Sony's $3.6B Bungie Bet Looks Rough as Marathon Trails a Dragon Bath Game

Remember when Sony dropped $3.6 billion on Bungie? Yeah, that's looking like a bit of a rough investment right about now.

Here's the deal: Bungie's extraction shooter Marathon, the big live-service project Sony was banking on, is getting absolutely clowned on by Chinese forum users for its Steam player numbers. And what's it losing to? A game about washing dragons. Yes, really.

The game in question is Drag'n Wash, an adult furry indie title where you... provide cleaning services for dragons. It hit Steam on September 10 and has already racked up a peak concurrent player count of 3,692. Meanwhile, Marathon's recent Steam numbers have been hovering in the low thousands, and at times, the dragon bath game has actually overtaken it.

That's a brutal look for a game that launched with a peak of around 88,000 concurrent players on Steam. According to third-party stats, Marathon's daily peaks since September have mostly been stuck in the few-thousands range. Ouch.

Why does this sting so much? Because Sony specifically bought Bungie for its live-service expertise. The PlayStation maker wanted Bungie's tech and operational know-how to beef up its own service-game lineup. Fast forward to now, and the flagship project is getting outperformed by a niche adult indie about scrubbing dragons.

To be fair, Drag'n Wash is riding a wave of curiosity and meme energy. It currently sits at around 95% positive reviews on Steam, and its 3,692 peak is nothing to sneeze at for an indie. But the contrast is just too funny for players to ignore.

So, what do you think? Is Destiny's fate unfair, or is this just the reality of the live-service grind? Drop your thoughts below.