At Destiny 2, there was a reprimand in Activision-Blizzard’s earning call for the poor numbers. However, Activision also had a lot of good things to say about Destiny 2 Forsaken. The player numbers for Destiny 2 increased in Q3 2018 – compared to the previous year as well.
That was the big story: Last week, there was an earnings call from Activision. A sentence from this call made it into the international press: Some of Activision’s franchises like Destiny unfortunately didn’t perform as strongly as hoped.
This is unusual because a game is clearly reprimanded in this manner. This is not typically done in earnings calls. Therefore, it caused quite a stir.
But that was not all that Activision had to say about Destiny. Much of the other information sounds significantly more positive.
How many are still playing Destiny 2?
What Activision says about player numbers: According to VentureBeat, Activision commented on player numbers: In Q3 2018, that is July, August, and September, Destiny 2 had more active players than in the previous quarter and more than in the same period in 2017.
However, Activision does not provide exact numbers, and there is the catch that in Q3 2017 Destiny 2 had not yet been released on PC.
But it seems that Destiny 2 has already improved here.
What Activision says about quality: Forsaken received a lot of praise from Activision as an expansion itself. COO and President of Activision Coddy Johnson stated:
“Forsaken is a high-quality expansion. Honestly, it is the highest quality content we have seen in the franchise to date.
This really comes from Activision and Bungie working together to address the community’s complaints about Destiny 2 holistically.”
Johnson says Forsaken has been very well received by critics and the community and deepened the engagement of the players who play it.
Giveaway to promote later sales
What Activision sees as a problem: Johnson sees the difficulty in that not all players are back on board. Therefore, Destiny falls short of expectations.
Johnson finds it challenging that players have to first purchase the regular Destiny 2 to then start with Forsaken. Therefore, they decided to give away Destiny 2 at BlizzCon for two weeks and let players keep it.
The hope is that players will build a deep connection when they start with Destiny 2.
Could the base game Destiny 2 become Free2Play?
What lies behind this: Activision wants to bring more Guardians to the base game “Destiny 2” so that they can later spend money on microtransactions, Forsaken, or other expansions. To do this, Activision wants to lower the entry hurdle further.
It therefore seems quite possible that Activision will make Destiny 2 completely free in a next step:
- For example, Guild Wars 2 did this with its base game before 2016. It has been free since then.
- Also, with WoW you no longer have to buy the game – however, it still requires a subscription.
In response to Activision’s disappointment, Game Director Luke Smith announced that Bungie loves Forsaken.
We addressed the problems of Destiny 2 in this article:
