Destiny 2: Forsaken Failed To Meet Sales Targets

Destiny 2: Forsaken for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC failed to meet Activision's expectations as it relates to sales and the expansion's ability to "re-engage" with the franchise overall, the publisher said as part of its latest earnings report.

"While forsaken is a high-quality expansion with strong engagement and new modes of play, it did not achieve our commercial expectations," Activision Publishing boss Coddy Johnson said during an earnings call. "And there is still work to do to fully re-engaged the core Destiny fanbase."

Also during the call, Johnson talked about how Activision is planning to "improve the pace of innovation and cadence of in-game content" in Destiny, while also creating new ways for players to engage further with Destiny and spend more money through microtransactions. This statement applies to Destiny and all of Activision's other franchises, Johnson said.

Destiny's microtransactions come in the form of Silver, which players can purchase with real money and spend on a number of different in-game extras. What the new form of microtransactions may be coming to Destiny remains to be seen. It's not surprising to see Activision going after microtransactions in a bigger way considering it is very big business.

Those who are playing Destiny 2 right now are "deeply engaged" with the game, but Johnson said Activision will be focusing now on trying to get lapsed players to come back and draw in new ones. Activision recently made Destiny 2 temporarily free on PC, which is surely part of the company's effort to expand the game's audience.

"We have not yet seen the full core re-engage in Destiny, which has kind of led to the underperformance against expectations to date," Johnson said. "Some players we think are still in 'wait and see' mode. If you're in, you're deeply engaged. If you're not, we're hoping now's the time to bring players back in and win them back."

Despite the missed sales, monthly active users for the Destiny franchise grew quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year for the period ended September 30. The release of Forsaken at the start of September helped drive the increased player figures, Activision said.

Looking ahead, the next big thing coming to Destiny 2 is the Black Armory, which launches in December. For more, you can check out Bungie's roadmap of free and paid content for Destiny 2.