Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter has offered his two cents on Bungie’s post-launch support plans for Destiny, believing the developer will release new expansion every four months or so until Destiny 2 arrives on the scene.
Speaking with GamingBolt, Pachter commented:
“You know, Activision’s management told me that they’re – they and Bungie – are trying to keep Destiny’s revenues about flat every year this year and going forward every year until Destiny 2 comes out. It’s going to be more than just map packs and levelling up. This major content drop is going to be more like a World of WarCraft expansion, so probably more like a $40 ten level cap change as opposed to a $20 two level cap change. That’s really what they intend to do.
I don’t know how frequently we’re going to see the $20 versions, but my guess is that you’ll see two $20 expansions and one $40 expansion each year, so kind of pace it out that way. Every four months, you get something like that. So I think that the goal is to keep that 3.5 to 5.5 million daily active player group spending $60 to $80 a year.
Maybe you can sell the $40 expansion and one $20 expansion to each of them. That’s like selling them a new game every year, and Destiny maybe ends up generating 5 million units at $60. I think that’s their plan, and I think if you really like Destiny, that’s just like buying Call of Duty every year. That’s not that big a deal.
I don’t think Destiny is ever going to be as big as Call of Duty, but I think the plan is, as people get next gen consoles – there were 3.5 million daily active players back in November, they said it was higher now, my guess is 5, like I said – and I think their goal is by year end it’s 7. And by year end ‘16, it’s 9, and then by year end ‘17 it’s 11, and then the next Destiny sells 20 million copies and then they start again."
The analyst also reckons that Destiny’s next major DLC drop, House of Wolves, will arrive in May—slightly earlier than originally expected—followed by another major expansion just before Christmas.
“They might only do one because they did one in December, so the game launches in September, the content drops are going to be in December, May, and November, but then the next year I think it will probably be January, June, and November. I think they’re going to try to space it out so they always keep you engaged.
That’s the point. They learned from World of WarCraft that if you do a content drop every two years, you lose subscribers and then they all come back when there’s a new content drop. Not all, but many of them come back. With Destiny, they try to keep you going.”
Check out our guide to 5 Exotic weapons every Guardian needs here, and see details on this week’s Nightfall/Weekly Heroic strike here.