World of Warcraft: 280,000 Copies Sold in EU!

Admin · February 2005

Blizzard has made an impressive press release day about the overnight success of World of Warcraft in the European market. Read more below:

PARIS, France. 15th February, 2005
Blizzard Entertainment today announced that World of Warcraft has become an overnight success in Europe, achieving record-breaking sales in its first 24 hours since the game launched on Friday, 11th February. World of Warcraft, the company's subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), has sold-through an estimated 280,000* copies at retail on day-one, selling more units in one day than what was previously thought to be the overall cumulative size of the European MMORPG market. This figure rose to more than 380,000 units being sold-through by the end of the first weekend.

As the fastest-growing online game in European history, World of Warcraft has shattered previous records for highest number of accounts created, concurrent user populations and number of servers. More than 290,000 players created World of Warcraft accounts during the first weekend, and 100,000 of those were playing the game concurrently on the first day. A first time ever peak concurrency of over 180,000 players in Europe was reached during the first weekend. To support the European launch, Blizzard deployed over 80 servers at the World of Warcraft data centres in Paris and Frankfurt; additional servers are on standby as new players subscribe to the game.

"We are extremely pleased by the launch of World of Warcraft in Europe," said Mike Morhaime, president of Blizzard Entertainment. "Our experience of launching World of Warcraft in North America last year has helped us to prepare for Europe by providing more boxes at launch than we had previously planned and deploying more servers from the start, which we hope will allow us to provide a smooth and fun game experience from the outset for everyone playing."

Retailers across Europe have reported outstanding demand for the title:

According to Lou Triche, senior vice president of International Operations for EB Games: "World of Warcraft has become the fastest selling PC game to date for EB Games in Europe. The game has set new sales records for units sold during its first weekend of release." In the UK, Tricia Brennan, Head of Buying, GAME, said: "World of Warcraft was passionately anticipated by customers and staff alike. Yet again, Blizzard has delivered a superb game and we are delighted with the success of the title."

A similar success story was experienced in France where Jean Marc Martel, Games Buyer of the countrys leading PC retailer, FNAC stated, "I'd like to thank the Blizzard team for their professionalism in making the launch of World of Warcraft a real event at FNAC. We look forward to partnering with Blizzard Entertainment on future releases."

Blizzard Entertainment supplied 560,000 boxes of World of Warcraft to its retail partners for launch. As additional servers are brought online and proven stable, re-orders will be fulfilled for stores across Europe, and additional copies of World of Warcraft will then be available at retail.

*Based on internal company records and reports from key retailers in Europe.

knut · February 2005

And I'm proud to be one of them

Roin · February 2005

WoW is definately well on it's way to being another 1mil+ subscriber MMO. It will be the first for a North American MMO. Congrats Blizzard.

Hunnenkoenig · February 2005

...

jimmyman99 · February 2005

Originally posted by Hunnenkoenig
The blind crowd.
Blizzard failed on every corner.
Lagy servers, not working websites, not enough games, unable to deliver preorders etc. etc.
It is not acceptable, if they knew, what was wrong with the US release and how many preorder they had from europe.
Blizzard suxx!
If you can speak german, read www.olnigg.de and your eyes will be opened.

I wonder if you have any brains left after your last lobotomy.

Anofalye · February 2005

With a little luck...

Their success will freak competitors who will focus on making wonderfull games rather then try an hopeless fight with this giant.

Never underestimate the power of the Dark Side. It is in EU that fans and supporters stampede each others over ''soccer''... So WoW success have little to do with quality, it is mostly in the marketing combined with the fact it is the first gaming giant to enter the MMORPG arena.

I am still surprised, I was expecting MILLIONS of customers to rush the game, it didnt happen...Diablo own WoW anyday it seem!

Sitting-Duck · February 2005

Maybe I'm the first one to cancel my subscription after three days

Yetsterday morning I exit the game with two chars:

A lvl12 orc warrior called Zenathor

and a lvl8 Taur huntress called Diddlebeast

Yesterday evening I logged in to discover they were gone and the only option was to create a new char!

I'm so glad it did happen now and not after I played months and Created a top lvl char!

I can't see much difference with Daoc in fact the community feels worse.

You hardly get invited to join a group It looks like it's a bunch off egotrippers.

I'm not willing to pay mont after month for this game

SirPeter · February 2005

Originally posted by jimmyman99
Originally posted by Hunnenkoenig
The blind crowd.
Blizzard failed on every corner.
Lagy servers, not working websites, not enough games, unable to deliver preorders etc. etc.
It is not acceptable, if they knew, what was wrong with the US release and how many preorder they had from europe.
Blizzard suxx!
If you can speak german, read www.olnigg.de and your eyes will be opened.

I wonder if you have any brains left after your last lobotomy.

well if it makes u satisfied to play a PAYED Game from friday 11 to Wed 16 for only 12 hours due to countless server downs,lags, and stay half ur time in waiting pie,the YOU are brainless or braindead
because its a horrible action of Blizzard,how they treat htheir sustomers

and Blizzards Programmers was braindead to let us on every Server creat new chars,instead transfer the valid char to a free server(if there is one at least)
if u dont wanna wait 12 hours for a available login ,you MUST create a new and this SUX

BarryManilow · February 2005

Originally posted by Roin

WoW is definately well on it's way to being another 1mil+ subscriber MMO. It will be the first for a North American MMO. Congrats Blizzard.

I don't know about that, most of my friends already quit WoW after a month (some took 2 months) and went back to thier old games, EQ, CoH, DAoC, etc. WoW is a blast then it dies really fast. Most just say its the same crap except you can do it faster. And this is not including all the lag, server problems, queues, bugs, lack of content and broken content, totally whack customer service, no new content, etc. The game just wasn't fun any more.

I highly doubt this game, even if it reaches 1 million fans, it will not have the staying power to keep that many subscribers long enough. Especially the first time mmo players who are not use to paying 15 dollars a month.

BarryManilow · February 2005

Originally posted by jimmyman99

Originally posted by Hunnenkoenig
The blind crowd.
Blizzard failed on every corner.
Lagy servers, not working websites, not enough games, unable to deliver preorders etc. etc.
It is not acceptable, if they knew, what was wrong with the US release and how many preorder they had from europe.
Blizzard suxx!
If you can speak german, read www.olnigg.de and your eyes will be opened.

I wonder if you have any brains left after your last lobotomy.

So he is not happy with the product, so you have to belittle him? See folks this is your typical koolaid drinking "game of the month" fanboi. Cheers

necbone · February 2005

gratz to the europeans and blizzard, this is an awesome product....

its funny how people are hating on this game still, its the best thing out....all the problems WoW suffers, every other game suffers; except no other game has hundreds of thousands of people hammering it everday....

i just took 3 weeks off from WoW, going to resubscribe today, cant wait to kill somemore with my rogue....and when i get tired of it, i'll break again....any game you play all the time will eventually get old, thats why you take breaks

and now i wait for CoH's city of villans and pvp, that should be fun...i havent played coh since august

necbone · February 2005

Originally posted by Sitting-Duck

Maybe I'm the first one to cancel my subscription
Yetsterday morning I exit the game with two chars
A lvl12 orc warrior called Zenathor
and a lvl8 Taur huntress called Diddlebeast
Yesterdayevening I logged in to discover they were gone and the only option was to create a new char!
I'm so glad it didn't happen now and not after I played months and Created a top lvl char
I can't see much difference with Daoc in fact the community feels worse
You hardly get invited to join a group It looks like it's a bunch off egotrippers.
I'm not willing to pay mont after month for this game

what? making a lvl 8 and 12 character takes like a couple hours bro(it can take very long when you first start because you can get totally lost in game- did you ever mess with any of the cool UI stuff? or use thotbot when you got totally lost?), in starting games you should stick with one dude in the beginning to "bond" with him^^

and, did you ever contact support about yur characters? are you sure you were on the right server? ya know theres a bunch of them(servers).....and getting to lvl 8 and 12 is not even giving the game a chance, but i know how it feels to just get that sucky vibe from a game; for me i cant get into matrix online at all, but i still try

and i'm willing to pay a couple months out of the year for this game, it fuckin owns....when i play wow, i play more than 30hrs a week(most of the time more than that), me playing something 100+ hrs a month is fair enuff for me to pay for it....and all games are buggy...

anyways goodluck in yur travels because during those 3 weeks i took off from WoW, i looked for a new game and only thing i could find actually alittle fun to play was eve(i'm really not sure if i'm going to subscribe; i should not be subscribed to more than 3-4games a month) and i've been dabbling with mxo since september or october- that new patch last week did make the game better; theres nothing else for me....i'm done playing ragnarok, nexus, daoc, ultima, swg, and coh(until pvp or crafting or something else to do)....there needs to be something cool out there and i guess wow is the funnest thing around- pvp servers strictly...

Hunnenkoenig · February 2005

...

Clockfoster · February 2005

Cheers for hype!

necbone · February 2005

to quote public enemy, "dont believe the hype".....i dunno bout dnl(screenshots seem alittle iffy)....

i dont believe trailers, pr people, lead designers, or other people who havent played the game that promote a game.....i believe in the gameplay.....shit, i didnt think wow was going to be good; i was like, "a spinoff mmorpg, nice"

Hunnenkoenig · February 2005

...

necbone · February 2005

so...yur saying dnl is going to be hot?

Hunnenkoenig · February 2005

Originally posted by necbone
so...yur saying dnl is going to be hot?

Yep

jimmyman99 · February 2005

Originally posted by SirPeter
Originally posted by jimmyman99
Originally posted by Hunnenkoenig
The blind crowd.
Blizzard failed on every corner.
Lagy servers, not working websites, not enough games, unable to deliver preorders etc. etc.
It is not acceptable, if they knew, what was wrong with the US release and how many preorder they had from europe.
Blizzard suxx!
If you can speak german, read www.olnigg.de and your eyes will be opened.

I wonder if you have any brains left after your last lobotomy.

well if it makes u satisfied to play a PAYED Game from friday 11 to Wed 16 for only 12 hours due to countless server downs,lags, and stay half ur time in waiting pie,the YOU are brainless or braindead
because its a horrible action of Blizzard,how they treat htheir sustomers

and Blizzards Programmers was braindead to let us on every Server creat new chars,instead transfer the valid char to a free server(if there is one at least)
if u dont wanna wait 12 hours for a available login ,you MUST create a new and this SUX

I never wait in queue, NOT once. My server had several downtimes, but they were scheduled. The only unscheduled server outage happend ONCE, and was over in about 40 minutes. Please get your facts straight before posting. The server outage happens only to a select servers, most of them have no problems at all.

Hunnenkoenig · February 2005

...

jimmyman99 · February 2005

Originally posted by BarryManilow
Originally posted by jimmyman99 Originally posted by HunnenkoenigThe blind crowd.Blizzard failed on every corner.Lagy servers, not working websites, not enough games, unable to deliver preorders etc. etc.It is not acceptable, if they knew, what was wrong with the US release and how many preorder they had from europe.Blizzard suxx!If you can speak german, read www.olnigg.de and your eyes will be opened.I wonder if you have any brains left after your last lobotomy.

So he is not happy with the product, so you have to belittle him? See folks this is your typical koolaid drinking "game of the month" fanboi. Cheers

I dont consider myself a fanboi. I like WoW a lot, but not because its blizzard or something. I like it because its the game that fits my MMORPG playstyle best at the moment. The reason i was rather harsh with my reply to this person is because I was offended by the implication that I was following "blindly" to a hype or anything like that. I try the game, If i like it, I play it, if I dont - I dont play it. I tried EQ2, its a fairly good game but it doesnt entirely fit my style. But I dont go on their forums flaming them for playing it. Everyone has their own opinion, and as long as they do not try to "enforce" theirs on somebody else or insult somebody elses opinion then I wouldnt even bother responding.

jimmyman99 · February 2005

Originally posted by Hunnenkoenig
Originally posted by jimmyman99 I never wait in queue, NOT once. My server had several downtimes, but they were scheduled. The only unscheduled server outage happend ONCE, and was over in about 40 minutes. Please get your facts straight before posting. The server outage happens only to a select servers, most of them have no problems at all.Check the german servers. We have also the right to play the same game with the same conditions, because we pay the same as you. But this is not the case and i think we can say, from our point of view the game sux.

Do you mean ALL of german servers? unfortunately, since I live in Canada I cant join European servers.

Hunnenkoenig · February 2005

...

jimmyman99 · February 2005

Originally posted by Hunnenkoenig
Originally posted by jimmyman99 I dont consider myself a fanboi. I like WoW a lot, but not because its blizzard or something. I like it because its the game that fits my MMORPG playstyle best at the moment. The reason i was rather harsh with my reply to this person is because I was offended by the implication that I was following "blindly" to a hype or anything like that. I try the game, If i like it, I play it, if I dont - I dont play it. I tried EQ2, its a fairly good game but it doesnt entirely fit my style. But I dont go on their forums flaming them for playing it. Everyone has their own opinion, and as long as they do not try to "enforce" theirs on somebody else or insult somebody elses opinion then I wouldnt even bother responding.
You are right. I did not want offend you or anybody else, but i believe, it is fact, that most of the people are following the hype or their friends just blindly.
We have a saying "If it is not your clothes, dont put it on". That means, if you are not the part of the blind crowd, do not feel yourself offended, because i did not mean you.
I know, it is not as simple, but anyways. I did not flame the people, who bought the game, i flamed blizzard and i will do for ever. Although my post was a result of a previous discussion on another board and I was in that mood.
I don't care, who plays WoW or who don't. If you are lucky with it, nice for you. I am not and that's why i have the right to say my opinion too. It is not a board just for fanbois, is it?

Beside that, i would like to state here the fact, that many WoW player come to whole different sites (like my SWG site) and troll around, how bad this game sux and how cool WoW is. That is bad. I just told in a WoW thread, that I don't like the game, but did not try to say you, what you should play instead. (i brought up DnL after other people compared WoW to other games)
All germans servers were overfilled and crashing all days long the first days. I don't know, how it is now, because I don't play anymore.
Btw I love canada. I was many times there :-)My favorite city is Calgary i think.

I apologize if I have replied a bit too sharply to your post. In my opinion, if most players joined WoW because of the hype and then they didnt like the game, they would quit. But since that is not the case (at least in North America) then I believe the game deserves its popularity. Most of its hype in my opinion came from the players themselves. I beta tested this game and I loved it. So i recommended this game to all my friends. Some of them still play it, those who didnt like it - dont.
EQ2 was hyped by SOE and players too, I tried it, but even thoug the game is good its not great, it doesnt fit my style. So i dont play it. Im only lucky that i got my hands on a buddy key and didnt waste money buying the game.
Im sorry german servers crash al lthe time and you guys miss out a lot of great time and adventures WoW can provide
Also, dont pay any attention to those people who post stuff like "WOW RULEZ EQ2" or "SWG SUX" or stuff like that. Those are trolls, they are everywhere and most people just ignore them because they realy want some attention they are not getting any in real life.
Peace

necbone · February 2005

yea, WoW's word of mouth got me to finally play, during the summer before i got in closed beta, people in my ragnarok guild were talkin about WoW and i was, "i dunno", but just renewed my account for the 2nd or 3rd time yesterday.....

dont believe the hype tho....i never saw a WoW commercial on TV, eq kept trying to push their commercials and i was with my friends telling them that eq2 wasnt fun(i was in closed beta all summer- it was nicely run too) and that wow was going to own this game if they released it at the same time....and my friends were like. shut up dork^^

the lesson to be learned....most non-gamers dont want to here about yur gaming...

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World of Warcraft: 280,000 Copies Sold in EU!

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World of Warcraft: 280,000 Copies Sold in EU!

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