Activision sells 3.3 million Warcraft games on first day

A visitor walks past a placard of 'World of Warcraft' at their exhibition stand at the Gamescom 2010 fair in Cologne in this August 18, 2010 file photo. REUTERS/Ina Fassbender

A visitor walks past a placard of 'World of Warcraft' at their exhibition stand at the Gamescom 2010 fair in Cologne in this August 18, 2010 file photo.

Credit: Reuters/Ina Fassbender

SAN FRANCISCO | Mon Dec 13, 2010 2:26pm EST

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Activision Blizzard Inc sold 3.3 million copies of its latest "World of Warcraft" game in its first day on the market.

The company said on Monday that "World of Warcraft: Cataclysm," which launched December 7, surpassed the record set by the previous "World of Warcraft" release in November 2008.

The multiplayer online game has 12 million subscribers around the world, providing the company with steady and recurring revenue. Roughly half of those subscribers are in Asia, and the other half are in western countries, analysts say.

"Assuming the positive trends extend beyond the first 24 hours post-release, we expect stable to slightly higher subscriber levels for WoW in North America and Europe," Lazard Capital Markets analyst Colin Sebastian said in a research note.

Nearly 40 percent of Activision's revenue comes from "massively multiplayer" online role-playing games.

Shares of Santa Monica, California-based Activision fell 2 percent to $11.99 in afternoon trading on the Nasdaq.

(Reporting by Gabriel Madway. Editing by Robert MacMillan)
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Comments (2)
kristi276 wrote:
I have been a WOW player for several years, but some of my friends go back to the days of Frozen Throne. The lore behind the game playing is intriguing and tells the story the rise and fall of many main and minor characters in the World of War Craft. I purchased the new add on to the game, Cataclysm and it seems that the game keeps getting better and better, but what will happen to the World of War Craft after Cataclysm? Will there be a 3D version of the game? Will Activision come out with a movie adaptation of the game? I live on the East Coast. Will there ever be a Blizzcon on the East Coast?

Dec 13, 2010 7:29pm EST  --  Report as abuse
jonnboy42 wrote:
3.3m isn’t really great considering it’s an expansion. With 12 million players, 12m copies would have been breaking even with your current customer base. This just tells me that almost 75% of WoW players aren’t on board with Cata just yet. Hardly can blame them with Starcraft II out, and when that expansion + Diablo 3, WoW will see another drop in dedicated users.

It’s funny how Blizzard is in competition with itself.

Dec 13, 2010 9:19pm EST  --  Report as abuse
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