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World of Warcraft retail sales reach 8.6 million units

by Griffin McElroy on Jul 29th 2009 11:00PM

Yes, yes -- we're all impressed with how fast the audience for relative newcomer Free Realms is expanding. However, one cannot forget that Free Realms is, in fact, free. The original rapidly expanding MMO, World of Warcraft, costs actual money, and now we have a rough idea of how much moolah Blizzard's cash cow has raked in. According to the NPD Group's calculations, the core game, the two expansions and the WoW Battle Chest have sold a total of 8.6 million copies at retail in America.

Gamasutra estimates that this figure equals about $258 million for Blizzard from WoW's U.S. retail sales. Of course, the company is really making bank off the $15 that its 11.5 million subscribers dish out every month -- but $258 million is nothing to scoff at. Unless you're like, the Jonas Brothers or something.

Source

Tags: blizzard, burning-crusade, expansion, mmo, npd-group, pc, retail, world-of-warcraft, wow, wrath-of-the-lich-king

Reader Comments (31)

Don't talk about the Jonas Brothers. They are the harbingers of the apocalypse.

Aww, now I can't not post the South Park Jonas Brothers episode.

http://www.xepisodes.com/episodes/1301/The-Ring.html

Maybe they are going to make the movie into the first MMOMovie.... fuck they have Sam Raimi doing it, and he says all kinds of shit in a random dudes blog, so.

He is, didn't you read his blog?

No not really, whatever he says in a blog comes to me in nightmares only.

How many times does Joystiq need to be told. WoW doesn't have 11.5 million monthly subscribers. Some 6-8 million are Chinese customers who only pay lower hourly fees, none of them have recurring monthly subs.

So what are the rates then?

Recurring or not, it's still played per month right?

Yes Joystiq, this no-name commenter clearly knows more about the subject matter than you folks ever would.

Out of those 8.6 million, how many actually have lives.

j/k

None, they're all boxes with a disc and a manual in.

ZZZZZIIIIIIINNNNNNGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not everyone pays $15 a month. There are plans for $12 a month if you buy them in three or six-month chunks. And in China they don't charge per month at all. They go by hourly subscription fees. It's cheaper than the monthly rates.

Have they actually said that 11 million are ACTIVE subscribers? Because... I really have a hard time believing it.

11.5 some time ago, But with the whole china thing, who know how many they have now

"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. "

Wow. Thanks Vidikron.

Found it here: http://eu.blizzard.com/en/press/081223.html

And you can't forget the blizzcon.
Specially since, instead of going you can pay to have the whole thing streamed to you.
And they have their card game, which is only bought for the loot cards which give people's in game characters special abilities unique to that card game. In an attempt to be the best out of all the people on their server.

Let's include all of this into the calculations, and they are rolling in some serious dough. literally and figuratively.

What the hell are you smoking? The loot cards give cosmetic items. Pets, and mounts. They don't enchance your character.

Definition of enhancing your character: Anything that makes the character seem better then everyone else. Whether it is "enhancing" their looks, or "enhancing" their stats, or even "enhancing" their uniqueness...

Now i'm just waiting for someone to "enhance" my post with a lude comment...
First come first server, all other are just loser copiers...

In other news, FFXI cuts itself, trying to get your attention.

I imagine that number will begin to shrink in the coming months now that most of Blizzard's "A-list" team have been shuffled over to other, newer projects. Certainly the 3.2 patch is looking less than impressive, and that's intended to hold peoples' interest over the next 6-8 months... time when the net is going to be assaulted by a barrage of Old Republic beta media.

Guess we'll have to wait and see, but I imagine Blizzard has enough on their plate with Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 that they won't cry themselves to sleep at night if they only have 6 or 7 million active WoW subscribers.

Enhance*

WoW = F2P w/ Item Mall. " Coming soon to an MMO near you."

That'll only happen if the upcoming MMOs such as Aion take a massive subscription base of WoW or their next project launches and it cuts the population of WoW by a large proportion. I expect this to happen within 3-4 years or possibly later.

I don't understand... WoW and its two ex-packs have sold a combined 8.6 mil units, but the game has 11+ mil subscribers? Are there 3 mil people who jack in directly with their cerebro-plug units?

8.6 mil sold in the US only.

You can DL a digital copy of WOW and their exp packs. OR you can just install the game using someone else's disc and activate the game online. OR you can use the promo disc.

I think this only counts retail copies, like some people who wanted the collector's edition.

TY for clearing that up for me! Wish the article would've done so :p

DUDE I JUST FOUND THE COOLEST LEVELING DUIDE OUT THERE I HAVE BEEN PLAYING WOW SINCE THE DAY ITCAMEOUT I EVEN HAD A BETA VERSION NEWAYZZZ CHEK OUT http://www.everythinghubsite.com/mp.html the guide on this page is for alliance andhord either offered guaranteed to get you to level 80 in two days CATCH UP - wow FREAK jamess -jt-****

Breaking News

World of Warcraft retail sales reach 8.6 million units

Reader Comments (31)

Posted: Jul 29th 2009 11:04PM Tre said

Posted: Jul 29th 2009 11:12PM Haggard said

Posted: Jul 29th 2009 11:23PM MystileArmor said

Posted: Jul 29th 2009 11:29PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jul 29th 2009 11:53PM MystileArmor said

Posted: Jul 29th 2009 11:26PM Kyammi said

Posted: Jul 30th 2009 12:22AM Vidikron said

Posted: Jul 30th 2009 2:26AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jul 30th 2009 9:30AM darkinchworm said

Posted: Jul 29th 2009 11:28PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jul 29th 2009 11:53PM Haggard said

Posted: Jul 30th 2009 12:00AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jul 29th 2009 11:31PM Drakkenfyre said

Posted: Jul 29th 2009 11:36PM Konrad said

Posted: Jul 29th 2009 11:48PM Rokatoro said

Posted: Jul 30th 2009 12:18AM Vidikron said

Posted: Jul 30th 2009 12:40AM Konrad said

Posted: Jul 30th 2009 1:08AM Vidikron said

Posted: Jul 30th 2009 12:18AM Radical Dylan said

Posted: Jul 30th 2009 1:49AM Drakkenfyre said

Posted: Jul 30th 2009 3:02AM Radical Dylan said

Posted: Jul 30th 2009 12:29AM The Blank Mage Returns said

Posted: Jul 30th 2009 12:53AM freaparn said

Posted: Jul 30th 2009 1:51AM Drakkenfyre said

Posted: Jul 30th 2009 2:28AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jul 30th 2009 3:03AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jul 30th 2009 6:24AM RedCricketChase said

Posted: Jul 31st 2009 7:21AM thesage42 said

Posted: Jul 30th 2009 9:39AM nossy said

Posted: Jul 30th 2009 10:53PM RedCricketChase said

Posted: Jul 30th 2009 8:17PM (Unverified) said

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