How many Guardians are currently playing Destiny 2 on Google Stadia? How does the major launch title of the game streaming service perform almost two months after its release?
How is the flagship of Google Stadia doing? Destiny 2 was one of the major launch titles for Google’s game streaming service Stadia. However, the launch on November 19 was rather subdued. On November 22, only 0.7% of all Guardians were active on the new platform.
However, some time has passed, and we take another look at how the player numbers are doing. How have they developed since the launch, and how many Guardians are currently playing on the new platform in Destiny 2?
The player counts on Stadia shortly after the launch
Shortly after the launch, the player counts on Stadia were quite low. On November 22, just 3 days after the launch of Stadia Pro
- a total of 9,960 Guardians (0.7% of all players) active throughout the day on Stadia – almost all of them in PvE
- 44 players played PvP
- only 13 players were found in Gambit
- 52 Guardians dared to enter the Raids
For comparison: On the other platforms, over 1.3 million Guardians were active during the same time.
Note: These low Stadia player counts were likely also influenced by technical issues and the availability of the Founder’s Packs. Many players complained that Stadia did not arrive on time and they had to wait longer for it.
The source for the numbers was the Charlemagne tool, which takes into account daily player counts as well as the distribution of Guardians across the various activities.
The player counts on Stadia at the beginning of January
Here is how the player counts looked one week after the Stadia launch: On November 26, one week after the Stadia launch, the situation was already a bit better – albeit still quite low compared to the other platforms. The player counts were as follows:
- PC: 494,000
- PS4: 454,000
- Xbox One: 331,000
- Stadia: 19,400
Stadia thus had more than twice as many players compared to November 22. On the other platforms, about 1.27 million players were active.
Here are the player counts on Stadia at the beginning of 2020: How have the Destiny 2 player counts developed at the start of the new year? After all, it has now been 7 weeks since the launch of Stadia.
These are the numbers from January 2, 2020:
- PC: 437,000
- PS4: 435,000
- Xbox One: 313,000
- Stadia: 8,020
The number of active Guardians on Stadia has even dropped below the level of the problematic launch time by almost 2,000 players.
All other platforms, PC, PS4, and Xbox One, also experienced declines; on January 2, a total of 1.18 million Guardians were active there. These are normal fluctuations – after all, there is currently less to do in Destiny 2.
However, for Stadia, the drop is really massive, as player counts have decreased by more than 50% (58.7%) compared to November 26. It is hardly attributable solely to a lack of content.
What do these numbers mean for Destiny 2 on Google Stadia?
Bungie surely envisioned this differently. After all, they heavily promoted Destiny 2 on Stadia, touted it, and aimed to establish it as another core platform for Guardians.
Player counts drastically decreased: However, Destiny 2 on Stadia is worlds away from that. Even almost 2 months after the release, still less than 1% of all players are active on the new platform. Player counts have even fallen below the level shortly after the launch when Stadia struggled with availability and technical issues like lags.
Stadia not a cornerstone for Destiny 2: Currently, it does not really look like Stadia will play an important role for Destiny 2. Because even with the now broader availability of Stadia, the still limited selection of available games or the “Buddy Pass” system, which allows players with Stadia Pro to let a friend test the streaming service for free, it did not seem to get more players to play Destiny 2 on Stadia.
Could this change with the free Stadia version? Will the free Stadia Base attract more players? Although the streaming service gets a free version with Stadia Base, it’s likely that this won’t change the player counts significantly.
For the Base version, you don’t have access to the list of (for the Pro version) free games, which also includes Destiny 2: The Collection – you would have to purchase this version separately for Stadia. Whether many will do so with the current numbers remains to be seen.
And the situation regarding the Free-to-Play version Destiny 2: New Light for Stadia Base is still unknown. So far, only the Destiny 2 Collection is available for Pro users, which includes all content, including Forsaken, Shadowkeep, and the 4 Season Passes for Year 3.
In short: Currently, the Stadia platform, with less than one percent of the total players, basically plays no role for Destiny 2, and it is at least questionable whether this will change in the foreseeable future.
Have you tried Destiny 2 on Stadia? What are your experiences? Do you think Destiny 2 has a future on this still young platform?
