The MMO shooter Destiny 2 seems to be off to a good start. Bungie announced the first player numbers for the release weekend. They are even higher than the numbers of the Steam phenomenon PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG).
For weeks, gaming websites have been reporting on the PC shooter PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and the number of “Concurrent Players” on Steam: these are the “simultaneously playing people.”
Yesterday, the shooter PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds broke the magical barrier of 1 million simultaneously logged-in players, which was a huge deal reported worldwide.
On Saturday night, Bungie tweeted casually: “We thank you all for playing. Right now, there are 1.2 million players online in Destiny 2. See you out there.” The message came at 8:24 PM our time – it’s noon in the USA – so it could well increase over the next few hours.
Duel for the biggest game of 2017?
Bungie is likely targeting PUBG and the well-known number from there with the tweet. However, the player counts of both shooters can’t really be compared:
- Destiny 2 is live for PS4 and Xbox One, while Destiny 2 for PC won’t be available until the end of October.
- PUBG is only available on PC, with a port for Xbox One expected to follow, PS4 is likely to be delayed
- A key difference is: Destiny 2 currently has the release hype, and it could well be that there will be fewer players in the coming weeks. This is common with PvE-heavy titles. In online games with experience points and a maximum level, it is the norm that players play more in the leveling phase. This decreases once they reach the maximum level and fall back into a normal rhythm.
- In contrast, PUBG shows a steep upward curve of players. This is independent of release and experience points. PUBG is a pure PvP game.
Nevertheless: Destiny 2 certainly has the potential to become the biggest game of 2017 in the “conventional market.” The predecessor, Destiny 1, also impressed with insane numbers. Back then, it was mainly about how many hours each Destiny 1 player spends with the shooter each week.
In October 2014, it was said about Destiny 1: On average, 3.2 million players spend about 3 hours a day with Destiny.
In Destiny 2, Bungie seems to be proud of the sheer amount of simultaneously active Guardians. With such a power, Ghaul and his buddies better watch out.
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