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Role Playing (Games) Businesses PC Games (Games)

World of Warcraft Breaks PC Game Sales Records 96

Posted by Zonk from the watch-your-head-for-shattering-records dept.
Many readers have written in to mention the astonishingly fast rate of sales for World of Warcraft. From the article: "...sold through to over 240,000 customers at retailers in North America on Tuesday, November 23, selling more in its first 24 hours than any other PC game in history. ... Within the first day, over 200,000 players created World of Warcraft accounts. By 5:00 p.m. PST, over 100,000 were playing the game concurrently. These two record-breaking numbers made World of Warcraft the fastest-growing MMORPG in history." The official site also has information on an extension of the trial period for users who have experienced lag and queues.
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World of Warcraft Breaks PC Game Sales Records More

World of Warcraft Breaks PC Game Sales Records

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  • EverQuest 2 vs WoW in graphics: (Score:5, Informative)

    by genrader ( 563784 ) on Thursday December 02, 2004 @06:57PM (#10979896) Homepage Journal
    I have played both World of Warcraft and EverQuest 2 on my crappy machine, 1.4ghz Athlo nXP 1600+, 768mb pc2100 DDR, Radeon 9700. Everyone I know has MAD graphics problems with EQ2 with their uber systems, but these people are idiots because they are turning the graphics as high as they can get them. WoW runs smoothly cause it really doesn't require much more power than Everquest 1. I run EQ2 on medium settings perfectly with little to no lag.

    Oh, if anyone wants to rant about GameSpot's 7.8 for EQ2 and 9.5 for WoW, notice the same guy reviewed the games.

  • Great game, great launch! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Shufly ( 808040 ) on Thursday December 02, 2004 @06:58PM (#10979902)
    I am impressed that they have sold so many copies yet I can still play with no problems. I got it Saturday and I have had no problems with lag or disconnects at all. Three cheers to Blizzard!
    • I'm also impressed about the game but very unimpressed of the way Blizzard does their marketing in Europe. While US has been playing retail version of the game for the second week now, us Europeans still haven't even gotten to test the beta. And it's the same product, no special patches for Europe!

      So the game is great, but the launch reminds me of a pic I once saw on a site with 'goat' and 'cx' in the URI.
      • No, it's not the same game. Our backpacks hold a fixed amount of cubic feet of storage, and their still trying to figure out how to convert that to cubic -kilo-bushels or deca-hogsheads, or whatever crazy units system you guys use over there across the pond... ;-)

  • cynical theory... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 02, 2004 @07:00PM (#10979920)

    There's a monthly fee, so you can't warez it.

  • Go Blizzard. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by say__10 ( 768448 ) on Thursday December 02, 2004 @07:09PM (#10980040) Homepage

    It was a hairy first few days and I do get the 4 days for the extention, thank you Blizzard for giving a crap about your customers.

    Since they have added the new servers and such, I have not had a single problem whatsoever. Kudos for releasing a polished and addictive game.

    • Re:Go Blizzard. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by tricops ( 635353 )
      I've had no problems with logging in, and I love the game, but I've already run into one or two bugs which still exist.

      The most annoying/common so far - the gathering bug. Gathering the same item as someone else at the same time is prone to locking up that herb somehow and leaving you and the other person in a crouched gathering position (and anyone else who tries that herb later). Fortunately it resets your position if you log out.

      The second thing I've run into was my camera randomly deciding it would

  • Gonna be a tough call this Friday... (Score:5, Funny)

    by devphil ( 51341 ) on Thursday December 02, 2004 @07:30PM (#10980330) Homepage


    True /. geeks have a hard decision to make tomorrow, then: play WoW, or go see the new Natalie Portman movie, where she plays a topless stripper.

  • VALVe should take some hints from Blizzard.
    • Such as not talking to the customer, not telling them about server downtime.. not informing customers why they are unable to play their game...

      And so on and so on.

      Blizzard isn't talking to the customers!
      • While I agree that they really haven't been doing an exceptional job of it, they have been giving some information at least. There have been a few items of information here and there in the forums...
        • there is in fact an entire forum devoted to server uptime...
          • Yes, and that is in fact what I was referring to. It's just not terribly detailed - like when your particular server is (still) down but all the other PSTs are up, etc. :)
            • They took that server down and replaced it with a "realm status" board.

              And they only post there 10-15 minutes after the server has gone down.

              How about the 5 minute warning before a server reboot? I spent the 5 minutes of warning running to an inn so that when the server came back up I'd be in a safe place.

              When the server went back up, I logged in to find that my character had been rolled back 15+ minutes. A quest I had finished was waiting to be started and I didn't have any of the quest specific items

      • Re:Great Service (Score:4, Informative)

        by Lightwarrior ( 73124 ) on Friday December 03, 2004 @12:21PM (#10987157) Journal
        So, how about them extra 4 days of free playtime Blizzard is giving you? You know, because of those inconveniences you mention.

        Which is more important, *telling you* why *you're* having problems, or acknowledging them and doing something about it?

        Ideally, we'd have both, but I'm more happy to get free play time / acknowledgement when something goes wrong than some placative message on a board I don't read filled with incessant whining.

        -lw
  • hands down the most enjoyable game (of it's genre) I've ever played. If Walt Disney (circa Snow White, not today's crapfest) had made games, they'd look like this.
  • So in that one day, selling 240,000 units at $50 each means making $12 million dollars in one day. Wow.

  • This just in... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 03, 2004 @01:06AM (#10983092)
    Apparently if you make a game fun, it will sell well. Watch out Sony and Squaresoft... Blizzard's wacky new equation may just be what people are looking for.
  • I just don't get it. Everyone and his mother seem to be playing some sort of MMORPG these days. As soon as they get bored with one, they jump to another - which plays the exact same way, only with different graphics. I swear, i've tried MMORPGs a lot of times, but they bored me to death the second they turned into a job instead of a game (clicking for hours, walking huge maps, "training", etc).
    I respect Blizzard a lot, and the game looks, on it's genre, quite nice, but i just don't get the madness over
    • All you people who see World of Warcraft as the same old MMORPG with a different graphics engine are bloody ignorant fools.

      If you don't like MMORPGs, fair enough. But "trying them a few times" isn't really enough to be able to judge them. How many days of your life have you spent playing MMORPGs, and which ones? Have you actually played World of Warcraft?

      MMORPGs have monthly fees because they'd get dull if they were static. Fees ensure that a professional team of game developers can continuously expand an
      • Let's see, i've tried, among others, Argentum Online, Mu, Ryl, Everquest, some of the FF series (i can't recall the exact number), some of them by myself and some at friends'. And got to see in action SW:Galaxies, Ryzom and one of the Ultimas'. Also City of Heroes, which was the only one that seemed to try something different in the genre. Otherwise, they all felt the same, with minor differences in setting and gameplay.

        And no, i haven't played World of Warcraft, but judging it by Blizzard's historial
        • Blizzard opened up WoW to an open beta and over 500,000 people signed up - It was a mega lagfest.

          Blizzard begins selling Wow and only 250,000 bought it - It was a mega lagfest for a day or two while Blizzard added 47 new servers to account for the population.

          What this means is that there are roughly twice as many people who want to play as there are people willing to actually pay for the game. If Blizzard had instead had instead launched the game for $0 plus a monthly fee, they would have had to add 150
      • Blizzard know what they're doing? Isn't it a little early to be making a claim like that? Look at blizzard's history. Their entire empire is based on three games which are basically one genre: Warcraft (RTS in a medieval/fantasy setting), Starcraft (RTS in a space setting), and Diablo 1/2 (RPG that plays like an RTS).

        This their first MMORPG (I always pronounce that with the 'P' being silent: morgue). I hate MMORPGs as their sole purpose is to suck as much money from the consumer as possible by making most
    • I partly agree. Stupid clicking for hours to "train" my Avatar is a turn off.

      On the other hand, exploring huge maps can be fun, if they are well designed, and I like that these games consist of more than just blasting away at some monsters. Trading with other players and chatting with them gives MMORPGs a lot more depth than the usual single player game.

      There are two attempts in the pipe to reduce or eliminate the leveling treadmills, and I'm following them with interest.
      1) Guild Wars (I played in the min

  • I really wanted to hate this game... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by drekmonger ( 251210 ) on Friday December 03, 2004 @02:00AM (#10983387)
    I dislike the way mmorpgs have shaped up. No permadeath, limited PvP, endless level grinds with the sole purpose of achieving a high enough level to grind again in a "more dangerous" zone. Not good tools for fantasy storytelling.

    (see armageddon.org for an close example of what I'd like to see in a big commericial mmorpg) ...played in the WoW beta out of morbid curiosity.

    It turns out WoW's actually a good game. It has just about everything I hate about the average mmorpg, but still manages to be addictive fun. Like a Nintendo game, WoW just oozes quality and playability.

    Exploring is fun, grinding for the sake of grinding basically doesn't exist, crafting isn't annoying, finding a group and fun quests to do with that group is super easy. Music's decent, in some spots pretty good. Graphics are, imho, amazing. There are areas in the games that are simply works of art--exploring the geometry and looking at the pretty textures is sometimes more fun than bashing the beasties decorating the landscapes.

    EQ2's graphics might be more whiz-bang, but I think there's better craftsmenship in WoW's enviroments. (though I haven't spent but a few hours looking at someelse's copy of EQ2) And WoW still manages to run quite smoothly on crap computers.

    I'm shocked that blizzard managed to pull it off.
    • Dont see the point of a mmorpg without PvP, thats what makes a game like that intresting.

      (And with PvP I dont only mean fighting but player driven market etc.)

      It should be layed out that theres a few non PvP zones as you start up in but as soon you leave them its free for all to fight. Or atleast large lawless zones there the risk vs reward are high enouth to attract players.

      The only mmorpg Ive seen thats anything like this are eve-online, it also got 1 massive server and not some sharded stuff that clon
      • I played Eve for a month. Here's how it goes.

        1) Log in
        2) Leave the space station and fly to a nearby asteroid field
        3) Find an asteroid and maneuver within range
        4) Launch my mining bots to scavenge ore while I zap the asteroid with a mining laser
        5) Prop my feet up on my desk and watch TV until my cargo hold is full.
        6) Return to the space station on autopilot while I go get a glass of water
        7) Refine the ore and sell it at the space station.
        8) Check the items for sale and see if anyone has managed to
        • Yes, about 99% what the game have to offer, its not that obviously thougt, but the limit with what you can do to earn money and having fun is mostly in the players imagination, not the game mecanism. Overall its really a mmorpg that requres teamwork and player interaction.
    • I completely agree.

      I used to be play AC1 and 2 and after a while got bored out of my skull of always the same monsters coming back, same techniques ... the lvl grind, poor craftmasnship.

      In WoW, I am just that, WoW'ed, its no wonder people already call it "World of Warcrack" its so goddamn addictive. It really does takes me a lot of will just to be able to log off :)

      I really love the auction house, it totally removes all the frickin 14 years old l33t spammers! Nice & Clean.

      WoW still has a few issues
    • This is, of course, Blizzard's stock and trade. Blizzard doesn't make spectacularly innovative titles, they just do the same thing Bungie did with Halo: they take a tired, crowded genre, make a game, and then polish the everloving crap out of it so hard that it becomes the first and last word in the universe on the subject. They don't do much that's mindblowingly original save for a few inventive tweaks here and there, avoiding alienating the player with new unusual features.

      They just make really, really
    • I beta tested WoW, and while it was fun, it wasn't anything TOO special. I personally won't be playing (or paying) an MMORPG until one comes out that ISN'T a giant online Skinner Box.

  • Most other games are released for Windows Only, WoW is both Mac and PC.

    IMHO Doom 3 was a failure and a step back from other ID software releases since it did not support Mac, and HL 2 is a miserable game to try and get running.

    Blizzard has had a good track-record with supporting people who actually buy the games...

    • Yes but out of the millions of gamers, how many are truly playing on a mac? I think, for a MMORPG it makes sense to get a mac client out right away, but for shooters, you have to justify the extra development time with how many mac clients you will really sell.

  • The joys of competition (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'd better start by saying that I've played WoW and I don't like it. Compared to FFXI, my MMORPG of choice, it seemed primative, shallow and dull. A few FFXI players I know are taking a month or so out of FFXI to try WoW... I suspect we'll see most of them back again.

    However... it's been amusing (and encouraging) to watch Square-Enix's response to the arrival of some serious competition. We've just been given the changelog for the next patch (due to be implemented early next week) and it's not only adding
    • Everquest developers are going to allow shortcuts to get to previously difficult zones. Where it might of taken 15 or so flag events to get entrance, you will now be able to enter the zone with a group already flagged, get an item in the zone, do a small quest and be permanently flagged.

    • I'm not sure that these changes that SE are rolling out are only due to the WoW release, although that may have had some influence. The gilsellers have only really been an issue for the last few months, that I've noticed. Yes, they've been there longer then that, but they've been getting increasingly more disruptive and harder to ignore.

      It was only about four months ago that I really started to hear people complain about them. I imagine it would take about that long for SE to think of, code, and test a sol

      • I agree, it wasn't that long ago that the classic 'fishing nerfs' went into place in several stages:

        1) npc price on padded caps "adjusted" so that bots fishing/repairing rusty caps vanished from Rabao (and light crystals got cheap again!)

        2) chance of catching monsters even in newbie zones (which -will- agg whoever fished them up, and only whoever fished them up...)

        It was sooo amusing to walk into W. Saru after that change and see piles of lv1 fishermen with Lu Shang's rods dead. :)

        I don't think the chan
  • How is the EBay market for items from WoW? I know that high level items can not be sold but are people selling other items on ebay?
    • World of Warcraft simply doesn't have this problem and never will. In WoW, all items have level restrictions and all items drop from creatures of appropriate levels. In other words, you don't have creatures of level X which drop items which are only good for players of level 0.5X. If you hunt creatures and do quests of your own level, you'll get items which suit you. Items from higherlevel creatures / quests won't be usable by you.

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