new blizzard figures...

[Lenardo]

from Blizzard europe: Blizzard Entertainment - Press Release

3.5 million copies world wide in a month and over 8.5 million active accounts and growing.

PARIS, France. – March 7, 2007 -- Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. announced today that World of Warcraft®: The Burning Crusade™ sold through approximately 3.5 million copies within one month following its mid-January launch in North America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia.* This includes nearly 1.6 million sold in Europe, and more than 1.9 million sold in regions that play on North American realms, including more than 100,000 copies in Australasia. World of Warcraft's worldwide subscriber base now numbers more than 8.5 million and is continuing to grow as new and returning players join existing players in the game.

Blizzard previously announced that this first expansion set for World of Warcraft sold through nearly 2.4 million copies worldwide in its first 24 hours - more than any other PC game in history had sold within an entire first month of availability.* With approximately 3.5 million copies sold through, The Burning Crusade has now established the new one-month record for PC-game sales.

"We're thrilled about the overwhelming response that we've received for The Burning Crusade," said Mike Morhaime, president of Blizzard Entertainment. "We have worked hard to build upon nearly every aspect of World of Warcraft with this expansion, and it's gratifying to see that players and reviewers are enjoying the new content."

According to Tricia Brennan, Commercial Director of the GAME Group, UK, "The Burning Crusade saw record-breaking first-week sales at GAME and sales have been continuously strong since then. World of Warcraft has proved such a success thanks to its strong player following and superb gameplay, and we anticipate more people joining this fast-growing community throughout the year."

"World of Warcraft, together with The Burning Crusade, is already writing history as our best- and longest-selling PC game ever," said Bernhard Widmann, General Manager Purchasing at Media Markt Management GmbH, Germany. "We've had a lot of fun seeing the community growing, and we don't see an end to these sales."

World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade is Blizzard Entertainment®'s first expansion for its subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game, World of Warcraft. It adds an extensive amount of new content to the game, including an increase in the level cap, complete with new spells, abilities, and talents for players to acquire as they advance their characters; huge new outdoor zones and dungeons for players to explore after they journey through the Dark Portal into the shattered world of Outland; two new playable races; flying mounts; a new character profession: jewelcrafting; and much more.

Following the initial launch of the expansion on January 16, Blizzard held a highly successful open beta test in Korea and then commercially released The Burning Crusade for players there on February 12. The company is currently working with its partners to localize the content into Simplified and Traditional Chinese for mainland China and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau and release the expansions in those regions as soon as possible. For further information on World of Warcraft and The Burning Crusade, please visit World of Warcraft Europe.

World of Warcraft's Subscriber Definition
World of Warcraft subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access. Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days are also counted as subscribers. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards. Subscribers in licensees' territories are defined along the same rules.

[MVerlie]

It's really unreal how much the MMORPG industry has grown.
It almost saddens me.

[kasey]

it saddens me that they are that big and it still feels like someone in a garage made it. I am pretty sure lets say microwaves stopped exploding and doing funny shit after the first generation.

[Faltigoth]

What's weird to me is that they have 8.5 million subscribers but only 3.5 million have The Burning Crusade.

Either over half of the playerbase doesn't have it yet, or there is something I don't understand going on there. I guess I just foolishly assume that just because I jump all over MMO expansions as soon as they hit the shelves the rest of the world does too, which is probably not the case.

[Marduk]

BC is not released in China yet.

Edit: It is released in South Korea so removed that part

[Antarius]

Did you even read TFA?

It specifically says why not everyone has the expansion yet.

*hint* English mutherfucker, do you speak it?

[Faltigoth]

*shrug* That's my F in reading comprehension for the day, then, I missed the last part.

[Phlean]

Just cause stuff like this interests me and I hope I dont come across as shitting on the thread or anything but since their last press release on Jan. 11, it appears that:

- This is definitely a stretch but it looks like they may have lost some NA players, at the time of the Jan 11 release they had over 2 million subscriptions and but sold only 1.9 million TBC boxes. They may have not lost that ~100k of players as they could be playing w/o the expansion, as I do on occassion, but I'm sure they didnt even notice either way.

-Gained about 100k European players which makes the NA possible lose a wash overall. Went from 1.5m subs to 1.6m boxes sold.

I just find it amazing that pretty much everyone who bought WoW the first time around bought the expansion. You'll have anecdotal evidence, especially around here of people who didnt, like myself, but we're in a very very tiny minority.

And though others have pointed it out the China and Korean numbers arent released. China has about 3.5m subs based on the 1/11 release, so I'm sure they'll sell about that many boxes there. I'm tired, early morning, but I think that would mean there's 1.5m subs or about in Korea.

[Rythonn]

I'm wondering if those 100k are a mix of not buying the expansion and second accounts that people don't have a reason to upgrade yet. Still working on their main account. I know a couple people in my guild who haven't upgraded their second account yet.

[Bongk]

is that active accounts or every account ever had?

[Witoubo]

I know at least 3 people I work with who don't have a character to lvl 60 yet (they are true casuals) so the expansion had very little appeal for them. They didn't purchase it.

[Ravensign]

The scale of WoW relative to EQ in its heyday is mind boggling. I transfered to a new server, and, at least the TBC zones are teaming with people, and its a low pop server and one of literaly hundreds.

I remember when someone would say they were from Povar or Ayonae Ro, and I could sort of frame something in my mind about their community.

Now you ask people if they play WoW and they say, yeah I play on the Unstoppable Force server, or some nonsense, who knows wth goes on there.

[Braen]

Originally Posted by Bongk

is that active accounts or every account ever had?

World of Warcraft's Subscriber Definition
World of Warcraft subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access. Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days are also counted as subscribers. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards. Subscribers in licensees' territories are defined along the same rules.

[Darkmyst]

Originally Posted by Bongk

is that active accounts or every account ever had?

Blizzard only counts current active paid accounts. Thier numbers don't include canceled, banned or free trial accounts.

[Kuro]

That's cool for Blizzard. Good game~

That's a whole metric fucktonne of people playing an MMO lol

I do love, however, that every one of the "new blood" MMO players I've talked to, that started with WoW, still acts like MMO players of anything else are dorks.