Social lives be damned! Blizzard’s incredibly popular
massively multiplayer online game, World of Warcraft, recently released a second
expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, on November 13 (for Europe
and North America). Within a day of that release, 2.8
million people have already committed hundreds more hours, and dollars, to the
game.
World of Warcraft currently has over 11 million subscribers,
so that means that roughly a quarter of the user base went out to snatch up a
copy of Wrath of the Lich King on the first day.
The expansion sells for $40, which equates to $112 million
in the first day alone – and the company still has all those subscription fees
to collect. Considering that World of Warcraft only cost Blizzard $200
million to run and maintain for the past five years, it’s safe to
say that the Irvine, California-based company is doing pretty well for
themselves.
Blizzard’s first expansion, Burning Crusade, was also a hit
in the first 24 hours after its release, selling 2.4 million copies.