Bungie’s brilliant-but-troubled extraction shooter Marathon may be one of the best games of the year, but it’s far from the most popular. As Bungie continues its plans of expanding the game, the just-as-troubled studio is hiring a new marketing manager in a bid to increase the game’s popularity.
Following the studio’s mass layoffs earlier this year, hundreds of workers were cut from Bungie, and its popular MMO Destiny 2 was quickly shoved into maintenance mode. Now, Bungie is hiring again as the “Bungie publishing team is seeking a principal marketing manager” specifically for Marathon.
In the job posting, which is for a contract gig, Bungie is looking for an experienced marketing manager that has “experience marketing live-service games across launch, seasonal, reactivation, and long-term life cycle moments”.
With the new marketing lead, Bungie is hoping that Marathon will be able to “acquire new players, reengage existing owners, and deepen the commitment of Marathon’s active community”. This is a tall ask, however, as Marathon’s online reputation—largely by those that haven’t played it—has pushed many away from trying the game.
At the time of writing, Marathon’s overall player count is now looking great, either. With a 24-hour peak of just over 3,000 players on PC, the extraction shooter is in a dire situation. As a fan of the game, so much so that it will probably end up being my game of the year, it seems unlikely that the game can make a major resurgence.
Nevertheless, both Bungie and PlayStation are committed to the future of Marathon, despite the game’s poor sales. Bungie and PlayStation has stated that years of updates are still planned for the game with the latter claiming that the game “remains an important part of our portfolio” as it continues its attempts to grasp the live-service crowd.
While it seems unlikely that Marathon can surge to the heights of live-service success that Sony clearly wants, it is great to see a game get additional support instead of being instantly culled. (Such as PlayStation’s own Concord or the very short-lived Highguard.)
As the team continues to work on Marathon, it does seem that the PvP-focused extraction shooter is merging more towards a PvE title. Right now, there are PvE experiences, but the game’s high difficulty still pushes some players away. Maybe, just maybe, Marathon is a game that was simply destined to be good, not destined to be popular.
