Okay the unofficial reasoning based purely on conjecture on my part. It begins with how the game is intended to be played. 1. Complete story 2. Unlock Crucible and Strike playlist 3. Hit 20, join faction enter crucible and playlist each week until maxed 4. Meet people in playlist and/or crucible who have a playstyle that is complementary 5. Friend said people 6. Create a core fireteam of 3 to perform the playlist each week 7. Keep in touch on the forums 8. Connect with another 3 person fireteam 9. Each three person team does playlist 10. All six crucible each week 11. Upgrade gear become friends 12. Message via the website 13. Conduct Raid - Have Fun 14. Form a clan 15. Find other pairs of three people fireteams on the forums 16. Grow clan 17. Weekly Raid/Nightfall/Heroic/Playlist/Crucible life is full 18. Clan BFF on the forums all the time 19. Buy DLC 20. Use Forums/Buy DLC/use Forums/Buy Destiny 2/use Forums/Buy DLC etc. So why is this the correct way to play? Because when Bungie and Activision decided on this partnership they DID NOT decide to create a game. They decided to use a game as a launching point for a multimedia experience. Using the forums is part of the game, using the app is part of the game. When Bungie sits down to discuss user stats for budget purposes, for advertising budget, for product endorsements and secondary vendors, for the movie deal, for the book deals. It will not be the number of players playing the game. The user stats will be Total User IDs using the game or the website or the app over each quarter divided by total sales volume divided by days in a quarter giving the number of players per day. Average time in game will be all hours spent doing any of the above divided by total users as defined above. 9 million users spending 3 minutes in matchmaking per day is 450,000 player hours per day 9 million users spending 12 hours per month dealing with the absence of matchmaking 3,600,000 player hours per day If the average user spends one hour per day actually in game 9 million users at 9 million hours However with 3,600,000 hours per day dealing with matchmaking half that time 1,800,000 complaining about the game half that again 900,000 figuring out the grimoire cards and crap Plus 10,000,000 hours of Bungie fans (who do not play) complaining about the game 25,300,000 person hours per day are spent 'playing' destiny SINCE players only play 1 hour per day as per the chart (imagine a chart) Then it is obvious that there are actually 25 million players 25 million players to buy the books and Destiny 2 and watch the movie and and and... Cue salivating stockholders