Quoted the relevant parts, its a pretty extensive article and worth reading the whole thing. Take with a grain of salt but I saw this yesterday and didn't see it posted here yet as a thread. There is some margin of error, which is mentioned in the author's analysis. But its got to be pretty close to the real number.
Worth mentioning that as of creating this thread, The Final Shape is #2033 in the Steam top sellers and #1416 in wishlists. Destiny in general is #68 in the Steam top sellers.
Marketing cycle hasn't kicked in since we are three months out but still, these are some pretty grim numbers. Especially when it was supposed to release this month. Lightfall / this year was the straw that broke the camel's back for a lot of the Destiny community. Seems like a lot of people are waiting, skipping the expansion and/or quitting the game.
Data Sources, Caveats, & Methodology
The data used in this analysis is provided to The Game Post by Charlemagne, the Warmind of Discord, a third-party app that obtains it directly from Bungie's API for Destiny. How this works is that Charlemagne scans all unique Destiny profiles, which amounts to around 66 million, to track every account that has acquired the pre-order bonus emblems for the expansions. These emblems can only be acquired if a player pre-orders an expansion.
Important
That said, it's important to note that the data provided here may not be the exact representation of the official numbers as there are some limitations. For instance, Charlemagne cannot access the data of players who have set their profiles to private mode, which makes up approximately <1% (0.15%) of the total player base.
Additionally, the data does not reflect the pre-order emblems that are not acquired from the in-game vendors — Master Rahool, and Special Deliveries Kiosk As a result, there may be a difference between the numbers presented here and the official figures for the expansions.
We are comparing the pre-orders for four Destiny 2 expansions — Beyond Light, The Witch Queen, Lightfall, and The Final Shape. Let's take a look at the exclusive emblems available to players who pre-ordered any edition of these expansions.
The pre-order exclusive emblem for Beyond Light is called Beyond Light. For The Witch Queen, it is Lucidity. The exclusive emblem for Lightfall is Neomuna Nights, and for The Final Shape, it is Paracausal Path.
It's worth mentioning that the pre-order emblem for Shadowkeep Benighted Omen was only available with the Shadowkeep Deluxe Edition. Therefore, the data available for it is not as precise as that for the other expansions since the emblem wasn't included as a standard pre-order bonus with the Standard edition.
Comparing the Numbers: How Low Are The Final Shape Pre-Orders?
Based on The Game Post's analysis and data provided by Charlemagne on February 23, 2024, it seems that Beyond Light received the highest number of pre-orders among the four expansions. Lightfall follows in second place, with The Witch Queen in third place and The Final Shape having the lowest pre-orders.
To put this into perspective, Destiny 2's previous expansion, Lightfall, released in February 2023, has around 2.249 million estimated lifetime pre-orders, The Witch Queen, released in 2022, has 2.244 million lifetime pre-orders, and Beyond Light, released in 2020, has 3.189 million lifetime pre-orders.
Here are the estimated pre-order numbers for all four expansions based on our analysis:
- Beyond Light: 3,189,075
- The Witch Queen: 2,244,640
- Lightfall: 2,249,679
- The Final Shape: 407,601
Worth mentioning that as of creating this thread, The Final Shape is #2033 in the Steam top sellers and #1416 in wishlists. Destiny in general is #68 in the Steam top sellers.
Marketing cycle hasn't kicked in since we are three months out but still, these are some pretty grim numbers. Especially when it was supposed to release this month. Lightfall / this year was the straw that broke the camel's back for a lot of the Destiny community. Seems like a lot of people are waiting, skipping the expansion and/or quitting the game.
