The MMO shooter Destiny has sold over 20 million copies. Among the players are Xbox One chief Phil Spencer and actor Zach Braff from the cult series Scrubs.
20 million players play 2 billion hours of Destiny
This week Activision released its business figures, which also included Destiny. The game has sold 20 million copies by now. That’s the number of registered players. Together, they have spent over 2 billion hours in Destiny. This means an average buyer of the game has fought against the Darkness for more than 4 days, over 100 hours, collected items, idled in the Tower, got annoyed about something, and been happy about something.
For everyone who finished the story after 20 hours and put Destiny on the shelf, others have put in overtime.
Players include Phil Spencer and Zach Braff, Mike Tyson, and The Big Show
With so many players, there are also a few celebrities among them. Xbox chief Phil Spencer has spent over 300 hours playing Destiny. A colleague at Microsoft outed Spencer as a diligent Titan player (level 34!) on Twitter.
I think @XboxP3 likes to play Destiny. 300+ hours! #gamer pic.twitter.com/WrKM0Qvht8
— Mike Ybarra (@XboxQwik) August 8, 2015
Maybe Spencer will negotiate some bonus items in the next talks with Activision. Currently, they always go to Sony and PlayStation.
Zach Braff, known to the German audience primarily as the scatterbrained but lovable doctor JD from the comedy series “Scrubs,” is also a Destiny fan. In an interview during E3, he even jokingly set the goal of becoming the new voice of the Ghost. By now, we know that didn’t happen.
Braff primarily uses Destiny to spend time with his 15-year-old nephew.
Celebrities in the game …
There are also some celebrities in the game itself in the form of well-known TV stars. Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones) has been publicly replaced, as his somewhat lax performance as the Ghost became a running gag in the first year of Destiny. With the expansion “The Taken King,” he will completely disappear from the game. Apparently, he wasn’t available for the DLC either, and the Ghost remained silent. With the expansion The Taken King, we will hear a new Ghost, Dinklage’s role will be recast and re-voiced.
But Dinklage is not the only well-known voice. Nathan Fillion is considered a fan favorite in his role as Cayde-6. In his TV series Castle, as fans quickly recognized, he included a little nod to them:
With actor Lance Reddick as Commander Zavala, there’s another US star in the game that is also known in Germany (for example, from Fringe). In the upcoming add-on “The Taken King,” his role is supposed to be expanded. The voices of Bill Nighy (Pirates of the Caribbean), Peter Stormare (Fargo), Lennie James (The Walking Dead), and James Remar (Dexter) are also featured in the game. Especially the faction and class vendors are prominently cast.
… and celebrity gamers
But back to the passive Destiny consumers, who could also be recognized on the street: In the past, several celebrities have identified themselves as Destiny fans, including heavyweight boxing legend Mike Tyson, wrestling superstar The Big Show, and Eminem, although … well, with Eminem, it’s somehow uncertain.
Oh, and there are also prominent Destiny fans in Germany: Footballer Lewis Holtby is among them. The photo (right) comes from his Facebook channel.
