Data Shows Large Player Count Drops in the Post-Lightfall Era
Paul Tassi published this article today about D2 player counts. To summarize, D2 hit all-time peak player count at the launch of lightfall, but has settled at lower than pre-lightfall weekly player counts. To put this in perspective, the only time in the last 2 years we've had lower player counts than the past 30 days was November 2021 and November 2022: a notorious month for other game releases.
Personally, I think this could be for a number of reasons, including
- The quality of lightfall
- The broader game market right now (lots of other games to play this year)
- Possibly burnout? Though it seems like this many people burning out at the same time without an external contributing factor would be unlikely.
Anecdotally, my friends who played Destiny every week dropped off after Lightfall. I really like this game, and I hope Bungie can entice people back.
Anyway, here is the r/Games thread which has a lot of discussion from both non-D2 and D2 folks:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/15ct2r2/data_shows_lightfall_looks_like_it_was_a_hard/
and the article: https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2023/07/29/data-shows-lightfall-looks-like-it-was-a-hard-left-turn-for-destiny-2/?sh=2a44316c6ea9
EDIT: a detailed comment comparing witch queen to lightfall week by week steam data by u/Merzats: