing and costing more and more money. And the thought that the Bungie Magic and love of Halo and Destiny that would just make people show up and play the game, problems and all, even after all of the seemingly ignored feedback from the closed and open playtests. Then you have a shift in its “design and vision” with Ziegler, which still costs time and money, but does see it release, but people are left baffled at how it essentially launches in the same state as the Alpha (give or take some improvements) and immediately drop the game.

All of this is a lot to say that this apology tour is from a different set of management and people trying to save the game and actually begin implementing feedback that’s been received from the Alpha through to the present and trying to learn lessons that games like Tarkov and even Arc had already learned (or are still learning) that Bungie seemingly ignored.