Wrath of Lich King; 24 Hours 2.8M Sold
Source: Tom's Guide | Keywords: Blizzard, Activision, Warcraft, GameStop
With the holidays fast approaching, November is prime time when it comes to game releases. Whether it’s for PC, PS3, Xbox 360, or the Wii, the big AAA-titles usually hit store shelves sometime between mid-October to early December.
Not one to deviate from the norm, Activision-Blizzard released the latest expansion pack for World of Warcraft last week. While high sales numbers were expected, setting a new sales record for the year was an added bonus. Within its first 24 hours of sales, Wrath of the Lich King (or WotLK), sold an astounding 2.8 million copies, becoming the fastest selling PC title of 2008. The record was previously held by another World of Warcraft expansion, The Burning Crusade, which sold 2.4 million copies at release back in January of 2007.
For the release, over 15,000 stores worldwide opened their doors at midnight to sell WotLK to gamers. GameStop, one of the largest game retailers in the USA, was all about WoW for the expansion’s release day. "After a single day of availability, Wrath of the Lich King is already the bestselling PC game of 2008 at GameStop and ranks as one of our top-selling products so far this year," said Bob McKenzie, GameStop’s senior vice president of merchandising. "In keeping with the tradition established by their previous releases, Blizzard Entertainment has again created a product that not only reflects their high standards of quality but is clearly an instant hit with gamers around the country."
"We’re grateful for the incredible support that players around the world have continued to show for World of Warcraft," said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “Wrath of the Lich King contains some of the best content we’ve created for the game so far, and we look forward to seeing even more players log in to experience it in the days ahead." Blizzard, who has already expressed interest in doing more WoW expansions , will likely make another announcement later this month regarding WotLK hitting five million units sold. With a user base of over 11 million, WoW doesn’t look to be slowing down anytime in the near future, and any expansion is a guaranteed hit.
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nothing unexpected but great job blizzard!! uber quality exansion!
2.8Million for an expansion?
Thought there wasn't PC audience?
Their is apparently 2.8 million people who all play the same game.
What about the other millions of gamers?
Piracy my ass!
...way to use logic there raven...
You can't really pirate a game based on subscription now can you? If all games were based on monthly payments piracy would reach just about... ZERO PERCENT.
If WoW COULD be played through LAN easily, it would be the most pirated game ever.
@Dechy,
There are private pirated WoW servers, running pirated copies of the game. With mods. The only reason they're not bothered with by the masses of millions who pay, is because it's not balanced and unless their mother's uncle can do it, they won't have someone they know to play with probably. And we all know, WoW is about social outing... digitally... right? >.>
@Article,
Congrats blizzard. Now hurry up with starcraft ii & diablo iii. MMO with pay per month are terrible. Don't want to collect 5 piggie teeth, 10,000 times. Thanks.
If that were even true, you still have 2.8milllion PC gamers willing to PAY for an expansion a game. This tells me there are a lot more gamers out there on the PC than what has been implied and that while piracy may hurt sales the amount of people willing to pay for a title far outweigh those willing to steal it.
i think raven was saying that lower pc game retail sales is not due to piracy, opposite to what game developers say in the declining sales of pc games.
its just mmorpg is getting bigger causing declining pc game retail sales.
@raven's last comment
Not only is it 2.8 million willing to pay for expansions, but it's 2.8 on the release day alone who bothered to stand in line or get up off their lazy @$$ to go buy it or bothered to buy online/download (if it was available). I'm sure they'll sell lots more throughout the month and in the future.
Pathetic, can't believe this game actually got popular. There are better MMOs out there.