WoW wtfpwns their competition...

noel · Post by **noel** » January 11, 2005, 6:11 am

http://home.businesswire.com/portal/sit ... ewsLang=en

January 10, 2005 12:00 PM US Eastern Timezone

World of Warcraft Dominates Holiday Sales in North America; Record-Breaking Massively Multiplayer Online RPG Garners Unprecedented Number of Concurrent Users in North America

IRVINE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 10, 2005--Blizzard Entertainment(R) today announced that World of Warcraft(R) has sold through more than 600,000(a) 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.

"The public's response to World of Warcraft has been simply amazing," said Mike Morhaime, president of Blizzard Entertainment. "We are very proud and excited to see such an overwhelming demand for the game, and we hope that the enthusiasm continues to build as we further enhance our online service."

Over this holiday season, demand for World of Warcraft was so great that retailers estimate that nearly all remaining supplies of the game sold out across North America, Australia, and New Zealand. To accommodate the increasing number of players eager to join World of Warcraft, Blizzard will be bringing several new servers online. After a short and successful testing period to ensure server stability, the company also plans to release additional units to retail outlets nationwide.

To support the growing population in World of Warcraft with regular content updates, Blizzard Entertainment is aggressively introducing new features on an ongoing basis. These updates will keep the game fresh and exciting, rewarding continuing subscribers with new experiences and enticing prospective players to join in even greater adventures.

Several features have already been introduced since the game's launch just over a month ago, and many more are planned for the lifetime of the game. In the near future, the promised Player-versus-Player (PvP) Battlegrounds, which will pit Alliance and Horde players against each other in a hotly-contested battlefield, as well as the PvP Reward System, will be revealed.

Great news for Blizzard!

Odd that SOE has not had similar press releases (that I've seen)

Tegellan · Post by **Tegellan** » January 11, 2005, 7:23 am

Great indeed, I think I heard somewhere that EQ2 has sold around 300k copies, so if that is true they are indeed far behind wow right now!

Mr Bacon · Post by **Mr Bacon** » January 11, 2005, 5:24 pm

When I went hunting through stores for WoW a few weeks ago, each was sold out "with more copies on the way." I noticed at least 20 copies of EQ2 sitting on the shelves at each one.

Lalanae · Post by **Lalanae** » January 11, 2005, 9:46 pm

Yeah a friend of Eric's had trouble getting a copy a couple weeks back.

Tenuvil · Post by **Tenuvil** » January 11, 2005, 10:31 pm

Things like that really make me think I bought the wrong MMOG in 2004. /bite EQ2

Very impressive to see WoW put up such numbers.

Fash · Post by **Fash** » January 11, 2005, 10:48 pm

hehe!... when i got it about a week ago it was the last copy on the shelf! and they had a motherfuckload of eq2.

Proctus · Post by **Proctus** » January 12, 2005, 3:39 am

I can imagine that a lot of EQ2ers will head to WoW. I myself am considering it since SoE really is a bunch of money hungry fuckbags.

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » January 12, 2005, 12:25 pm

600,000 is pretty substantial sales for what i think is probably still regarded as a niche market in gaming.

masteen · Post by **masteen** » January 12, 2005, 12:41 pm

You should come play, Voro. We could use a good ranger... err hunter! Don't be a dirty elf tho.

Marbus · Post by **Marbus** » January 13, 2005, 4:54 pm

Voronwe definitely needs to come join us on Whisperwind. I think he would enjoy the Hunter class. Vor you could be a Tauren, and Hunter and Shaman together are very deadly. Me and Ranzak (Noel) wiped through a bunch of trolls the other night like "butta"

Marb

Nneena · Post by **Nneena** » January 13, 2005, 5:30 pm

Proctus wrote:I can imagine that a lot of EQ2ers will head to WoW. I myself am considering it since SoE really is a bunch of money hungry fuckbags.

Do you really think Blizzard isnt? Spin it anyway you want to "blah blah Blizzard really cares about the player base" "blah blah sony sux0rz". These companies are here for one thing and that is $$.

Kargyle · Post by **Kargyle** » January 13, 2005, 5:48 pm

I don't think that anyone disputes that a companies goal is to make a profit, but there is certainly a difference in how far some companies are willing to go to fleece their customers. The general contention is that Sony cares too much about their profits and not enough about their customers or their experience within their game. Blizzard has a fairly good track record of trying to release very high quality products and supporting the community that grows around those games. So at this point, I think a lot of people just have more faith in Blizzard than SOE.

noel · Post by **noel** » January 13, 2005, 5:52 pm

Hey at least no one from Blizzard has allowed themselves to be publically quoted as describing their customers as, 'credit cards with legs'.

/wave Kelly Flock

Nneena · Post by **Nneena** » January 13, 2005, 6:47 pm

Kargyle wrote:I don't think that anyone disputes that a companies goal is to make a profit, but there is certainly a difference in how far some companies are willing to go to fleece their customers. The general contention is that Sony cares too much about their profits and not enough about their customers or their experience within their game. Blizzard has a fairly good track record of trying to release very high quality products and supporting the community that grows around those games. So at this point, I think a lot of people just have more faith in Blizzard than SOE.

I guess I only know blizzard in a limited scope. Diablo series and the Starcraft series. As stand alone games, they were very good. However, once you landed in the realm of B.net...iirc it was overwhelmed by hacking and severe lag. I will give you that this is a free service, and they were under no obligation to care about something that was free. When, talking about the scope of a mmorpg-pay for service, have they proven themselves to have a good track record of supporting the community.

I am honestly a little skeptic. In crude terms I still think of them as the new hooker on the street. Sure, they are going to go down on someone with a smile on their face in the begining, after awhile they will then just do their job just good enough to get the money...just like SOE.

Dregor Thule · Post by **Dregor Thule** » January 13, 2005, 8:53 pm

You hit it right on the nail, b.net was a free service. To that effect, despite the hacking and cheating, the continued support they've given games on b.net has been pretty fucking good for "free". They will (and are) coming down harder on cheating issues with WoW. I give them some leeway tho since running an MMO is still new to them and they need room to learn.

Sony.. well, my opinion is that the people making the games care, but they're held back by the suits that don't care.

Proctus · Post by **Proctus** » January 14, 2005, 1:32 am

My gripe with Sony is they go too far with their nerfs. For example, the most recent nerf totally changed the tradeskill scene for EQ2. I went from playing 1 game, to a completely different game over night. I did not appreciate the huge nerf considering that the dropable stuff seemed to be much easier to get and more available than the tradeskilled stuff.

So I'm heading to WoW. Doesn't hurt that one of my best RL friends is actually going to play it too hahah

Mr Bacon · Post by **Mr Bacon** » January 14, 2005, 2:42 am

what server proctus-

Adelrune Argenti · Post by **Adelrune Argenti** » January 14, 2005, 6:22 am

Too bad their churn rate is going to be through the roof and customer retention is going to be really really low. The problem with most of the newer games is you can pretty much see everything you would want to in less than 3 months. That is really bad for subscription based games You need the average player to subscribe for at least 10 months, not 3.

Proctus · Post by **Proctus** » January 14, 2005, 10:38 am

Not Sure yet Rellix, I'll let you know next week when it comes to me in the mail =D