iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Marijan @playtracker.net · 21/09/2026

Fair enough, I kinda assumed the incubation projects included Destiny, and interpreted today as more of a follow up. As in: they finalized the decision to move forward with a new Destiny project and decided it made sense to invest in bringing back removed Destiny 2 content to rebuild good will.

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Marijan @playtracker.net · 21/09/2026

If the long range plan didn't include any Destiny until the protest then I'm going to need the "???" for a cloud above my head.

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Marijan @playtracker.net · 21/09/2026

WOOOOO THAT'S WHAT IM TALKING ABOUT THAT'S WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT BABYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

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Marijan @playtracker.net · 18/09/2026

Nah, 9M would be with the pre-recoup split. Assuming 30% platform cut and 50-50 for the rest like you said, they get $24 per $70 copy going forward, so another 1.5M to fund the next game, realistically 2-3M with discounts. Still crazy for this small a budget and this successful of a launch though.

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Marijan @playtracker.net · 10/09/2026

watching americans talk about tariff refunds and getting "appreciation" sales after the gaming corps raised prices everywhere else *first* to try and shelter the fuckarounders from findouting

artistic rendition of the ben affleck exasperatedly smoking meme except its verso from expedition 33

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Marijan @playtracker.net · 10/09/2026

A veteran studio efficiently delivers banger after banger, carrying an entire generation on its back, only to be hit with layoffs anyway. Then all of a sudden, surely by sheer coincidence alone, their very next release ends up falling short. Must have been the wind.

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Marijan @playtracker.net · 09/09/2026

thanks for reminding me about how the world let this game down 🥲

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Marijan @playtracker.net · 09/09/2026

This figure is inaccurate because it confines the overlap to people who played both games on Steam, since Alinea's sample is randomly scraped and not cross-platform correlated. Using PlayTracker data to account for people who played the two games on different platforms, the overlap is 87%.

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Marijan @playtracker.net · 08/09/2026

This is exactly the direction physical should go: add flourishes to the packaging and include little extras like the maps we used to get. Make it deluxe and market it towards superfans, then charge whatever you need to make more per copy than digital. Disc drive already sold separately anyway on PS.

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Marijan @playtracker.net · 03/09/2026

I feel that even if it has kind of turned into a meme, there is value in how disruptive it is for Sony's marketing. The data doesn't look good, but there may be a middle ground out there (e.g. physical as an exclusively deluxe edition thing) and it may only be found if Sony are sufficiently annoyed.

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Marijan @playtracker.net · 01/09/2026

Oh nooooo is Reddit going to have put their advertising extortion policy into writing? Poor little rent seeking parasite corp :((((((

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Marijan @playtracker.net · 29/08/2026

Videos can run as ads and rack up views, right? Perhaps this makes it so a skipped ad now counts as a view whereas before it didn't (viewer needed to stick around). Makes it easier to fake success and opens up that new market of paying YouTube for faux credibility.

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Marijan @playtracker.net · 07/08/2026

I guess it makes sense that these aspects had to have improved somewhere over the past five years, but I felt like the whole "internet is fast enough, data centers are spread out enough" tipping point was hit back in 2019, and was why the whole "cloud is the future" business started then.

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Marijan @playtracker.net · 07/08/2026

Yeah, CEOs keep saying this, but it hasn't caught on and I struggle to see what's different now vs 5 years ago. There doesn't seem to be a market of people willing to pay $80 for a game they can't run without renting a cloud device. Only the "game included in subscription" market actually exists.

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Marijan @playtracker.net · 02/08/2026

They sell the Xbox in Europe??? 😮

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Marijan @playtracker.net · 19/07/2026

Be reasonable. He was working on the Fortnite skins.

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Marijan @playtracker.net · 16/07/2026

is big chungus the kiss of death

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Marijan @playtracker.net · 15/07/2026

Every day some infuriating software insolently thinks it knows better and overrides my explicit input, fucking something up. Every day for the last 20 years. If you are writing code today, whatever level of confidence you think is sufficient to override a user's choice, 1000x that shit or I will ki

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Marijan @playtracker.net · 15/07/2026

They built a knockoff factory that rips out all soul and puts in microtransactions, and they did it all using children who don't know any better on both ends: production AND consumption. Hilariously malicious.

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Marijan @playtracker.net · 11/07/2026

Wrote a bit about the Xbox layoffs, and why the numbers show what a shortsighted decision it will likely prove to be. playtracker.net/insight/post... TLDR: Destroying institutional knowledge because a game with 7.5M players did not generate enough "engagement" will hurt profit, not improve it.

playtracker.net

Thousands were fired to justify faulty Game Pass math

When 7.5M players are not enough, short-sighted decisions at Xbox are killing their true golden goose

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Marijan @playtracker.net · 09/07/2026

id in the past 10 years: 3 AAA games + expansions + engine work for multiple studios, with ~200 employees. Their latest, the "undeniable failure", sold 2M copies with 5M+ players via Game Pass. So doomerism business case: if that isn't profitable, what is? IP just prints forever, quality or not?

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Marijan @playtracker.net · 09/07/2026

☝️Even from a financial perspective, how on earth is id unprofitable? In the past 10 years: 3 AAA games + expansions + engine work for multiple studios, with ~200 employees. Their latest, a supposed "commercial failure" sold 2M copies with 5M+ players via Game Pass. Failure how??? gamepass math...

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Reposted by Marijan

PlayTracker @playtracker.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

Summer Showdown is on in the @secondwindgroup.com guild on PlayTracker! Unlock achievements to claim a free game and compete on the leaderboard for a $250 gift card! Join now: playtracker.net/guild/second...

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Marijan @playtracker.net · 08/07/2026

At least we should still get the two "story expansions" they already sold in the premium edition.

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Marijan @playtracker.net · 07/07/2026

I guess that depends on what you consider sustainability. The guaranteed success of AAA games may be gone, but in its place many small and medium developers have a chance to compete and are doing extremely well. Personally, I think Game Pass was way more corrosive, as great a deal as it is.

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Marijan @playtracker.net · 07/07/2026

I love physical media and get it whenever available, but if there is going to be a success filter, I would prefer it to be "who can sell on a global digital marketplace", rather than "who can get their game in the most physical stores in the 5 countries corporations care about".

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Marijan @playtracker.net · 03/07/2026

If the next Xbox is a PC and supports physical games, could be cool having physical PC games to buy again. Good way to differentiate and justify an alternative store/launcher, too. Could also sell an Xbox branded external drive since physical movies and shows probably appeal to the same crowd.

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Marijan @playtracker.net · 02/07/2026

Whole thing was off, it was an offhand mention in a larger piece about the general turbulence at Xbox. Felt like the author was just casually listing previous rumors and mixed up Arkane and Obsidian in the moment.

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Marijan @playtracker.net · 02/07/2026

Difficult to say from this, could also be buying new stuff with the resale money. Some consistency in physical owners having more activity on other platforms: cross-platform gamers drawn more to physical? Digital may also be more likely to have a subscription and inflate library count that way.

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Marijan @playtracker.net · 01/07/2026

That was the total: average total played PlayStation game library size (including subscription plays and going back to PS3) of physical owners of said game vs digital. Ran some more calcs, but nothing stands out. Maybe average total library playtime? If you have ideas I can run them.

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Marijan @playtracker.net · 01/07/2026

This is PS5 only though. PS4 also excluded.

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Marijan @playtracker.net · 01/07/2026

This sounded correct so I wrote a quick script to try and substantiate your guess with the data I had at hand. Alas, doesn't seem to be much of a difference. N = 31063 (PlayTracker users with PlayStation linked). Subscription plays excluded.

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Marijan @playtracker.net · 26/06/2026

Glad USA is doing so well and causing no problems around the world whatsoever so you guys have time to make up fan fiction about the real reason countries that haven't needed AC for centuries don't have AC, and thousands dying in an unprecedented heat wave is their own fault and also somehow racist.

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Marijan @playtracker.net · 25/06/2026

Yeah I'm a big Marathon enjoyer and believe in the vision for their roguelite PvE mode, but if there isn't a way to make even the lowest point Destiny numbers (1M people buying 100€ of content every year) work somehow, then I don't see a way there either.

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Marijan @playtracker.net · 25/06/2026

That they went straight to 0 with Destiny 2 will forever confuse me. Maybe the "2 expacs per year" plan was not financially viable anymore, but surely there was a profitable middle ground with that many players! Wouldn't you want that income while those other projects go from incubation to release?

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Marijan @playtracker.net · 25/06/2026

Shortsighted destruction of institutional knowledge that will ultimately prove to be disastrous. 🙄

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Marijan @playtracker.net · 23/06/2026

Marathon's first foray into PvE is a singleplayer/coop way into the hardest and most inaccessible map with a separate progression system that doesn't touch PvP economy. Great for existing players! Will not attract new people. In the future, should apply to ALL maps, and work for story progress too.

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Marijan @playtracker.net · 17/06/2026

Even then, with a smaller team making smaller expansions, Destiny had ~700K daily players when an expansion dropped, so it sold at least a million - many as premium editions. That's a scalable business. Love Marathon, but do not see a similar path forward since you can't charge for content.

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Marijan @playtracker.net · 17/06/2026

popularity.report is reliable as it scrapes the Destiny 2 API for ALL entries of a post-activity breakdown created for every activity for any player on any platform. Counts anyone who didn't sit in a menu. On PlayTracker we see Destiny 2 at 4M monthly active across all platforms right now.

popularity.report

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Marijan @playtracker.net · 28/05/2026

Nobody knows how big the login surge will be. The number exists. It's extremely unlikely we anything close to whatever that number is, but it exists.

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Marijan @playtracker.net · 28/05/2026

"Unfortunately, neither the petition nor the planned login surge on the 9th has any chance of reversing the recent decision or greenlighting Destiny 3, as well-intentioned as they may be." Respect your work - no hate. Buuuut there is no way this is as immutable as presented.

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Marijan @playtracker.net · 24/05/2026

Nah you're good. This is the most aggressively unconnected franchise movie I've ever seen, to the level that people have been complaining about that. It works even if you've never even heard of the show, and it may as well take place at almost any time during the show and nothing would change.

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Marijan @playtracker.net · 18/05/2026

Didn't think they'd make this a consistent policy rather than try to have it both ways by keeping it vague and shipping when a game needs it. Especially given our (recently corroborated) analysis about SAROS selling slowly and Returnal's PC version catching up to PS: playtracker.net/insight/post...

playtracker.net

Launch week stats: SAROS (PS5)

Diving into the PS5 launch of SAROS with stats, user personalities, and audience overlap with other games

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