Analyst: Destiny 2 Is “Struggling” With “Player Engagement” and “Microtransaction Implementation”

Analyst firm Cowen has offered its assessment of Destiny 2‘s performance, claiming that there is increasing evidence that players are leaving the game’s community. Cowen Managing Director Doug Creutz sent a note to his clients that began with, “Destiny is not in a good place.”

Creutz gave the following four key reasons for the game’s lackluster performance:

1. “Design decisions were made that have made D2 a less engaging, and less distinctive, game than D1. In particular, key aspects of the D2 end game feel neutered compared to D1.”

2. “Microtransaction implementation, while not nearly as problematic as in Star Wars Battlefront 2, has still been a source of player unhappiness.”

3. “Bungie’s [the studio that developed the game] apparent urgency in responding to player feedback has been disappointing.”

4. “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.”

Creutz also mentioned the lessened support from video streamers, with Twitch viewership at “franchise-low levels.”

He concluded by saying that, while the franchise can recover, he isn’t optimistic:

“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 (Ubisoft) and the indie title Warframe than it did three years ago, when D1 had its own share of player dissatisfaction.”

The way Wall Street firms are commenting on video games like Destiny shows just how huge the industry has become. Video games are big business, and it’s sometimes easy to forget that.

What do you think of Destiny 2? Can the game pull things around? Let us know.

In other Destiny 2 news, several top Destiny YouTubers have lessened their support of the game, Bungie is hiring a new community manager, and the developer explains the faction rewards throttle and incoming adjustments.

Source: CNBC

6 Comments
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Jesse
Jesse
6 years ago

1. Yep

2. Yep

3. Been a bit better at that lately but still bad.

4. Basically what I said in #3

Mack Ashworth
Mack Ashworth
Reply to  Jesse
6 years ago

I’m hoping they turn it around. Destiny has been fun for me. (Though I’m far from hardcore.)

GrizzlyBearDoug
GrizzlyBearDoug
Reply to  Mack Ashworth
6 years ago

I hope they don’t, don’t get me wrong I’ve loved bungie for many many years, however the approach they took with this new franchise has been nothing but disastrous. D1 was in the same state D2 currently is in, it took them one year (a whole season pass) for them to recover. It was great D1 cleaned up and did well. So you’d think they’d learn from their first game of how to approach the second game, nope. Instead for some reason they saw that as a formula to replicate. Clearly the company lacks communication, proper testers, decision making..I mean I could probably go on. Indie developers are handling their games/companies better than what Bungie is doing. How Activision can proudly keep this developer under their banner is crazy to me. I want bungie to fail and for the sole reason of being an example for the industry. I want other companies and say “well we don’t want to be like that”. AAA titles are half completed games for the price of 79.99, they expect pre-order buys and season pass buys. season pass is half done additional content that barely even becomes the real half of the vanilla game and for the price of 39.99. Why don’t games just start selling at 119.99. because that’s what a lot of people are paying for an OKAY game anyways. it seems by year 2 every game looks a lot more healthier…but that’ll cost you an additional 39.99.

Mass Effect: A
Star Wars: BF2 (games great, just sucky deal about the MT)
Destiny 2
and more to follow.

Jesse
Jesse
5 years ago

1. Yep

2. Yep

3. Been a bit better at that lately but still bad.

4. Basically what I said in #3

Mack Ashworth
Mack Ashworth
Reply to  Jesse
5 years ago

I’m hoping they turn it around. Destiny has been fun for me. (Though I’m far from hardcore.)

GrizzlyBearDoug
GrizzlyBearDoug
Reply to  Mack Ashworth
5 years ago

I hope they don’t, don’t get me wrong I’ve loved bungie for many many years, however the approach they took with this new franchise has been nothing but disastrous. D1 was in the same state D2 currently is in, it took them one year (a whole season pass) for them to recover. It was great D1 cleaned up and did well. So you’d think they’d learn from their first game of how to approach the second game, nope. Instead for some reason they saw that as a formula to replicate. Clearly the company lacks communication, proper testers, decision making..I mean I could probably go on. Indie developers are handling their games/companies better than what Bungie is doing. How Activision can proudly keep this developer under their banner is crazy to me. I want bungie to fail and for the sole reason of being an example for the industry. I want other companies and say “well we don’t want to be like that”. AAA titles are half completed games for the price of 79.99, they expect pre-order buys and season pass buys. season pass is half done additional content that barely even becomes the real half of the vanilla game and for the price of 39.99. Why don’t games just start selling at 119.99. because that’s what a lot of people are paying for an OKAY game anyways. it seems by year 2 every game looks a lot more healthier…but that’ll cost you an additional 39.99.

Mass Effect: A
Star Wars: BF2 (games great, just sucky deal about the MT)
Destiny 2
and more to follow.

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