Activision is planning to bring more methods of monetization to the game in the future.

Destiny 2: Forsaken for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC failed to meet Activision's expectations as it relates to sales and the expansion's ability to "re-engage" with the franchise overall, the publisher said as part of its latest earnings report.

"While forsaken is a high-quality expansion with strong engagement and new modes of play, it did not achieve our commercial expectations," Activision Publishing boss Coddy Johnson said during an earnings call. "And there is still work to do to fully re-engaged the core Destiny fanbase."

Also during the call, Johnson talked about how Activision is planning to "improve the pace of innovation and cadence of in-game content" in Destiny, while also creating new ways for players to engage further with Destiny and spend more money through microtransactions. This statement applies to Destiny and all of Activision's other franchises, Johnson said.

Destiny's microtransactions come in the form of Silver, which players can purchase with real money and spend on a number of different in-game extras. What the new form of microtransactions may be coming to Destiny remains to be seen. It's not surprising to see Activision going after microtransactions in a bigger way considering it is very big business.

Those who are playing Destiny 2 right now are "deeply engaged" with the game, but Johnson said Activision will be focusing now on trying to get lapsed players to come back and draw in new ones. Activision recently made Destiny 2 temporarily free on PC, which is surely part of the company's effort to expand the game's audience.

"We have not yet seen the full core re-engage in Destiny, which has kind of led to the underperformance against expectations to date," Johnson said. "Some players we think are still in 'wait and see' mode. If you're in, you're deeply engaged. If you're not, we're hoping now's the time to bring players back in and win them back."

Despite the missed sales, monthly active users for the Destiny franchise grew quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year for the period ended September 30. The release of Forsaken at the start of September helped drive the increased player figures, Activision said.

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/destiny-2-forsaken-failed-to-meet-sales-targets/1100-6463142/

Just as I was starting to enjoy Destiny again 🤦🏻‍♂️

I think the audience is moving away from the game, which is good. Destiny 2 isn't great, they learned nothing from Destiny 1s mistake.

Target was probably way too high. The expansion sold extremely well. 60% of the playerbase bought the expansion.

The hardcore fans have never been happier then now and the game is still making a boatload of cash. 

Seeing how I was one of their hardcore fans, I have not been happy and I know a lot of people who have not been happy with how they handled Destiny 2, but thankfully I cleaned my hands of it. I'm the target demographic they are trying to get back into the game, the ones that is responsible from missing their sales target. Destiny 1 to 2 had declines, and this only going to continue because they really have learned nothing.  

Yeah I agree they lost players like you but the ones who stayed and still played are extremly satisfied. Not saying they did things right or deserve all the millions they are raking in but it's a fact. 

They'll probably do destiny 3 release it crossgen but after that I hope the next IP Bungie create is not ruined by greedy publisher decisions. 

I don't understand. The problem is obviously quality ... and it's not like the publisher doesn't understand this. The only reason I can see them adding more means of monetization is that they know that skeptics will never play Destiny 2, and so they don't care about the reputation of that game anymore. Hopefully they'll care for the quality assurance of Destiny 3 though ... because one of these days I want to be able to enjoy a Bungie game again.

And no, "hardcore fans are happier than ever!" is not an argument for quality, especially when the player base is low and the game is building off mediocrity.

The player base isn't low just lower then they were aiming for. The game in its current state is good, the problem is it took a lot of updates and expansions to get it here. I agree with you that Destiny 3 should be launched to the standard of Destiny 2 right now. Not releasing committing the same mistake a third time and expecting different results. It would be so much better if D3 launched with the content of Destiny 2 + 2 expansions followed by a few expansions in the year or two after. At least then they would win back a lot of good will. 

Something tells me though they eon't and they'll cash in on D3 before trying to set things right with a new Bungie IP. 

Yeah you're right there. I guess the reason I said "low" is because if I recall correctly, Destiny 2 already missed their expectations, so this is just another blow to their initial thinking. Although you're right still, Destiny 2 is one of the most popular online games right now, no way is it "low" objectively. 

I would hope that Destiny 3 is even better than Destiny 2 is right now but, yeah, at the very least make it the quality of this game currently.