Destiny may have been panned by reviewers and criticized by players, but it had too much hype going into it- so much so that initial sales, before the word of mouth effect even began to kick in, would probably have ensured that the game is a success. And indeed, it looks like the game has in fact sold a lot. Enough, in fact, for it to have made Activision $325 million within a week, according to this statement released by them.
“Destiny fans played more than 100 million hours of the game in the first week. That’s on par with the engagement levels of our most popular Call of Duty games, which obviously is an industry leader,” said Activision publishing executive Eric Hirshberg.
“Millions of gamers are having a great time playing Destiny and can’t put down their controllers. And this is just the beginning. Destiny is a platform that will grow and evolve and we will continue to work closely with our partners at Bungie to bring a long line of new experiences and content to life in the game.”
The most interesting thing here is that Activision and Bungie still aren’t revealing exact sales figures, choosing instead to focus on varying degrees of gross and net revenue; is this the first sign that sales are not on par with what might have been expected?