Paul Tassi has shared his latest breakdown on Marathon’s performance, and that includes a new tidbit of information.
To quote Tassi writing for Forbes:
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.
To put this in context, Jason Schreier recently claimed on Bluesky that the average budget of a AAA video game today is at the $ 300 million mark.
That was recently corroborated by Julie Belzanne of game industry newsletter Hushcrasher, who made their own analysis you can read here.
Marathon could have definitely passed that $ 300 million mark, but even at the lower end, it definitely has not broken even yet. That’s not a sign of impending doom.
Bungie didn’t make Marathon for everyone, but they probably intended to build a loyal following that likes hard games. Their goal now is to make challenges compelling enough to make those gamers who already bought the game to return, and hopefully bring new gamers in.