Announced back in March 2019, Stadia, Google's brand new video game streaming platform, has been out for over one month now, and preliminary response to the service has not appeared to be particularly positive. Indeed, it seems that Stadia is having some trouble finding its footing in these early stages of existence, and this can be seen reflected in the current state of the population of one of the biggest Stadia launch games: Destiny 2.
On November 26, 2019, just one week after Stadia's release date, the player population of Destiny 2 was recorded as 19,400 for Google's new platform. While this paled in comparison to the 494,000 players that logged into Destiny 2 on PC, the most popular platform for the title on that date, the figure suggested that at least some fans were interested in trying out a streaming version of Bungie's highly-popular looter shooter.
However, a month later, it seems that this interest is waning, as Destiny 2's player population on Stadia has decreased by more than half. More specifically, the shooter's Stadia player count for January 2, 2020 is recorded as 8,020, just 40% of what it was immediately following the platform's launch. While population fluctuations are certainly expected, and indeed PC players dipped by 10% across the two aforementioned dates, this figure seems to point to something larger than the typical ebbs and flows of a games as a service title.
At the very least, this sharp decline makes it possible to say with relative confidence that Stadia is having some serious trouble retaining its Destiny 2 players. This should not be considered a definitive statement about the overall health of Stadia, though, as perhaps this is simply a Destiny 2-specific problem. Even still, this diminishing interest in Destiny 2 may leave some early adopters concerned about the future of Google's new platform.
That said, there are some notable titles featured in Google Stadia's 2020 lineup, including Cyberpunk 2077, Doom Eternal, and Marvel's Avengers, and perhaps these highly-anticipated games will see big player counts on the new platform. Ultimately, that will come down to how many players are truly interested in the product that Google is offering, and the price point it is offering it at, and that is something that cannot be stated with certainty at this time.
Destiny 2 is available now for PC, PS4, Stadia, and Xbox One.
Source: Forbes