Bungie’s recent Marathon stream has generated quite a buzz, stirring up some skepticism on social media platforms and Reddit. The early glimpse of their first-person extraction shooter has led a number of people to speculate that it might face a similar demise as Concord, the hero shooter that Sony pulled offline just weeks after its launch. In light of this, a former developer from Concord took to the Marathon subreddit, urging the community to give the game a fair shot.
“We learned a tough lesson with Concord when players didn’t connect with it,” shared the developer, posting under the handle MrSpug. “Watching our hard work be dismissed and ridiculed across the internet was truly heartbreaking.”
This developer, who was a part of Firewalk Studios before Sony closed it following Concord’s removal, expressed solidarity with the Bungie team. They acknowledged the significant effort poured into Marathon and praised Bungie for bravely venturing into such a fiercely competitive genre.
Drawing from personal experience, they wrote, “I put my heart into Concord, did everything I could. We fell short, but don’t let our mistakes cast a shadow on others’ efforts.”
While Concord and Marathon are inherently different types of games, both share a common publisher in Sony. Following the Marathon stream, one notable point of contention was Bungie’s choice to forego a free-to-play model. Unlike Concord, Marathon is set to launch at a lower price than the typical new game, with Bungie hinting at a cost below what’s considered full-price, likely around $40 when it debuts in September. Nevertheless, the fact that there’s a price tag at all leaves some wondering if it’s headed for the same fate as Concord.
“I didn’t want to be ‘that’ developer drawing undue attention to myself, as though I have a personal stake in this,” the former Concord team member continued in a response. “But declaring this game a failure before it even hits the market seems absurd to me.”
