The Challenges of 2023
Destiny 2 earns a spot on Steam's Top Sellers list for 2023 surprising fans after recent reports indicated that the popular shooter had missed its sales projections by 45% and leading to staff reductions at Bungie. For a game as successful as Destiny 2 has been over the years, 2023 was largely a difficult year overall. The Lightfall expansion garnered plenty of controversy upon its release, receiving criticism from fans over its lackluster and unsatisfying plot, missing weapons, and bugs which negatively impacted the overall experience. Ultimately, Destiny 2 Lightfall would be review bombed on Steam, eventually sinking down into the 'Mostly Negative' category.
destiny 2 steam best of 2023
Recently, things have seemingly gotten progressively worse for Bungie, which recently delayed The Final Shape expansion four months into June 2024. In October, Bungie laid off a portion of its staff, a trend that had followed other Bungie owned studios like Naughty Dog. The layoffs impacted a large number of employees including some high-profile names, with reports indicating that morale at the studio is at an all-time low. The job cuts were supposedly a result of Destiny 2 missing its sales projections by a massive 45% as well as uninspiring pre-order sales for The Final Shape, though fans likely wouldn't know that according to the 2023 Steam End of Year Awards.
Reddit quote is loading
The post on Reddit
Surprising Success on Steam
As Valve does at the end of every year, Steam reveals its Best Of awards list, highlighting different categories like the most played games, top Steam Deck games, the best new releases, and more. One such category shows the top-selling games on Steam based on gross revenue, of which Destiny 2 is listed in the Platinum section alongside other big earners like Baldur's Gate 3, Dota 2, PUBG, and Apex Legends. While the list doesn't contain any actual data or values, Destiny 2 did see plenty of success with Lightfall on PC by breaking concurrent player records following the expansion's launch.
Reactions to the Steam Award has seemingly left many Destiny 2 players surprised to see the game listed at all, leading many to speculate as to how a game still manages to sell reasonable well on a platform like Steam and yet miss projections by nearly half. One user theorized that Bungie executives may have set incredibly high estimates in order to get the highest value possible during the Sony purchase. While there's no data to support the claim, some others have speculated that perhaps the PlayStation and Xbox versions didn't do quite as well as the PC version did.
Reddit quote is loading
The post on Reddit
The Future of Destiny 2
Another factor that may be impacting projected revenue is the fact that Destiny 2 is entering its seventh year, with what appears to be a declining player base. With all of the negative press, poor reception to Lightfall, and a fresh delay to The Final Shape, it appears that fans are seemingly moving on. Recent Steam Charts data indicate a downward trend as Destiny 2 hit an all-time low average player count of just 34,829 players, sparking concern from those in the community. With an extended Season of the Wish, it'll be interesting to see if things can turn around prior to the expansion launch in June.
Reddit quote is loading
The post on Reddit
