Destiny had 6 million active players, Activision suggests

Bungie’s newly-independent MMO shooter franchise Destiny had around six million players, prior to its developer acquiring the publishing rights from Activision in January, new figures have suggested.

As part of its Q1 financial results, Activision Blizzard said monthly active users (MAUs) of its titles stood at 345 million (41 million from Activision games, 32 million from Blizzard titles, and 272 million from King games).

That was down from 356 million MAUs in Q4 2018 (53 million from Activision, 35 million from Blizzard, and 268 million from King).

Speaking on the publisher’s Q1 earnings call last night, president and COO Collister Johnson said Destiny players accounted for about half of the 12 million MAUs Activision games had lost since Q4 2018.

“I’ll now review our Q1 results through the lens of our three key metrics: reach, engagement and player investment,” he said.

“Starting with reach, the company had 345 million monthly active users in Q1. Activision monthly active users were 41 million, with around half of the quarterly sequential decline due to the exclusion of Destiny monthly active users.”

Following the release of well received Destiny 2 expansion Forsaken in September 2018, Activision claimed the franchise was not performing as well as it would like.

According to a report on Kotaku, Activision and Bungie had endured “years of tension”, mostly involving the publisher’s preference for an annualised release schedule, as well as Activision’s frustration that the game wasn’t reaching a broader audience.

During the firm’s last financial call, CCO Johnson claimed that not owning the Destiny IP limited how much money Activision Blizzard could make from the series.

To date, Destiny has delivered a combination of over 50 million games and expansions to players, Bungie has claimed.