Bungie Defends Destiny 2: Forsaken Following Activision's Sales Disappointment

Personally, I think destiny's days are numbered. I give it three years max.

I love destiny 2 glad I bought it, I have forsaken and the annual pass , the story is fantastic and love the new weapons theve introduced really good game that I’ll be playing for a while yet.....I don’t have friends on destiny I just use matchmaking systems and it works great every time 👌😎

Bear in mind Luke Smith once said "the will throw money at the screen for these emotes" so maybe not the most respectable voice. To put it in context he has not said he is happy with the sales seems more happy with the state of Forsaken.

Maybe bungie and Activision should go their separate ways.

I am interested in Forsaken someone on Amazon UK selling the French version for £20 with all the previous DLC I just want to know will it work on my UK PSN account. The seller said my PS4 is region free and the game is Europe ???

Bungie sold their souls when they got in bed with Activision.

They say they are not business focused but allowed themselves to be trapped in the monetisation that Activision require.

Zero sympathy for them.

Destiny has been all about squeezing their users pockets as hard as they can since day 1

@nathanSF which Destiny? The original launched in 2014 and people still play it. 😂😂

@bindiana in fairness to Luke Smith or Activision for that matter, are sales ever high enough to make someone happy? But I agree he is referring to the state of gameplay, and it’s really good right now.

Forsaken is the best expansion that Destiny has ever had. The game is at its strongest too and the majority of Destiny gamers are happy with the content. I can certainly see why Bungie are happy.

Activision may not be because it hasn't sold to every single player that has Destiny 2's base game - including all those that acquired the base game for free (either via PS+ or on PC) - but its still been profitable and 'successful'. If you have say 10m D2 players and sell 7m expansions, making 100's of millions in Profit, its still a successful game even if Activision expected (or hoped) to sell 10m copies. Its clear they had expected/hoped that every D2 owner would buy Forsaken because they say that it hasn't got the 'full core' re-engagement. Its not a new game but just an expansion and gamers have been 'burned' by buying at launch only to find that these expansions are basically given away after a short while. When The Taken King released, they basically gave you D1 and both minor expansions (around £80 at launch) for nothing. Those with D2 also need both minor expansions (Curse of Osiris and Warmind) to access Forsaken so maybe that is a 'stumbling block' - especially with games like Spider-Man, Tomb Raider, AC: Odyssey, Forza Horizon 4, CoD:BO4 and RDR2 all launching within the next few months after Forsaken.

Activision have only released 3 'games' this year, 2 of which are remasters (Crash and Spyro). Forsaken isn't a game, its just an expansion - albeit a more major one than their mid year DLC expansions). CoD:BO4 is the only 'new' game Activision have actually released. If you want to keep increasing your 'Profit' margins and growth, reducing your output is also going to put more pressure and expectancy on those games to sell. They have to sell more to increase profit margins. I also think it puts Activision in a precarious position that if people do give up on CoD or Destiny, they will be hit much harder as that will impact on the MTX profits and its not like they have other games to attract those gamers. The growth of Activision over the past 5yrs too will have to plateau - especially with limited games on the market.

Ubisoft or even EA can and do have more options, can take a year or more out with their franchises if people are getting 'bored' - as we see with Assassins Creed, Battlefield etc but also bringing 'new' games - like Skull n Bones, the Division, Watchdogs, Anthem, Battlefront, Titanfall etc.

I think the most interesting figure to me would be the Taken King sales vs Forsaken. Think that would make interesting reading to see where Destiny is at. The drop off from release of Destiny 2 was quite huge think it went from around 8 million to 0.5 million players a day in about 4 months. Seems the player count is between 1 and 1.5 million. A lot of companies would count that as a success.

The real reason Activision are disappointed is not because of the sales of the Forsaken expansion itself which was good and value for money more or less but the assumed poor sales of the additional year 2 Season Pass.

If Bungie and Activision ever part ways, I’d hope MS would snap Bungie up and get them back working on Halo, the franchise could do with them back at the helm.

@MaccaMUFC they'd be beter off asking respawn to make a halo game

They're absolutely not disappointed. It's why they're cranking the microtransactions back up.

@Bad-MuthaAdebisi...what a tantalising thought that is!!

Adding good dlc to a trash game doesn't make the game good in the slightest. The Destiny IP is complete microtransaction riddled garbage.

@BAMozzy - i think your projection of 7m expansions sold to 10m players is wildly optimistic. looking at the trophy stats on PS4, the numbers are very low for forsaken. only around 1% has completed the raid for example, and around 10% have any trophy at all. compare that with the taken king which has about a 10% completion for the raid, and almost 30% which have at least one trophy from it. not sure activision would have expected just a 1 in 10 ish uptake on a major expansion, or the significant fall in uptake compared to the similar expansion for the original game. going forward, i think they will further try to extort even more money from the core that are most engaged in the game.

i think destiny's problems are numerous, and i'm not exactly sure how it can grow the franchise from here, at least not with the model it is currently pursuing. plus the way it treats those who don't buy the expansions and more or less leaves them behind, doesn't exactly leave a sweet taste either.

@leucocyte The figures weren't meant to be accurate but illustrative. Forsaken was never likely to sell more than Destiny 2 - whether D2 sold 10m, 1m or 100m. The point was that Activision expected it to sell as many as they sold D2 by the seem of things and can't accept that it can still sell to 70%+ and still be one of the most profitable games. 10m makes a ice easy number to illustrate and 7m is 70% of that - thus illustrating my point. I did use the words 'IF you have say 10m...' I never said that D2 actually had 10m players - its also on PC and Xbox too btw.

i like to say i know a far bit about gaming etc, however one thing i simply cannot wrap my head around is how ANYONE continues to support bungie after all the crap they pulled with hiding/be deceitful about XP gains, their response when they got caught out was simply the most trainwreck thing i have ever seen, if you ask me the studio needs to be shutdown so the middle lev employees can move on and actually have a progressive career

The best bungie has done yet, I hope they keep it up. I'm confused about activation with how their other franchises have gone recently they should be proud at Bungie and be assisting more with the development of more content for D2.

@Nakatomi_Uk

It will work

@Nakatomi_Uk the ps4 is region free.

The only time you have you issues is if you buy a us version as then you have to get dlc from the us store