Is the Best Game of the Year a Failure?

Remap Radio’s Rob Zacny and Emanuel dive deep into their current favorite game, Marathon, and what its middling success says about the future of games. If you listen to the 404 Media podcast by now you probably realized that Joe and I are a little obsessed with a game called Marathon. I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve played it for almost 300 hours since it was released in March. But as much as we’re enjoying it, and there are thousands of players who feel the same, Marathon so far has failed to find the audience we’d expect from the developer that made Halo, Destiny, and which a few years ago acquired by PlayStation for more than $3 billion. It’s bad news for Marathon fans and a good sign for how much the video game business has changed over the years. I wanted to have Remap Radio host Robert Zacny on the podcast because much like me and Joe, he’s been obsessed with Marathon as well. One of Rob’s greatest skills is dissecting how and why games get their hooks into us, and what a game’s popularity, or lack thereof in Marathon’s case, might reveal about the state of the industry and culture more broadly. Remap Radio: https://remapradio.com/ 00:00 Rob Zacny Introduction 03:08 What Is an Extraction Shooter? 08:42 The Genre's Evolution 14:48 Why Marathon Works 18:36 Bungie's Design 22:27 Cryo Archive 34:02 The Thrill of Extraction 47:33 Is Marathon Dead?52:22 Can Bungie Save It?58:50 The Business Problem1:05:20 A Millennial Medium?1:12:59 Aging Out of Gaming1:13:40 The Rise of Sweats1:20:06 Bungie's Layoffs1:23:09 The Destiny Era1:28:00 The AAA Dilemma1:34:22 Sony's Big Bet YouTube Version: https://youtu.be/K4U4mWObX84 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices