Should Competitive Multiplayer Games Like Marathon Shooter Have Set Prices?

Just yesterday, I received a piece from Mike to write about the imminent unveiling of Bungie’s new shooter Marathon. While sending me the material for the piece, he remarked his disagreement with Bungie’s decision to impose a box price on the game. Upon reviewing the game, I found myself sharing the same opinion.

Rather than questioning the game’s quality, my reservation lies in its design for matches designed for up to 21 players. If you place a high-priced box price – speculated to be around $40 – it naturally narrows the pool of potential players for your game. In the world of competitive games, as many would know, swift queue times can make or break a game, thus the necessity for a sizeable player population. Sure, 21 players might be a moderate figure considering larger-scale battle royales, yet it’s not unheard of for smaller-scale competitive games with maybe 5v5 matches to struggle to keep queue times to a minimum.

Another issue here is the uncertainty of the game’s box price and the possible existence of microtransactions. The company’s director, Joe Ziegler, mentioned in a podcast that they plan to introduce more seasons post-launch and keep updating their game without a price hike. There is a chance of it being a one-time box price, but considering what we know about the online gaming market, I’d anticipate cosmetics microtransactions. The possibility of paid DLC not affecting the box price also seemed plausible based on the phrasing used.

In our discussions, we speculated the reasons that might have prompted Bungie to choose a box price – apart from believing in the game’s value – one such reason could be the increasing governmental regulation on different methods of monetization, commonly found in buy-to-play games and are the bedrock of free-to-play games. Bungie might be keen to steer clear of such complexities and hence decided on this course.

However, it’s worth noting that these regulations focus on certain shady practices, like compelling players to purchase virtual currencies in order to get in-game items. Most players, I presume, would prefer not having to incur additional costs just to accumulate enough in-game money to purchase the items they desire. Then, there’s the gambling factor in gacha-type games and lootbox features. These factors don’t necessarily apply to shooter games, and players are usually open to spending on cosmetics to enhance their characters’ appearances.

Considering all these factors, I am compelled to question if the pay-to-play route is the smartest choice for this type of game. As I mentioned earlier, setting a definite box price could be detrimental to your initial player base. Players are beginning to doubt the developers more and becoming increasingly reluctant to invest money in a game they’re not confident about. If Marathon ultimately faces this issue, it would be intriguing to see the changes Bungie brings to fix it.