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20 million people have played Destiny, says Activision

20 million people have played Destiny, says Activision

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Active players are online for three hours a day on average

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Destiny, a game supposedly about protecting the remnants of a ravaged Earth but mostly about hoping you randomly find an awesome rocket launcher, has reached a player base of over 20 million, according to publisher Activision Blizzard. COO Thomas Tippl said on the company’s Q1 earnings call that Destiny and card game Hearthstone had 50 million players combined; Blizzard announced 30 million players for Hearthstone earlier in the week, putting the Destiny figure at 20 million.

"Biggest content addition yet" coming later this year

It’s not clear how many of these are active players, or whether the figure includes those that only checked out Destiny’s beta or demo versions. But Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg said that the average daily playtime among the "millions of active players" is about three hours, suggesting that a lot of players have found themselves hooked on Destiny’s repetitive, addictive loop despite its divided reception at launch.

Destiny is the first game from Bungie after the Halo creators left Microsoft. The first-person shooter / MMO hybrid launched last September amid a storm of hype involving boastful predictions, a $500 million budget, and music from Paul McCartney.

Hirshberg also said on the earnings call that the "biggest content addition yet to the Destiny universe" will come in the second half of this year. "We’re confident it’s going to be incredibly appealing not just to our current fans, but also to people who haven’t yet joined the Destiny universe," said Hirshberg. "It’s going to be that big of an expansion." House of Wolves, the second regular expansion pack for Destiny, is out on May 19th.