World of Warcraft’s second expansion Wrath of the Lich King is officially the fastest-selling PC game in history, breaking the last record, set by WoW’s first expansion Burning Crusade, by nearly half a million.
Few games have been as exhaustively detailed ahead of their release as second World of Warcraft expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. After Blizzard failed to plug the leaks from early testing, it resigned itself to the inevitable and lifted any and all non-disclosure restrictions from the public beta test. The insatiable hunger for information of 11 million fans was just too great a force to resist, even for a company as powerful and protective as Blizzard.
And like that, someone already hit 80. A mere 27 hours after World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King launches, the game apparently already has its first level 80: a warlock named Nymh that plays on a French server.
The analyst is also "impressed" at the fact that World of Warcraft's subscriber base has grown to 11 million even amid economic anxieties and two recent major releases, Age of Conan and Warhammer Online, neither of which have appeared to slow the game's momentum.
Based on its existing subscriber base, says Hickey, "We expect the upcoming release of WoW’s expansion pack... would yield a sell-through of roughly 5 million units in the first month."
Today, the Irvine-based developer said that its worldwide subscriber base had exceeded 11 million. Adding a little color to that number, WOW's citizenship would rank just higher than the total population of Greece, according to the Central Intelligence Agency's World Fact Book.
This is it! It's happening, just as the ancients had foretold. Blizzard has officially revealed the release date for its latest get-rich-quick scheme. Wrath of the Lich King – the second expansion to the sorta-popular World of Warcraft – will cast an icy blue glow over retail shelves everywhere on November 13th for the doesn't-include-your-subscription asking price of $39.99.
We're getting inside information from 7-Eleven of all places. According to several different store employees, the game will be streeting on November 4 for $40. 7-Eleven, we're told, will be selling the game starting at midnight.
Big drop today but still a shade too high in my opinion. The previous expansion pack still didn't sell this many and time / Age of Conan / misc will have eaten a little into WoW's marketshare since then.
On a Thursday night after all the E3 shenanigans (and during our party, no less), we have word that Blizzard has begun the Wrath of the Lich King beta. Sources have told WoW Insider that the alpha phase reportedly shut down a few days ago and that invites should be going out soon for the beta. Additionally, a Blizzard site has gone live to help gamers get the beta set up. Are you one of the lucky few to get an invite? You can check out the patch notes here.
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