November 8, 2018 Fans like Destiny 2: Forsaken, but it’s not making the money Activision had hoped.
Forsaken has been a welcome expansion for Destiny 2 according to most players, but it hasn’t generated the revenue the Activision had hoped. Net bookings overall for Activision-Blizzard’s third quarter are down year over, compared against strong launch sales in 2017 for Destiny 2. Current revenue is driven in part by Forsaken, but Activision says the expansion is “not performing as well as we’d like.”
The company is pleased with Forsaken’s engagement metrics, at least. Monthly active users are up year over year, which means more people are playing Destiny 2 now than there were immediately after launch. Those numbers are certainly helped along by the increasingly frequent sales and giveaways that the base game has enjoyed in 2018.
In a conference call following today’s financial report, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick says that “Forsaken is a high-quality expansion” – our Forsaken review agrees, incidentally – built from the publisher and Bungie working together to address community concerns and build better end-game content. But, according to Kotick, many fans are still taking a wait and see approach before diving back in to Destiny 2.
SuperData‘s digital sales data for September suggested that over 60% of monthly active Destiny 2 players picked up Forsaken, and it’s led to the game topping the charts for the month – at least on consoles. On PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, Destiny 2 brought in more money this month than Spider-Man, FIFA 19, and even Fortnite.
Earlier this year, Destiny 2 officially became “the largest PC launch in Activision history based on units,” according to Activision-Blizzard’s proxy statement. It was also the second-highest-grossing console game of 2017 in North America, behind Call of Duty: WWII – another Activision property.