From gamepro.com


"Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today announced that World of Warcraft(r)'s second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King(tm), has sold more than 2.8 million copies in its first 24 hours of availability*, making it the fastest-selling PC game of all time. This eclipses the previous record of nearly 2.4 million copies sold in 24 hours, set in January 2007 by Blizzard's first World of Warcraft expansion, The Burning Crusade(r). Wrath of the Lich King was simultaneously released in North America, Europe, Chile, Argentina, and Russia on November 13; Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand on November 14; and South Korea and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau on November 18.

In celebration of the launch, more than 15,000 stores throughout the world had their doors open at midnight to welcome thousands of expectant players. Several of these locations were attended by Blizzard Entertainment representatives, who met players and signed copies of the game.

"We're grateful for the incredible support that players around the world have continued to show for World of Warcraft," said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. "Wrath of the Lich King contains some of the best content we've created for the game so far, and we look forward to seeing even more players log in to experience it in the days ahead."

"After a single day of availability, Wrath of the Lich King is already the bestselling PC game of 2008 at GameStop and ranks as one of our top-selling products so far this year," said Bob McKenzie, GameStop's senior vice president of merchandising. "In keeping with the tradition established by their previous releases, Blizzard Entertainment has again created a product that not only reflects their high standards of quality but is clearly an instant hit with gamers around the country."

Prior to the launch of Wrath of the Lich King, World of Warcraft's subscriber population had grown to more than 11 million players, further strengthening its position as the world's most popular subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game. More information about the new expansion can be found at the official Wrath of the Lich King website: www.worldofwarcraft.com/wrath"


Will it beat Fallout 3's 4.7m in one week?
Does it even count as its an expantion pack?
How many of those 11m accounts are multiboxers / suspended / trial ?!!

Well, i dont expect the weeks facts from Blizz...Day 1 sales figures haven't even been out 24 hours. I was trying to stimulate some discussion on the fastest selling title of the year.
I expect Wrath to outdo Fallout 3, but only marginally.

I also dont expect Blizz to release the make up of their 11m accounts, but its always an interesting discussion.
Personally i am confortable in saying 60% are unique active users - based on experiences playing the game.

Sure, it's an ill-defined. Yep its a sale.
To explain - what is a better achievement. Selling 4.7m of a full release title or the same volume of an xpac.
I believe the full title is a bigger achievement as it takes more work for that single event. Once you have a game up and running like WoW, releasing an xpac is perhaps half the work involved in making a new title.
Marketing is pretty much autonomous. Game mechanics are in place, as are the engines required. You can even predict incomes very accurately and as such know how much of a financial risk to take in development.

I always think of such things when i see a crummy xpac like the latest SIMS rehash pounding the sales figures of quality games like Crysis.

Fixed. From what I hear, Crisis is good to look at, but not much depth of gameplay.

Personally (and I've said this before) I disagree (and I played it myself). The problem with Crysis is unbalanced gameplay, but if you can restrain yourself and try the stealth approach (without cloaking), Crysis can be a lot of fun.

Haven't tried it without the cloak too much as i only really enjoyed hunting down the suspicioulsy smart koreans, i love how they couldn't see me yet knew where i was.

I have said it before, if crytek didn't make the game and include silly things like mutants and aliens it could be very good, the lush tropics they do is quite a nice environment but still, they can't write storylines worth a damn, they are like a tabloid hack in a newspaper trying to do serious journalism, it ain't happening.

Still, crysis has had me playing through a few times up to the point of the alien ship epsecially on delta which makes it better.

However, i don't understand why the gun waves about so much, a professional soldier who can't aim a gun steady at a close range object, wtf is that about.

Odd how this became a crysis topic, good looking game although not fantastic!!! One or two issues i suffered which may just be due to my setup.

Fallout 3 is not an MMO and doesn't generate the amount of money as a subscription service based game which kind of puts it in a different class for you to compare the 2.

I think breaking a record with an ExP is actually more notable than with an original. It shows that it not only grows, but players can't wait to get their hands on it even after 4 years.

If you look at that 11m news article, it's for "currently active subscribers". "Multiboxers" are a rare breed. Mostly all people you would ever meet who plays WoW have 1 account, like any other game. The exception is EVE Online, because many people use both "money making characters", and "fighting characters" because of the way they arrange the skill system.

Crysis has good graphics, but I think that's about it.

Multiplayer is better with COD4 from most people I hear.

I would figure this kind of destroys the economy. I mean WoW is dirt cheap for the amount of time you spend on it vs. other forms of entertainment. Maybe WoW has something to do with the economic crisis.

Why would you ever want to get rid of your Dreamcast you insane person.

I still have 3!

I don't think I could go through those manic waiting lines... so much easier to order it at home. Postmen don't wait in line!

dunno about states but in UK where im from there where queues apparantly . ordered mine online and got straight away. dont think id ever queue up for a game

lol. think ive seen him online. trampguy001 right?