Destiny 2 is definitely not riding high in its first year of live operation. Warning signs started to appear late last year, as datamining pointed to a large player slump. Bungie hasn’t been helping its own cause despite a 2018 roadmap, as Destiny 2 has struggled with throttling bugs and poor communication in the past month.
Now one Wall Street firm has analyzed the state of the game and predicted a not-so-rosy future.
“Destiny 2 is struggling right now with player engagement appearing to be on the wane,” wrote Cowen analyst Doug Creutz to the firm’s clients. “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 Destiny had its own share of player dissatisfaction.”
Indicators of the problem include reduced coverage of the game by popular video streamers and how Twitch viewership is less than a third of what the first game enjoyed.
So what caused this struggle? In Creutz’ opinion, he pointed at less engaging and distinctive design decisions, frustrating microtransactions, Bungie’s lackluster response to concerns, and poor communication from the studio.
Last November, Creutz called for industry-wide regulation on lockboxes amid the microtransaction uproar.
