NPD: WoW Has Sold 8.6 Million Copies to Date in US

According to data obtained by Gamasutra, World of Warcraft has sold 8.6 million copies to date in the U.S. since its launch in November 2004. The number was provided by the NPD Group, which is a market research company. This data includes the base game, the collector's edition, the Battle Chest, and the two expansions.

While Gamasutra wasn't able to get information on average sale prices, the staff uses a price of $30 for each unit sold to estimate Blizzard has earned as much as $258 million total from U.S. retail alone. And since the company last stated it had 11.5 million subscribers worldwide in December 2008, the money just keeps pouring in through subscriptions.

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£25 + (£10x12)x3 = WHERE'S MY FREE EXPANSION!!!
# Jul 30 2009 at 2:12 PM Rating: Decent
A shouty post title I realise. Sorry 'bout that.

Its a lot of money. I wouldn't actually offer any new zones/races etc free ifyou have the latest expansion, but I *would* offer like £1 discount per month you've been paying subscription. Been playing for over 30 months? Free expansion for you pal (well, in the UK at any rate, I've no idea how much it is in $ over there).

Doesnt' sound unreasonable to me.
WoW Incomes
# Jul 29 2009 at 12:13 PM Rating: Decent
I believe World of Warcraft has earned Blizzard over billion dollar revenue worldwide each year after they published WoW. I read somewhere that operating cost from WoW are max 20% so they make more than 800million us $ worth of profits each year just from WoW.

One game gives over 1000 million dollars income each year. That is a sum that all other game developers can only a dream of getting from one game.

Lets see some of it come back
# Jul 29 2009 at 10:43 AM Rating: Decent
Yeah - the running costs must be similar to a small nation, but then so is the income. We get updates and maintenance which is brill, cos the game continually changes (mostly for the better).

However, wouldn't it be nice for a smallish expansion (maybe a couple of lowbie starting zones/islands similar to what BC gave us), plus some new races/classes and/or professions, to be made available for free - providing the user has bought the most uptodate major expansion (in this case, WOTLK).

Not only would this reward players who purchase the latest expansions, but would give us something back for all the dollars we donate each month.
Yes, alot of money
# Jul 29 2009 at 10:05 AM Rating: Good
***
1,104 posts
Now I know they have server upkeep and payroll and all that other company stuff... but that is a **** tone of money from one game. Hopefully with SCII hitting its scheduled release date of this year and DiabloIII not to far behind it and with the continuing subscriptions of WoW world wide, and China when it opens back up to them... can we say CASH COW Blizzard is?

Blizzard had a vision and I do think they executed it perfectly.



Edited, Jul 29th 2009 1:07pm by Stucco
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