Slashdot Mirror
World of Warcraft Shatters Sales Records
Mightydos writes " An interesting article was posted on Blizzard.com today... They say World of Warcraft® has sold through more than 600,000* units to customers in North America, Australia, and New Zealand. The fastest-growing massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) has also shattered all previous concurrency records in North America, achieving over 200,000 simultaneous players during the holiday period. "
It outsold and shattered all records in a rather new game genre..?
Hopefully the hybrid PC/Mac CD helped things along and other developers take note.
-- INTX Grouch. http://www.midnightblue.net
not only do they get 600,000 people buying the game, they have a constant revenue stream coming in every month of what $15/user?
that works out to be a lot of cash over a year, brilliant!
Drugs of the future here today. Many people can moderate themselves but it is sad how many lives get destroyed by MMORPG's.
Not the sales numbers [though they are certainly nice] or the concurrency numbers [though they are certainly a good explination for the reported server instability] but put the two together... If 1/3 of your reported playerbase is actually playing rather than doing anything else in the world, that's a pretty good sign that it's a good/addictive game.
It's not that we forgot, we just don't care.
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
I'll toss my hat in the ring. I decided early on, before I knew much about World of Warcraft, that it would be the MMORPG that I played, if I played any, because Blizzard was doing a hybrid Mac/PC version with release for both on the same day.
:-)
As a Mac user, I am a member of a vocal minority, and I felt like it's my duty to reward companies who take this kind of a proactive stance for my platform of choice.
Despite the success, not all is well in the WoW. Some of those 600,000 users are pretty pissed about some employees inappropriately using their influence in-game.
Give most people a fun game, killer app, or something free and all of a sudden privacy, rights, and legalities vaporize.
Don't know how it compares to the sales of HL2 of Doom3. But here is my quicky take on how the game stacks up against said FPS's.
Doom3:
+ Finished the singleplayer in ~1 week
+ Neat graphics (I create 3D graphics hardware..'neat' is only barely a compliment)
+ The only game of the 3 that was scary. Really scary. In a paranoid kind of way.
+ 20 hours of gameplay for $49.95
- Can't imaging ever touching this game again now that I am done.
- No interesting multiplayer.
- Unbelievable resource hog.
HL2:
+ Finished the single player in ~3 weeks
+ Awesome graphics 'abilities'
+ Really neat physics
+ Decent AI
+ 60 hours gameplay for $49.95
- Hardly any interesting multiplayer yet.
- Gameplay wasn't refreshing enough to keep me promoting it beyond 'technologically advanced engine'.
WoW:
+ Started playing from day 1. Have not stopped.
++ Though technologically not as advanced, the graphics in WoW are by far the best of the 3 games. 3 words: content, content, content. After two months I still find new areas where I just stop and look around for a while with my mouth hanging open. That good.
+++ 200+ hours gameplay for $49.95 + ~$14/month.
- Real Life (tm) takes a hit. Seriously, if you can't afford getting addicted, you should just not get this game yet.
Um what's the asterisk for? If you're gonna post an article and simply copy + paste the article text into your submission, at the very least re-read it and make sure it makes sense. I wish I could mod an entire submission DOWN...
I think he's referring to Blizzard's official updater using BitTorrent, not pirating the game. More info
They have 600,000 reasons not to change.
-Randy
Actually, the Mac users can make a big difference. If one group of people has one mac user, then they're likely to pick the game they all can play, in this case, WoW.
Fellowship 9/11
You Forgot the crucial step: Have a track record of developing excellent games and supporting them forever.
Seriously, there are a lot of people who would buy any game from Blizzard without even having heard anything about it before (including me), because they know they will get an almost perfect gaming experience.
I bet there are a lot of people among the 600.000 that have never before payed a monthly fee for any game (including me, as soon as it's released in Germany).
In addition to sales and concurrency records, Blizzard is also shattering several long-held MMORPG industry myths - including a few of SOE's favorite sacred cows:
Myth #1 - an MMORPG must include numerous "time sinks"; long periods of unrewarding time spent with little or no character progression.
In the series of interviews recently posted where Raph Koster conspicuously omits any mention of WoW, you can almost hear his exasperated sighs as he laments the lack of opportunity to socialize in newer games because the action is so fast. If you want to chat, log into a chat system. Most of the rest of us would like to spend our limited gaming hours killing things and having fun, not waiting for shuttles or running around endlessly looking for things to fight.
Myth #2 - character death in an MMORPG must be a harsh, demoralizing experience.
Go read some of the discussions on this in SOE's forums. It's pretty amazing to think that a software company can entertain a serious discussion regarding intentionally "punishing" their users/players.
Myth #3 - MMOG design must be driven by a philosophy that is inherently different than conventional games [insert lots of grandiose game theory and virtual world talk here].
Bullshit. I'm sure Raph Koster is a brilliant guy and he has a lot of interesting ideas, but at some point you need to pull your head out of the clouds and remember that above all else, a game has to be fun to play.
Myth #4 - any new MMORPG must feature a complex, impossible-to-balance skill-based (non) "class" system.
Again, bullshit. WoW's simple, single-track class system is easy to understand and is well-balanced for both PVE and PVP (the usual nerf-calling notwithstanding).
Myth #5 - the fantasy MMORPG market is "saturated".
This seems to be the industry's favorite crutch - the notion that everyone who will ever play an MMOG is already playing one and that the "long, hard grind" model (EQ, DAoC, SWG, etc.) is the only kind of game those players want. Again, bullshit. WoW is cracking the market wide open and bringing a flood of new players who have never before touched an MMOG. To be fair here though, I think this one is at least partially true, the market *is* saturated when it comes to EQ-style treadmills.
Where other MMOs have seen subscription numbers flat-line after release (SWG, DAoC) or decline (AC), expect to see WoW break new records in the future. This isn't just because of the legions of D2 players migrating over or the Warcraft name - those things help, but they're not the whole story. With WoW, their first and only entry into the market, Blizzards "gets' what the others don't: a successful game is not about lofty "game theory" or grand visions, it's simply about having fun.
The writing is on the wall: fun is in, the grind is out.
The difference here is that Bush/Gore 2000 weren't competing for the same votes as Bush/Kerry 2004 -- wheras Everquest 1 and 2 ARE in the same market as WoW. So WoW, a newcomer, is shattering records held by established brands in a crowded market.
In other words, WoW is expanding the market in a major way.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal