World of Warcraft Sells 800,000 Copies in First Three Months

by Vladimir Cole { Feb 28th 2005 at 1:47AM }

It's official: Blizzard's World of Warcraft is now the largest online game in North America. From launch on November 23rd, 2004, the game sold lots and lots of copies. No press release yet; just an understated update to the Blizzard company profile that states:

"In less than three months …. [WoW] sold over 800,000 copies in North America. With a subscriber base of more than 750,000 players and peak concurrency of over 250,000 users, World of Warcraft is now the biggest online game in North America."

Prediction: If Blizzard can lick the lag problems, WoW will become the first-ever, million-subscriber MMOG in North America. That's the magical, imaginary line at which experts agree we'll have our first-ever "Mass Market MMOG" (soon to be abbreviated to MMMMOG) in North America.

Update: An astute commenter pointed out it may not be fair to call WoW the most popular online game in North America given the success of Halo 2 and Xbox Live. Xbox live has approximately 1.5 million subscribers and Halo 2 has sold about 6.5 million copies worldwide. If 60% or more of those Xbox Live subscribers play Halo 2, then Halo 2 wins bragging rights.

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Jestor Rodo @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

While I has still an active player and forum user on Star War Galaxies, I defended the game against the players touting the virtures of the new WOW and using the forum as a recruitment center for the new game.
For a long time the Moderaters of the forum let it slid off their back and then they started on cracking down on the displeased players trying to make others quit SWG for WoW. Like the rest of the problems at SWG, it was to little to later and a very large group of veteran play left to WoW .

dbo @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

There is something really irritating about MMOG, it's the month fee.. i'm plying WoW but i didn't bought it, a friend is sharing is account with me for free.. I don't wan't to pay 13� a month to play this game! i would pay 5�, perhaps 7.. but noone should accept to pay 13� plus the game itself! (45�)... it's really unacceptable, peoples are getting used with it because "everybody is doing the same". I'm really waiting for Guild War and i hope it will change things in the MMO world, i want cheapest game!

DannoHung @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

As they rightfully should have. SWG was a horrible abortion of a video game.

I just wonder if you'll need a P-P-P-Powerbook to play the MMMMOG.

Quenkercide 2k4, never again.

Vladimir Cole @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

Nothing pisses off players of one MMOG greater than players from another MMOG trying to recruit subscribers away. That forum drama you describe was played out across a thousand thousand guild- and server-specific forums in EQ, SWG and other games.

elliothtz @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

WOW may be the largest online PC game but Halo 2 dwarfs it. (from Dec. http://www.gamershell.com/news/18894.html) I'm not sure of the simultaneous online user average, but I'm sure it's above 500,000.

I'm just as big a fan of PC games and this is no "consoles are better than PC's" arguement. I just think that all gaming platforms should be included when things like this are considered.

Vladimir Cole @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

Xbox Live has over 1.4 million subscribers according to a quick Google search. The question is how many of those users (a) own Halo (I'd say almost all of 'em!) and (b) play Halo with Xbox live.

We don't know for sure, but I'm willing to bet that it beats WoW.

Bart Pursel @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

I played xbox live for about 2 months when i bought halo. Halo 2 has long sicne been aborted for:
1.) Half-Life 2
then
2.) WoW

I still play UT 2004, CS:S, and HL2 deathmatch occasionally, but WoW is where I spend 95% of my gaming time now. If the servers were running at 99% uptime with no problems, i'd be happy to pay the monthyl fee. I'm a little disgruntled due to long authentication times, login server problems, and lag.

Joey Geraci @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

The whole idea of the monthly fee is for maintenance mostly, isn't it? It is plain inexcusable, the problems that World of Warcraft has been having. They had a beta for how many months? They should have been able to iron out these problems way before now. I will not give my hard-earned money to a company that does not know how to spend it.

Cenarius @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

How much would the games month fee in Canada? I really want the game but I when evere I ask somebody has got a new answer. People are sayin $12 to $20. I really want the game and I was wonderin if one of u could give me a straite answer from one of u. Remember I am Canadian so please dont give me wat it cost in America cause the American doller is a lttle higher than the Canadian. Thanx!