The online shooter Destiny 2 is apparently selling worse than Activision would like, despite the Forsaken expansion. The publisher already has a plan for how to generate more revenue from Destiny 2.
Expectations not met: As Activision stated in the recent earnings call, the sales of Destiny 2: Forsaken did not meet the publisher’s expectations. It was stated literally: “Some of our other franchises like Destiny are not performing as well as we would like.” However, no specific numbers were provided.
Activision COO Cody Johnson further stated: “We have not yet observed that the vast majority of players are increasingly turning back to Destiny 2. This has led to expectations not being met so far.
Some players are still in the “wait and see” mode. Those who are currently playing are already deeply involved. For those who are not, we see the time has come to bring them back.”
Activision is unhappy with Destiny 2 sales
A strong September did not help: The release of the Forsaken expansion gave the online shooter a strong boost in digital revenues in September 2018.
The poor performance of Destiny 2 was already indicated: Already during an investors call from Activision in spring 2018, it became apparent that Destiny 2 struggles to convince players and sell well.
In a shareholder communication, it was stated that Destiny 2 was a complete success on consoles in 2017 and had a good PC launch. However, in the following financial report for the first quarter of 2018, Destiny 2 was only mentioned in passing when comparing the performance to other Activision titles, with even Candy Crush being prominently listed there.
Also, the fact that Destiny 2 was already available as a free PS Plus title for PS4 in the fall and is currently being given away on PC was seen by many as an indicator of weak numbers.
Now the publisher Activision confirmed the negative trend.
How Activision plans to boost Destiny sales
This is Activision’s plan: Activision has already answered some of the questions themselves. In response to the poor sales, the publisher has now promised its investors the following:
- Destiny 2 will receive new content faster
- New forms of monetization will be introduced
This is intended to boost sales again.
What does this mean for the players?
Changes to microtransactions? After long criticism of the Eververse, the in-game shop of Destiny 2, the microtransactions in the game are currently in a state that most fans perceive as fair. Items that can only be purchased with real money are rare. Most items can be earned in-game with some time and effort.
Since Activision has now announced new forms of monetization, the question arises as to what these will look like. Obvious are further or new forms of microtransactions. Fans probably have no choice but to wait. Because there has been no concrete information from Bungie or Activision on this yet.
Whether the recently introduced Eververse feature Temporal Wave, which allows players to directly purchase cosmetic items from past seasons, already embodies one of these new models, is also unknown.
Will Destiny 2 change again? There is also the question of whether Bungie can actually satisfy all players – both hardcore fans and casuals – equally, and how the game will be oriented in the future. Because Destiny 2 was primarily geared towards a broad audience of players at launch. It seems this was the wrong strategy.
Forsaken has addressed almost all of the core problems of the base game and made it more attractive again for core players. However, this reorientation apparently was not enough to sell enough units and satisfy Activision with rising numbers.
Will the game change again as a result? And if so, how?
