Mists of Pandaria sales well below last two WoW expansions
Blizzard has released the latest sales figures for the new World of Warcraft expansion, Mists of Pandaria, and while they are solid numbers for most games, the debut of the Pandarens was not a huge success by company standards. Sales were 2.7 million for the first week, down from 3.3 million on the first day of Cataclysm in 2010, and 2.8 million in the first 24 hours of Wrath of the Lich King in 2008.
While many companies would love to sell 2.7 million copies of any game in the first week of release, that number of sales, revealed today by Blizzard, for the Mists of Pandaria expansion for World of Warcraft represents a steep drop from the 24-hour numbers of the last two expansions.
Cataclysm sold 3.3 million in the first day of sales in late 2010, while Wrath of the Lich King showed 2.8 million over the same period. However, the release was a boost for overall subscriber numbers, boosting the global number to more than 10 million, Blizzard said. That number was up from a reported 9.1 million in August, and reverses a trend that had seen numbers slip from a high of more than 12 million after Cataclysm released.
Those numbers could be slightly better, as the game, which has a distinct Chinese theme, just launched in China on October 2, and figures were not yet available for those sales. The game was released in the United States on September 25.
Blizzard has already started unlocking the new raid content for the game, with more updates coming. If you are one of the new adventurers on the isle of Pandaria, then be sure to check out our travelogues on places to see and people to meet in the game.
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replyJohn Keefer posted a new article, Mists of Pandaria sales well below last two WoW expansions.
Blizzard has released the latest sales figures for the new World of Warcraft expansion, Mists of Pandaria, and while they are solid numbers for most games, the debut of the Pandarens was not a huge success by company standards. Sales were 2.7 million for the first week, down from 3.3 million on the first day of Cataclysm in 2010, and 2.8 million in the first 24 hours of Wrath of the Lich King in 2008.-
Not surprising, really. A lot of MoP looks plenty fun, but I played WoW all I wanted to. I think a lot of gamers feel that way.
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Yep, I played wow for a long time and just feel like I don't need to anymore. No hard feelings or missing it, just a sense of complete.
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It's a shame, because despite a few weird decisions, it's probably the best expansion the game has seen.
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I agree, it is the best one ever.
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I used to be at least curious when new expansion came out for WoW. A few times I was tempted to sign up again. But by this point I don't even care anymore. I watch the release videos because they are always awesome... that's about it. I really nope their next MMO is something totally innovative which just tosses the whole genre on it's ear. The whole MMO scene is pretty tired right now. The current recipe has just been sucked dry.
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Yeah I agree, wasn't even planning on getting it right away but so far its been a lot better than Cataclysm. I thought 1-60 in Cataclysm was really good but the 80-85 zones were boring and felt uninspired. I did ShadoPan Monastery instance last night and its my favorite WoW instance that I have done. Wasn't really blown away by any of the 5 mans in Cataclysm either.
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That is the problem Cataclysm just kind of killed any momentum WoW had for a lot of people. People left Lick King ready and eager for more content and Cataclysm kind of just fell flat. Also storywise Cataclysm felt very disjointed and meh compared to Lich King, which shouldn't have happened given that Deathwing is such a good villian, but they just didn't use him.
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Arthas was so overused it was basically comical by the end. He was basically Azmodan on crack.
Every two feet the dude would pop up, declare THIS mob to be the be-all-end-all, then promptly get it slapped down. At the end he was all, well I WANTED to find people who could slap down all my be-all-end-all mobs so I could get STRONGER death knights, and then got slapped down himself.
Deathwing was very absent in Cataclysm, but at least when he showed up the shit hit the fan and your character barely survived (usually by much stronger allies sacrificing themselves so you can live). Most of it was just cleaning up his mess anyway.
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Agreed. There's a lot of good things in here. I stand by my opinion that the pandas are stupid and they expectedly play right into the Kung Fu Panda stereotype, but the models (the pandas themselves, and new creatures), texture work and music are all the best I've seen yet in WoW.
They've got more "teaching" going on for new players (I like the idea of using raid mechanics in quests for example, to train people that most of what you do in WoW is watching what's on the ground, and interrupting things).
I'm just sad that most of GCR is dead and it's just a social guild like the hundreds of others out there.
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I wonder what percentage of players (past and present) had at least one 85 before launch compared to having an 80 before Cata launch.
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Just wait for the drop when all the Diablo 3 subscription commitments expire.
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The article isn't painting a rosy picure at all. They lost about a 1/4 of their subscribers since cata launched (from 12 to 9 mil). I'd guess that of that 9 mil, another mil are stuck in subcription and not playing. That could put the actual player base at closer to 8 mil in august, a 33% drop from 12 mil. Add in that it took MoP a week to hit 80% of Cata's day-1 sales and, while it's hard to complain about 2.7 mil sales, it's got to worry them. Hopefully, if MoP is a strong product, it will steadily bring people in/back.
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I'm not saying they're doing poor, or their crying, but 30% fluctuations can't make them comfortable.
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That depends on what you consider 'fixing'. Right now the two DPS specs play completely opposite of one another. You'll find yourself pressing the same three filler buttons between resource attacks as Arms, whereas you'll be using anything that isn't on cooldown as filler while playing as Fury.
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They probably had to rebalance for Monk class to fit...Tank/Healer/DPS specs
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I threw in the towel on WOW 1 level in to Cataclysm. No more for me. It's just the same crap all over again. Same quests to level. Throwing away gear you spent countless hours to get. Reach level cap. Spend countless and pointless hours again trying to get good gear...just to repeat the nauseating cycle.
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I'm one of the few (apparently) who hasn't yet reached a cap--even with my main-- in time for an expansion to hit...I must be doing it wrong
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I went as far as really liking most of leveling in Cata, and then sleepwalking through the launch raid content, then feeling pretty 'done' just as my guild started the Firelands raids.
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What's a raid? J/k I solo so raiders hate me and my gear :)
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they still have over 10 million subs, why do you guys keep saying this
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I never said it was ending soon, just that it's on it's way. Their model of making money from expansion packs is certainly not working anymore as well as they hoped. They can keep making bank off subscribers, but they will eventually run out of directions and the subscriber base will move on.
Of course they already know this and thats why they have another MMO in development.
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Wow only 2.7 million...
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No. The 2.7 million is with digital sales included. They only sold 600,000 box copies. 2.7 is the final total for week 1 of all sales, digital INcluded.
On a related note, Guild Wars 2 has now passed the 2 million mark and is projected to sell 3.1 million copies by the end of the year. Considering their first game, the original Guild Wars, sold about 7 million copies overall, and considering that Guild Wars 2 is light years ahead of WoW, I would say that Forbes is right...(google "Forbes Vivendi Blizzard Achilles Heel").
G W 2 will surpass WoW as time goes on, even IF WoW keeps its "alleged" 10 million subscribers (which included millions of people in Asia who pay by the hour, and one hour of week of gameplay is counted as an "Active sub").
G W 2 is the perfect balance between traditional MMO and action MMO, and will bring players in who formerly hated the traditional makeup of MMORPG.-
I didn't really know the GW2 numbers, that's actually really impressive. They're doing a lot of right things with Guild Wars 2, though they have the experience from GW1 and the feedback from people for GW2 plus the things that have gone wrong with WoW.
On a side note: I can't wait to cancel my "active" subscription to WoW on the 21st.
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I don't give a shit, not even a really tiny one, about the game content. But at the same time, I have been bored as hell for the last couple of weeks and almost feel like playing an MMO.
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So basically it's another huge success in the PC-only market. K.
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That was based on a blizzard press release not NPD. I don't think it is misleading at all.
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