Benger's Marathon franchise, a multiplayer online shooter and a follow-up to Bungie’s classic Marathon trilogy on the Mac, has been an unexpected success despite several setbacks and controversies. Despite a CEO's departure, an indefinite delay, several controversies, and targeting a saturated genre, Marathon, has become one of this year's unexpected successes. The game, originally announced in 2023, is a competitive, player-vs-player “game as a service” (GaaS), or simply live-service, which is meant to be consistently updated so it can be played indefinitely. However, it faced heavy competition from other online shooters like Fortnite and Call of Duty, and other “forever games” like World of Warcraft and Dead by Daylight. Despite this, Marathon has taken off, with over 33,500 simultaneous players and a Very Positive rating on Steam. Bungie was purchased by Sony Entertainment in 2022 as part of a plan by Sony to shift its internal game development to emphasize GaaS, largely due to Bungie's expertise running the Destiny series.