WoW: Cataclysm Hooks 4.7 Million in a Month

[John Funk]

WoW: Cataclysm Hooks 4.7 Million in a Month

It's records upon records for World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, which became the fastest-selling PC game in history with nearly 5 million copies sold in a month's time.

So, did you hear about this World of Warcraft thing? I hear the kids are really into it these days, what with their bloody elves and their LeBron Jenkins. It's supposed to be kinda big.

WoW's third expansion, Cataclysm, set a one-day sales record [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/106071-Cataclysm-Sets-New-Sales-Record] when it sold 3.3 million copies in its first 24 hours, more than any other PC title in history. It took the crown from ... (dun dun dun!) ... its predecessor, Wrath of the Lich King, which had managed 2.8 million copies in the same amount of time (Lich King, by the way, had taken the record from Burning Crusade, which - okay, you get the picture).

The 24-hour PC sales record isn't the only trophy in the Cataclysm cabinet, either. According to Blizzard, Cataclysm sold 4.7 million copies in its first month on sale, setting a new monthly record for a PC game. And it hasn't even been released in mainland China yet (which might take a while, considering how Lich King only just got approved this year [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/102685-China-Finally-Gives-the-Lich-King-the-Thumbs-Up]).

"We created thousands of new quests, introduced new lands to explore, and extensively revamped the game world for World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, making it our biggest and most ambitious expansion yet," said Blizzard CEO and cofounder Mike Morhaime. "We've been floored by the community's response so far, and we'd like to thank them for their continued passion and support for World of Warcraft, and for helping Cataclysm reach this incredible milestone."

I'd just like to point out that this isn't a brand-new game like, say, StarCraft II (which managed Black Ops [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/103187-StarCraft-II-Sells-Three-Million-In-a-Month]. Holy crap.

Of course, it's also quite well-deserved [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/reviews/8421-Review-World-of-Warcraft-Cataclysm]. I've spent dozens and dozens of hours in Cataclysm so far, and I think it's inarguably the finest expansion the game has seen yet. High-level content is hard again and rewarding to finish (if you ever do - I'm looking at you, Heroic-mode Grim Batol), the quest lines are fun and brilliantly-designed, and that isn't even getting into how much better it is to level a character through the Old World.

Yeah sure, Tol Barad sucks, but that's a tiny blemish on an otherwise fantastic expansion pack. My little guild on Earthen Ring is preparing to move into 10-man raiding, and I can't wait.

Bravo, guys.

Permalink

 

[omicron1]

This means that roughly 1% of America now owns the game. One of every hundred people you meet is a continuous, active WoW player. Sheesh.
Edit: This is an approximate figure taking into account that WoW:Cata is not a States-only release. Given at least 3 million US-based accounts, that is 1% of the 300 million current inhabitants of the United States.

Second edit: Edited to bring across the original meaning.

 

[Flamezdudes]

This means that roughly 1% of America now owns the game. One of every hundred people you meet is an addict. Sheesh.
Edit: This is an approximate figure taking into account that WoW:Cata is not a States-only release. Given at least 3 million US-based accounts, that is 1% of the 300 million current inhabitants of the United States.

Not everyone who plays WOW is an addict.

 

[Rad Party God]

Well, it's Blizzard, I'm really not surprised at these numbers, but I'm quite surprised that they still manage to make a 6 year old game look amazingly pretty and so much fun.

I don't have Cata and I haven't played WoW for quite a while (like 3 years), if I had the money to buy every single expansion, keep a monthly suscription AND the time to actually play the thing, I may have bought it right now.

 

[manythings]

Wake me when TOR gets here.

 

[GeneticallyModifiedDucks]

I've always wondered about this but, is China really such an important market [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/view-from-the-road/7690-View-from-the-Road-When-I-Was-a-Pirate]?

 

[Littaly]

Well, it does have a bit of an edge when it comes to selling a lot of copies, considering everyone who owns an account pretty much needs to buy it in order to continue playing as usual. So it's a game that pretty much sells itself. Not that it isn't impressive, but it's hardly unexpected ^^

 

[gibboss28]

I've spent dozens and dozens of hours in Cataclysm so far, and I think it's inarguably the finest expansion the game has seen yet. High-level content is hard again and rewarding to finish (if you ever do - I'm looking at you, Heroic-mode Grim Batol)

Oh boy I hate that place, its a pain.

But on the point of hard content, yeah its nice to see it actually being difficult. That said, arguably the heroics are still pretty easy.

 

[SinisterGehe]

This means that roughly 1% of America now owns the game. One of every hundred people you meet is an addict. Sheesh.
Edit: This is an approximate figure taking into account that WoW:Cata is not a States-only release. Given at least 3 million US-based accounts, that is 1% of the 300 million current inhabitants of the United States.

Not everyone who plays WOW is an addict.

I play wow, I spend most of my time front of computer doing.... Guess what!

Spoiler

Composing music for my orchestra (wind band) and studying for school. I only spend tho rare raid night (3times a week for 3 hours + mandatory 1 hr grind before the raid in wow) I wish I would have more time to play wow, but guess what... I don't... It is hard to be musician, student, composer and alive at the same time + trying to fit the enjoyment wow in to the mix also...

I just love you shallow mind you have dear omicron1... Hey let me jump to this game also... Everyone who plays Black Ops and is a male, is a 16 years old sexist brat, with low self-esteem, who also does verbal sexual insults to every girl he meets online in order to boost hes own self-confidence... Did I get it right?

Sorry... Sometimes people just... Well people who clearly know we all are part of the gaming community, still wont bother accepting that we all are just as sad pafetic, equal and important as anyone else who dares to admit he plays videos games...

Yes, I know... I got pessimistic view of humanity, no need to mention that
Sorry, If I insulted someone here... I always do.

 

[NeedAUserName]

I thought WoW had a subscription base of 10 million. Meaning at least half didn't get the new expansion. I may have heard wrong, but definitely not all the players got it, and I'm curious as to why...

 

[John Funk]

I thought WoW had a subscription base of 10 million. Meaning at least half didn't get the new expansion. I may have heard wrong, but definitely not all the players got it, and I'm curious as to why...

I touched on that: It's a 12m subscription base, with about half of that being in Asia. It hasn't even launched in China yet. So if we be conservative and say that China is 4m of the worldwide subscribers, that's only 8m - and some, for whatever reason, just might not have upgraded yet.

I've always wondered about this but, is China really such an important market [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/view-from-the-road/7690-View-from-the-Road-When-I-Was-a-Pirate]?

Since you need an account to play, MMOs and other subscription services are actually pretty secure for developers. there are still private servers, etc., but it's a much higher return on investment than, say, Sony would see.

 

[SinisterGehe]

I thought WoW had a subscription base of 10 million. Meaning at least half didn't get the new expansion. I may have heard wrong, but definitely not all the players got it, and I'm curious as to why...

China... And some people aren't "Addicted" to wow... But more of a casual players. Most of new players tend to take it easy before getting the expansions. They usually (what I have heard in my local community) is that they buy the normal pack + 2months card... They level a bit and enjoy it, they hit 50-60 and buy tbc... IF they manage to get trough that miserable piece content they buy lich and soforth... You get the point.
+ Gold spammer/sellers are also counted...
and you must add the "mystery" in to it too, some people are just... Different...

 

[NeedAUserName]

I thought WoW had a subscription base of 10 million. Meaning at least half didn't get the new expansion. I may have heard wrong, but definitely not all the players got it, and I'm curious as to why...

I touched on that: It's a 12m subscription base, with about half of that being in Asia. It hasn't even launched in China yet. So if we be conservative and say that China is 4m of the worldwide subscribers, that's only 8m - and some, for whatever reason, just might not have upgraded yet.

Fair enough, dunno how I missed that.

 

[omicron1]

This means that roughly 1% of America now owns the game. One of every hundred people you meet is an addict. Sheesh.
Edit: This is an approximate figure taking into account that WoW:Cata is not a States-only release. Given at least 3 million US-based accounts, that is 1% of the 300 million current inhabitants of the United States.

Not everyone who plays WOW is an addict.

I play wow, I spend most of my time front of computer doing.... Guess what!

Spoiler

Composing music for my orchestra (wind band) and studying for school. I only spend tho rare raid night (3times a week for 3 hours + mandatory 1 hr grind before the raid in wow) I wish I would have more time to play wow, but guess what... I don't... It is hard to be musician, student, composer and alive at the same time + trying to fit the enjoyment wow in to the mix also...

I just love you shallow mind you have dear omicron1... Hey let me jump to this game also... Everyone who plays Black Ops and is a male, is a 16 years old sexist brat, with low self-esteem, who also does verbal sexual insults to every girl he meets online in order to boost hes own self-confidence... Did I get it right?

Sorry... Sometimes people just... Well people who clearly know we all are part of the gaming community, still wont bother accepting that we all are just as sad pafetic, equal and important as anyone else who dares to admit he plays videos games...

Yes, I know... I got pessimistic view of humanity, no need to mention that
Sorry, If I insulted someone here... I always do.

Ok, that was just uncalled for. I was using "addict" as a blanket term for "people continuously and actively playing the game," not trying to imply stereotypes about their natures or psychological health; upon rereading my own comment, I can see how easy it is to misinterpret it (or rather, how very much lacking my actual meaning was in my original words); nonetheless, directly insulting my person in that manner is an action I can only count as intentionally, blatantly rude.

Heck, for that matter I'd call MYSELF an addict, and not just under the loose blanket terminology I was using above. Mostly I'm addicted to the Internet; additionally, to the first few minutes/first hour of games, when the world is new. (I hypothesize that this is why I tend to buy many games cheap, play them for a little while, then move on; I'm addicted to novelty.)

 

[Jumwa]

I was rather pleased with Cataclysm at first. The new questing is excellent, a big improvement there, despite the buggy nature of a lot of it.

However, the drastic change to make tanking and healing more strenuous and less enjoyable, and the return of the old-school MMO philosophy that all end-game content should be for people prepared to commit great chunks of their time and patience to it, has successfully managed to end my five year long uninterrupted enjoyment of the game. I prefer playing casually, for fun, but the game is now a chore for me. Dungeons(even the non-heroic, easy stuff) are slow and tedious, the opposite of action-packed.

I'm eying other MMOs to fill the void now.

 

[Roboto]

Yeah, I'm waiting for those who say "I'm waiting for those people that say PC is dying to come" to come. Sure it sold 4.7 million copies, but it is essentially the same game released again.

It isn't dead, it's just a zombie stifled in the ways of innovation. It follows the consoles now. Thank goodness for indy developers keeping things fresh.

 

[Whimsi]

I'm a WoW player. Or I was. Now I pretty much just play to raid one night a week. I guess I've payed $15 for less entertainment, but it really seems like WoW is just coasting on easy street these days without putting much work into the game. Honestly, what's changed in three expansions? Not a whole lot. Pepper in a couple time sinks here (archaeology? Neat idea...rather narrow implementation), a couple money sinks there (and with the economy being what it is on most servers now, you have to charge a good 50k gold just to limit the amount of people who can buy something...), and voila. License to print money.

WoW needs to die. I'm not saying that because I hate WoW, but rather, because I want Blizzard to actually do what they've shown they're very good at in the past: innovate. But with them holding 90% of the MMO-buying market, it's hard to leave good friends and a robust (if not somewhat insipid) community for something that will flop because there's no room to breathe in the market.

 

[Jesus Phish]

Well, it does have a bit of an edge when it comes to selling a lot of copies, considering everyone who owns an account pretty much needs to buy it in order to continue playing as usual. So it's a game that pretty much sells itself. Not that it isn't impressive, but it's hardly unexpected ^^

Not really. You dont have to upgrade to the newest expansion to keep playing, they gave away pretty much all of the revamped content for free to all players before the expansion came out.