NPD Reveals World of Warcraft's Lifetime Sales in the US

Keane Ng

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NPD Reveals World of Warcraft's Lifetime Sales in the US



The NPD has revealed the lifetime retail sales numbers for World of Warcraft at US retailers, and, unsurprisingly, the figures are absolutely gigantic.

It's safe to assume that World of Warcraft has sold quite a few copies at retail in the US. Now we can add a number to that assumption thanks to the NPD, who have revealed the lifetime sales figures for WoW to Gamasutra [http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=24518]. Counting every single version of WoW that's been released thus far, the series has sold a whopping 8.6 million copies to date.

That's including plain old vanilla WoW, the collector's editions, the battle chest set, and the two expansion packs. Gamasutra figured that, considering the prices of the plain game and the expansion packs nowadays, the average price per copy sold would be around $30. You can tweak that number a little higher if you want to average in the collector's editions, but regardless, if you punch that number into your calculator and hit multiply and you get a whole lot of digits: $258 million dollars in sales to date.

Obviously retail sales are only one half of the money making equation. Consider the dough raked in from monthly subscription fees and well, you're going to start hitting numbers that will make your head spin. And don't forget to factor in talking Murloc doll sales, either. Blizzard's making a fortune off those damn things.

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Toty54

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Jul 11, 2009
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Large quantities of money that could have been spent on better things like a lot of other BETTER games

And of course feeding the poor etc etc
 

Radeonx

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So,$258 million, plus millions of subscribers paying $15 a month? If I were Blizzard, I'd take bathes in my money. That's how rich people bathe.
 

iggyus

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Blizzard could easily buy an entire continent with that kind of money and still be the richest bastard around. I cant even begin to imagine Blizzards bank accounts, I'm sure they have billions stashed in there
 

ShaunnEvz

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Jul 29, 2009
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Woooooooot I am one of the subscribers to WoW ! I enjoy every second of the game, excellent but I got to say a bit pricey !
 

SirSchmoopy

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ShaunnEvz said:
Woooooooot I am one of the subscribers to WoW ! I enjoy every second of the game, excellent but I got to say a bit pricey !
How is 15 a month pricey? Average gamer buying a game per month spends 60.
 

Davey Woo

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Jan 9, 2009
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So, its $30 per game.
$10 a month once you've bought the game?
How long has WoW been going for?
 

HeartAttackBob

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The word "Obscene" comes to mind.
Although I believe my sister used that word, and several synonyms, for the amount of time I've spent playing WoW.

@Blizzard: Thank you master, may I have another?
 

feversk

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Jul 20, 2009
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Wait. If there were only 1 million of active p(l)ayers of WoW, then Blizzard would get 15x1,000,000 dollars A MONTH.

WAT
 

Radeonx

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FeverSK said:
Wait. If there were only 1 million of active p(l)ayers of WoW, then Blizzard would get 15x1,000,000 dollars A MONTH.

WAT
And I believe that the number is much higher than 1 million subscriptions.
 

feversk

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Radeonx said:
FeverSK said:
Wait. If there were only 1 million of active p(l)ayers of WoW, then Blizzard would get 15x1,000,000 dollars A MONTH.
WAT
And I believe that the number is much higher than 1 million subscriptions.
Yeah, and even if many people are not paying every month, those numbers are... quite scary.
 

SevenStarSonata

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......murrlooooccccc dooollllllllssss? I want a murloc doll, where in the world can I get one of those??

Radeonx said:
FeverSK said:
Wait. If there were only 1 million of active p(l)ayers of WoW, then Blizzard would get 15x1,000,000 dollars A MONTH.

WAT
And I believe that the number is much higher than 1 million subscriptions.
Always made me kind of wonder what in the world they could be using that much money for...factoring in new technology and game development, plus the salaries of all staff...I just can't imagine it comes to that much...
 

NeutralDrow

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Talking Murloc dolls? Well of course those things are a huge seller; you have to buy a new one every time one gets ripped to shreds during a routine stress exercise or nightmare-induced fight reaction.
 

Zer_

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Feb 7, 2008
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SevenStarSonata said:
......murrlooooccccc dooollllllllssss? I want a murloc doll, where in the world can I get one of those??

Radeonx said:
FeverSK said:
Wait. If there were only 1 million of active p(l)ayers of WoW, then Blizzard would get 15x1,000,000 dollars A MONTH.

WAT
And I believe that the number is much higher than 1 million subscriptions.
Always made me kind of wonder what in the world they could be using that much money for...factoring in new technology and game development, plus the salaries of all staff...I just can't imagine it comes to that much...
Blizzard has to pay for each and every server they put up, they must also pay for that server hardware and they most likely have bandwith fees as well. Take into account that they have everyone right down to Game Masters and support teams on their payroll and you start to get an idea of how much it costs to host an MMORPG of such scale.
 

Sparrow

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8.6 billion? And Dead Space only sold 1.5 million?

Somethings not right there.
 

Danzaivar

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As people get unemployed from the recession, they'll inevitably need to kill time on the cheap too. I bet the number of WoW players has rocketed, and the subscription hasn't moved.

Blizzard are officially recession proof. Lucky gits, you gotta respect they are shrewd business-people. Yeesh.
 

Zeldadudes

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Sep 12, 2008
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Its 11million subscribers or so i believe.
Although i think Aion will soon remove WoW from the market...