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Destiny 2 Losing Players Due To Microtransaction Woes

It's more than just the sequels serious lack of wizards on the moon causing these woes. 

Blake Morse

January 25, 2018 1:30 PM

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Things are not looking good for Bungie's Destiny 2. It seems like they took things a step too far in their attempts to get players to spend more money on microtransactions and the backlash is catching up with their bottom line. According to a recent article by CNBC, Destiny 2 is seeing some dramatic drop-offs in active users and it's going to affect the Destiny 2's publisher Activision's add-on revenue for the year. 

Financial analyst Doug Creutz told his clients "Destiny 2 is struggling right now with player engagement appearing to be on the wane. We are a bit cautious that potentially disappointing live service revenue there could at least partially offset upside from CoD in 2018."

"We do think Bungie still has some opportunity to fix the game's problems over the next year and recapture engagement, but we're not sure they have the ability to pull it off at this point. We also note that Destiny currently has more serious competition in its genre from a refurbished Division and the indie title Warframe than it did three years ago when D1 had its own share of player dissatisfaction."

Creutz also sighted dropping numbers in the livestream community as a sign of the game's faltering popularity. Viewership is at an all-time low for the Destiny franchise with about 4,000-7,000 active viewers on a Friday afternoon. That's about 10,000 less than Destiny 1 would bring in at that same time of day. 

He went on to share what he feels are the four key reasons for the game's decline in popularity:

• "Design decisions were made that have made D2 a less engaging, and less distinctive, game than D1. In particular, key aspects of the D2 endgame feel neutered compared to D1."
• "Microtransaction implementation, while not nearly as problematic as in Star Wars Battlefront 2, has still been a source of player unhappiness."
• "Bungie's apparent urgency in responding to player feedback has been disappointing."
• "Until recently, Bungie did a poor job communicating its road map going forward, particularly compared to the more open stance of many other live service games."

Destiny 2's last expansion The Curse of Osiris was met with tepid response, but there's another expansion that should be coming around March. It's hard to say if it will be enough to turn things around after all the issues D2's already faced. 

Blake Morse

Events Coordinator

Blake has been writing and making videos about pop-culture and games for over 10 years now. Although he'd probably prefer you thought of him as a musician and listened to his band, www.cartoonviolencemusic.com. If you see him on the street, buy him a taco or something. Follow him on twitter @ProfRobot