World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Sells 3.3 Million in 24 Hours

SBFord

Blizzard's juggernaut, World of Warcraft, has been declared the 'fastest selling MMO on the planet' and devs have the numbers to back up the assertion. Over 3.3 million copies of the Cataclysm expansion sold in only twenty-four hours. These numbers eclipse the former title holder, Wrath of the Lich King, by more than a half-million copies.

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm was simultaneously released in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Europe, Russia, Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand on December 7, and became available in Korea and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau on December 9. More than 10,000 stores throughout the world opened their doors at midnight to welcome players who wanted to be among the first to obtain a copy of the expansion. In addition, approximately 15,000 players attended official launch events hosted by Blizzard and key retail partners in the US, Canada, France, Germany, Russia, Sweden, the Netherlands, Spain, the UK, and the region of Taiwan.

If you haven't already joined the masses playing WoW: Cataclysm, you can find out more here.

OkhamsRazor

This suprises me given after the Wrath of the Lich King expansion in Europe there were 40 + high population servers and just a handful of low population ones compared with to 20 ish full and around 25 plus low in the 24 hours following the launch of Cataclysm . I don't doubt the figure though it just suprises me .

cheyane

I love how everyone was saying this was going to do the worse. As always Blizzard blows the predictions. Good for you. I doubt I will join the ranks but hey I did play and enjoy this game at one point too so I am happy for its continued success.

kinido

I was very anti wow when wotlk came out, and until patch 4.0, but i caved and bought cataclysm, and honestly, its like a whole new game, they did the best thing they could have by redoing the low level zones, giving them more substance, and holy hell have i not have this much fun since EQ pre DoD; Good job blizzard, you brought back my addiction  

Elethon

"If you haven't already joined the masses playering WoW" 

-Might want to change that.

Proson

Originally posted by cheyane

I love how everyone was saying this was going to do the worse. As always Blizzard blows the predictions. Good for you. I doubt I will join the ranks but hey I did play and enjoy this game at one point too so I am happy for its continued success.

 

idd, it was a good game while it lasted i got 2-3 years of my life wasted to confirm that ^^

But its just not the same anymore, it really went downhill from TBC imo, but people seem to still be enjoying the game so they must be doing something right.

Sovrath

Originally posted by cheyane

I love how everyone was saying this was going to do the worse. As always Blizzard blows the predictions. Good for you. I doubt I will join the ranks but hey I did play and enjoy this game at one point too so I am happy for its continued success.

I was going to write something similiar.

There were posts with doom and gloom, "is wow dead?". etc.

Just goes to show people that WoW has an audience that, er "likes wow".

sevitoth

In before McDonalds references.

Emhster

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by cheyane

I love how everyone was saying this was going to do the worse. As always Blizzard blows the predictions. Good for you. I doubt I will join the ranks but hey I did play and enjoy this game at one point too so I am happy for its continued success.

I was going to write something similiar.

There were posts with doom and gloom, "is wow dead?". etc.

Just goes to show people that WoW has an audience that, er "likes wow".

I agree. Though, it's too early to talk about player retention. I think the lack of competition and the stubbornness of the publishers to stick with the subscription pricing option is largely playing in Blizzard's favor.

kingtommyboy

I'm playing a trial at the moment, I want to make sure it is worth comming back, I haven't played for the past year, I already played a few hours

and yes, it is worth comming back :-)

Loke666

I am pretty impressed, that is half a million more than Wotlk.

The player numbers are more or less the same so I guess they have better distribution this time.

I think it is few subscribers of any MMO that don't get the new expansion so it is really not a surprise to me.

Impressive no less.

fyerwall

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by cheyane

I love how everyone was saying this was going to do the worse. As always Blizzard blows the predictions. Good for you. I doubt I will join the ranks but hey I did play and enjoy this game at one point too so I am happy for its continued success.

I was going to write something similiar.

There were posts with doom and gloom, "is wow dead?". etc.

Just goes to show people that WoW has an audience that, er "likes wow".

Nah, it only sold that many copies because all the devs mothers bought multiple copies to support their kids accomplishments! :P

But yeah, I agree. WoW will always have a big audience. For every player like myself who got bored of the game and quit, there will be someone to take our place and then some.

WoW will be around a very long time.

Even if it does get old really quick.

Cecropia

Originally posted by Emhster

Originally posted by Sovrath

I was going to write something similiar.

There were posts with doom and gloom, "is wow dead?". etc.

Just goes to show people that WoW has an audience that, er "likes wow".

I agree. Though, it's too early to talk about player retention. I think the lack of competition and the stubbornness of the publishers to stick with the subscription pricing option is largely playing in Blizzard's favor.

Yeah, I'm curious as to how things are going to look 6+ months down the road. Should be interesting.

I think most of us knew that this expansion would sell quite well, but damn! 3.3 million in a day? Very impressive Blizzy, fine work indeed.

Doomsayer

Originally posted by sevitoth

In before McDonalds references.

 Damn...I was gonna say something about the billions served. But now you just made me feel like an unoriginal bastard.

thamighty213

Good numbers be interesting to see week long figures etc I think the majority of MMO players pick up expansions within the first 24 hrs not wanting to be left behind.

Revisit this article after a month with week long and monthly figures just out of interest really WOW's not my cup of tea (art style) not playerbase the mechanics etc

jaxsundane

Yeah that's crazy good, I passed on WOTLK and am gonna pass on this one too but it sold well and seems to be recieved well by the audience too so far so good for all involved.

fyerwall

Originally posted by Cecropia

Originally posted by Emhster

Originally posted by Sovrath

I was going to write something similiar.

There were posts with doom and gloom, "is wow dead?". etc.

Just goes to show people that WoW has an audience that, er "likes wow".

I agree. Though, it's too early to talk about player retention. I think the lack of competition and the stubbornness of the publishers to stick with the subscription pricing option is largely playing in Blizzard's favor.

Yeah, I'm curious as to how things are going to look 6+ months down the road. Should be interesting.

I think most of us knew that this expansion would sell quite well, but damn! 3.3 million in a day? Very impressive Blizzy, fine work indeed.

I wonder if that 3.3mil in 24 hours is mainly due to the ability to preload Cata before its launch. I think the whole digital purchase option was a massive hit with players.

I mean when Wrath launched stores had a ton of copies the first two days and the quickly ran out. My local Best Buy had empty displays for Wrath 24 hours after launch. With Cata they still have the same 3 fully loaded displays a week later (as well as a ton of CEs)

So yeah, I think the digital option proved a massive success for Blizz and lead to the ginormous 24 hour sales.

DiSpLiFF

I can't say i'm really that surprised, I quit for over a year and came back for cata. I must say that in general it is still the same game, the quests they added are pretty amazing. I played at launch of the beginning of WoW and damn quests have come a long way! They are really interactive now. 

Having said that I haven't been able to play that much as blizzard loves to release expansions right in the middle of University finals. 

At the same time there is really no other AAA mmo out right now that is worth subscribing to and judging by the number of box sales i'm not the only one that believes that. Ultimately you have to give credit to blizzard and WoW, even though they've been top dog for so long, they really don't slack on the development side. 

Emhster

Originally posted by fyerwall

I wonder if that 3.3mil in 24 hours is mainly due to the ability to preload Cata before its launch. I think the whole digital purchase option was a massive hit with players.

I mean when Wrath launched stores had a ton of copies the first two days and the quickly ran out. My local Best Buy had empty displays for Wrath 24 hours after launch. With Cata they still have the same 3 fully loaded displays a week later (as well as a ton of CEs)

So yeah, I think the digital option proved a massive success for Blizz and lead to the ginormous 24 hour sales.

Wasn't it available during WotLK, or did it come later on?

I think it came later on for BC...

fyerwall

Originally posted by Emhster

Originally posted by fyerwall

I wonder if that 3.3mil in 24 hours is mainly due to the ability to preload Cata before its launch. I think the whole digital purchase option was a massive hit with players.

I mean when Wrath launched stores had a ton of copies the first two days and the quickly ran out. My local Best Buy had empty displays for Wrath 24 hours after launch. With Cata they still have the same 3 fully loaded displays a week later (as well as a ton of CEs)

So yeah, I think the digital option proved a massive success for Blizz and lead to the ginormous 24 hour sales.

Wasn't it available during WotLK, or did it come later on?

I think it came later on for BC...

Hrm, you may be right and I might just be way out of touch....

Been a while... But I could have sworn the whole preload and digital copy started with Cata...

unbound55

Originally posted by fyerwall

 

I wonder if that 3.3mil in 24 hours is mainly due to the ability to preload Cata before its launch. I think the whole digital purchase option was a massive hit with players.

I mean when Wrath launched stores had a ton of copies the first two days and the quickly ran out. My local Best Buy had empty displays for Wrath 24 hours after launch. With Cata they still have the same 3 fully loaded displays a week later (as well as a ton of CEs)

So yeah, I think the digital option proved a massive success for Blizz and lead to the ginormous 24 hour sales.

I think this was a very big factor.  No reason to pick up a box anymore (unless you want the CE extras) since boxes pretty much only have the CD/DVDs anymore.

Explorium

 

in before

 

lol thats not actually 3.3 million...thats just how many that were sent to stores, lol i'm an idiot! lololol

 

a take off from "lol thats not actually over 10 million active accounts lololol im an idiot too"

 

had to get those in before the trolls arrived  

 

on a serious note...it was pretty obvious cataclysm was going to break sales records. Its a HUGE expansion, and a lot of people came back to WoW because of cataclysm. My whole work place (30 people) were coming back or already are back for Cataclysm, except 5 people don't play MMOs and are more of a FPS fans. So thats 25 people coming back just for that.

ThomasN7

Hope they enjoy it while they can.

fyerwall

Originally posted by parrotpholk

Shows that the machine is not going to slow anytime soon.  Although I think a followup needs to happen sooner than later since the main addition to this was the revamp and with leveling at lightspeed now people will burn through it quick.  Retention may take a bigger hit than after previous xpacs due to that. 

Aye, the fresh coat of paint can only last so long.

Hopefully they have a ton of content updates ready to go in asap because to be honest for the 'biggest' expansion for the game, it is pretty content light.

kinido

Originally posted by fyerwall

Originally posted by parrotpholk

Shows that the machine is not going to slow anytime soon.  Although I think a followup needs to happen sooner than later since the main addition to this was the revamp and with leveling at lightspeed now people will burn through it quick.  Retention may take a bigger hit than after previous xpacs due to that. 

Aye, the fresh coat of paint can only last so long.

Hopefully they have a ton of content updates ready to go in asap because to be honest for the 'biggest' expansion for the game, it is pretty content light.

I have a feeling that in January there will be either a content update, or they will let us know that one is coming soon enough. Gotta remember the game just came out, they have to give people time to actually get together a 25man of 10man geared people and actually raid the raids' right now. They give us 5 levels and a but load of gearing up to do, and they get their holiday in peace and quiet. Woo! Go Christmas! :] 

SteamRanger

Whoop-de-doo. Like this was a big surprise to anyone. Most people who have played this game are at least a little curious about what Blizzard's done with this. I'm sure a lot of them will kiss this game goodbye once they see the "new and improved" state of it. World of Ghostcrawlercraft, brought to you by Bobby Kotick and Activision.