Sony Lost $560M on Bungie – So Why Is Marathon Still €40 on Steam?
Sony just recorded a new $560 million loss on the Bungie acquisition. Destiny 2 is showing fatigue signals and Marathon landed in March to mixed reactions. Yet Marathon still sits at 39.99 euros on Steam, inside a live-service PC ecosystem where everything around it has been discounted to the bone.
That context does not make Marathon a bad game. It makes the price harder to defend. Bungie now has to justify a premium launch in a market where its own genre, live-service shooters on PC, is devalued everywhere you look.
The question is not whether Marathon deserves attention. It is whether the Steam price makes sense when the same game, one click over, is 49% cheaper as a CD-key and another 34% cheaper again as a Steam Account. That gap is what this article tests.
Why This Matters Now
The news broke on Reddit with a 6,161-point thread: Sony recorded a new $560 million impairment on the 2022 Bungie acquisition. Marathon launched in March 2026 to concurrent Steam players peaking at 27,000 and reviews sitting at an 86 AKS Score: not a disaster, but not the breakout hit Bungie needed after four years of studio turbulence. Destiny 2, the franchise that justified the acquisition, is showing deep discount signals across the keystore ecosystem.
This is not a post-mortem for Marathon. It is a price investigation on a live-service market that has moved faster than Bungie’s pricing strategy. On PC, players do not lack shooters. They lack reasons to pay the full Steam price when the same game, verified by the same merchants, costs significantly less one click away.
Marathon Price Check: Three Ways to Play
Marathon launched on Steam at 39.99 euros. That is the baseline. Below are the three ways a PC player can access it today, from the most expensive to the cheapest: and the compromises that come with each tier.
Marathon Price Breakdown
Steam
39.99 EUR
Full price, full library
CD-key
20,34€
Eneba, coupon AKS18
Steam Account
13,50€
Kinguin, coupon RAB18AKS
A CD-key is an alternative to buying directly on Steam: same game, same library, often cheaper. More info on how CD-key markets work. A Steam Account is a different mechanism: a pre-loaded account with the game, usually even cheaper but with extra trade-offs. Our full investigation explains the difference.
Compare Marathon Steam Account prices
The Bungie Paradox: A 91-Rated Expansion for Less Than a Coffee
This is where the pricing story turns strange. Destiny 2 The Final Shape scored 91 on Metacritic. It released in June 2024 as the climactic expansion to a decade-long saga. Two years later, its CD-key trades at 1.75 euros through GAMIVO with coupon SUPERDEAL: less than an espresso in most European cities.
The base Destiny 2 experience is now free-to-play on Steam, with the paid expansions forming the actual content. The CD-key for the base game sits at free-to-play on Steam, while old key listings are no longer the useful benchmark. The Steam Account version of The Final Shape: which includes the base game and the expansion on a pre-loaded account: goes for 1.41 euros through Kinguin with coupon RAB28AKS.
If a recent, critically acclaimed Bungie expansion can cost less than a coffee, the question is not whether Marathon is a good game. The question is what argument Bungie has left to ask 39.99 euros on Steam for a new IP in the same genre, from the same studio, releasing into the same PC ecosystem.
The Alternatives Are Not Theoretical
Every one of the four games below is a live-service or extraction shooter on PC that competes for exactly the same player. Every one is cheaper than Marathon on Steam, and significantly cheaper off Steam. The PC player who wants a live-service shooter has options: and those options carry numbers worth studying side by side.
1. ARC Raiders: The Closest Extraction-Shooter Rival, Already Half Off
AKS Score (users)
86/100
276K reviews
Embark Studios launched ARC Raiders in October 2025 as a free-to-play extraction shooter and immediately established itself as Marathon’s most direct competitor. Same genre, same PC audience, same live-service structure. The user score sits at 86 across 276,000 reviews and the paid content bundle retails at 39.99 euros on Steam, the exact same price point Marathon defends. But the CD-key market already prices that bundle at 17.76 EUR through GAMIVO: less than half the Steam ask, for a game barely six months old. See cheapest ARC Raiders prices
Released
October 2025
Developer
Embark Studios
Publisher
Embark Studios
Available on
Tags
Extraction ShooterFPSSci-FiMultiplayerPvPvE
Verdict — The closest thing to a like-for-like Marathon alternative on PC right now, and already nearly half the Steam price as a CD-key. Embark’s fast cadence makes it the reference point for the genre in 2026.
Compare all ARC Raiders prices
2. Helldivers 2: The Proven Live-Service That Keeps Its Price Better
AKS Score (users)
78/100
814K reviews · 76.2% positive
Arrowhead Game Studios and Sony shipped Helldivers 2 in February 2024 and it became the live-service success story Marathon is chasing. Steam reviews sit at 76.2% positive across more than one million reviews total. The game launched at 39.99 euros, the same point Marathon starts from, but after two years the CD-key market has settled at 22.21 EUR through GAMIVO with coupon SUPERDEAL. The Steam Account variant is 13.27 EUR at Kinguin with RAB18AKS. More polished, more proven, and cheaper across every tier. Check Helldivers 2 deals
Released
8 February 2024
Developer
Arrowhead Game Studios
Publisher
Sony Interactive Entertainment
Available on
Tags
Third-Person ShooterCo-opSci-FiMultiplayerLive Service
Verdict — The live-service gold standard. Helldivers 2 shows what the 39.99 tier actually buys after two years of polish. If Marathon wants to hold the same price, it is competing against the game that defined the price point.
Compare all Helldivers 2 prices
3. The Division 2: The Devalued Live-Service That Shows Where Marathon Is Heading
AKS Score (users)
79/100
32K reviews
Ubisoft’s The Division 2 is the canary in the live-service coal mine: a solid 79 AKS Score backed by 32,000 reviews, still actively supported six years after its March 2019 launch, and its Steam price sits at 29.99 euros. But the CD-key market has it at 3.00 EUR through Ubisoft Store EU and the Steam Account variant at 1.83 EUR at Kinguin with coupon RAB24AKS. That is a near-90% drop from the official Steam price. If Marathon follows anything like the same trajectory, today’s 39.99 euros will look very different in 18 months. Find Division 2 at the best price
Released
15 March 2019
Developer
Massive Entertainment
Publisher
Ubisoft
Available on
Tags
Third-Person ShooterLooter ShooterOpen WorldCo-opRPG
Verdict — The poster child for live-service price decay. A Ubisoft flagship that still receives content updates, yet the CD-key market has repriced it to single digits. It is the trajectory Marathon needs to avoid, but the market pattern is hard to fight.
Compare all The Division 2 prices
4. Halo Infinite Campaign: The Old AAA Benchmark, Discounted and Still Worth It
AKS Score (users)
73/100
11K reviews
343 Industries and Xbox Game Studios shipped Halo Infinite Campaign in December 2021. Four years later, the Steam price has settled at 19.79 euros while CD-keys trade at 11.59 EUR through Eneba with coupon AKS14 and Xbox Play Anywhere PC keys at 11.59 EUR through Eneba. A 73 AKS Score from 11,000 reviews places it in mixed territory, but the franchise name still carries weight. It is the cheapest classic AAA benchmark in this comparison and a useful reminder: even the biggest franchise names do not hold their launch price forever on PC. Browse Halo Infinite offers
Released
8 December 2021
Developer
343 Industries
Publisher
Xbox Game Studios
Available on
Tags
FPSSci-FiOpen WorldCampaignSingleplayer
Verdict — The franchise benchmark. If Halo, with all its brand equity, trades at 11.59 EUR as a CD-key four years after launch, Marathon has no structural reason to stay at 39.99 EUR for long. The keystore market resets expectations franchise by franchise.
Compare all Halo Infinite Campaign prices
Final Verdict: The Smart Buy Is Not Avoiding Marathon: It Is Avoiding the Steam Price
Marathon is a solid extraction shooter with an 86 AKS Score and a recognizable studio behind it. Sony and Bungie clearly want it positioned as a premium product: the 39.99 euros Steam price signals ambition, not desperation. The problem is not the game. The problem is the market around it.
A CD-key at 20,34€ (Eneba, coupon AKS18) is a 49% discount for the same game on the same platform. A Steam Account at 13,50€ (Kinguin, coupon RAB18AKS) cuts the price by more than half, albeit with the trade-offs detailed in our second-hand Steam Account investigation. Both are verified, both work on PC, and neither requires waiting for a Steam sale that may or may not come.
Add the context: Destiny 2 The Final Shape at 1.75 euros. ARC Raiders at 17.76 euros as a CD-key. Helldivers 2 at 22.21 euros. The Division 2 at 3.00 euros. Halo Infinite Campaign at 11.59 euros. These are not knock-offs or grey-market risks: these are the same games, sold by the same merchants, for the same PC platform, at prices that make 39.99 euros look like a bet on a different market.
Marathon may be the future Bungie wants, but PC players do not have to pay the future price today.
Competitive gaming veteran and Infographics Creator at AllKeyShop, Lionel 'Gen' Bernard made his name in the early days of esports as a professional Unreal Tournament player, competing at the highest level when competitive FPS was still in its infancy. Founder of AllKeyShop, he now brings his competitive DNA to data-driven visual storytelling, producing original infographics and editorial content. His work maps the global gaming landscape through the lens of someone who's lived it from both sides: the arena and the industry.
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