Destiny is a big deal. Destiny 2 is a really big deal. Let’s prove it with numbers.
“Destiny 2 is Largest Ever Day 1 Sales Globally for Playstation Store” (I didn’t write nor completely understand the grammar of the preceding sentence). If I was to paraphrase it, I might say “Destiny 2 had the largest ever Day 1 Global sales on PSN”. I like my way better.
The franchise was already doing incredibly well. Here’s another overly-specific stat designed to hyper focus on success: “The original Destiny became the biggest new console video game franchise launch in history”. How they measure that I’m not sure. The wording of ‘new console game franchise launch’ is a tad ambiguous. Do single game series not count as franchises? There are so few unique AAA IPs so this stat is fairly believable.
If that wasn’t enough mind and number bending stats for you, how about the fact that “Destiny 2 surpassed the original’s records for engagement and digital sales in launch week”. Let’s try and break this one down. The sequel surpassed the original’s ‘records for engagement and digital sales’. I assume engagement tracks concurrent users, but could that also mean people that watch ads and engage with social media posts? The Destiny community is rabid and social media engagement is important, but it all comes down to sales and how many people are playing the online game, keeping it alive and fun.
I also love the ‘launch week’ caveat. Oddly specific – like claiming your game sells the most on tuesdays – but still quite important. Games usually rack up the brunt of their sales within the first weeks of release. If it ain’t a hit out of the gate, 99% of the time it won’t catch on later. So Destiny 2 surpassing launch week engagement and digital sales sounds silly but is important for Bungie and Destiny fans.
Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg is obviously happy with the record ‘engagement’ as well: “With franchise pre-order records broken, and record day-one performance on PlayStation Store, it’s exciting to see engagement at the highest ever week-one concurrency for the franchise. “Destiny 2 is off to a strong start as the #1 console gaming launch week of the year to date. With the PC version yet to ship, Destiny 2 sets the stage for being one of the biggest video game entertainment events of the year.”
It doesn’t get any clearer than ‘biggest video game entertainment events’.
Bungie CEO Pete Parsons chimed in with more stats: “…we’ve had eight days in a row in Destiny 2 where we’ve seen more than one-million concurrent players grace our worlds.”
How about some Twitch stats?
“For the third year in a row, Destiny is the #1 console-only game viewed on Twitch by minutes watched. Destiny 2, including its two betas, had more than 600M minutes watched on Twitch before the raid, a fan-favourite, endgame, 6-player gameplay experience started. The raid, called “Leviathan,” went live for players on 13th September and immediately shot to the #1 position on Twitch based on total concurrent viewers.”
All the various ways Bungie and Activision slice it, Destiny 2 and the franchise are in great shape, and that’s a great thing for fans hoping to see consistent content and sequels fill out the 10-year plan promised years ago.
Happy Guardian-ing.
