Marathon does not have to be as accessible as every other live service value in order for it to be valuable to Bungie/ Sony.

there is this misconception that this game must necessarily either

A. compensate for the entire acquisition of Sony or if your a lil smarter than room temp

B. that it must be as profitable as destiny/ halo.

it doesn't, it has to be profitable either short term or long term, on its own based on the cost to create it and the cost of maintaining servers/adding content. We don't know what it cost to create it, we do not know the cost to maintain servers(We can make some guesses as to how lower player base can go based on other similar games before being shut down but different games have different standards in different companies have different standards) but people love it and are engaging with it and it likely sold 1.4 m based on analysts projections which is really good! That means that It can absolutely be its own thing within the Bungie lineup of ips and properties, if marathon is their niche hardcore shooter than that has real value to Bungie by itself and that adds needed variety to the companies brand while likely being profitable ( either already so or likely eventually) on its own.

tldr:Bungie believes in this game which doesn't mean they think it'll be as money 💰💰💰 raking in as games like D 2 or halo, it means it can exceed its costs, be profitable on its own and be valuable to the overall variety and brand of what it means to be a Bungie game which adds value not only to marathon but to future Bungie games as well.

tldr 2:the idea that we must compromise the tension in this game significantly ( I'm not referring to minor qol or changes that minimally affect difficulty//balance/grind) is premature.