The latest World of Warcraft expansion has become the fastest-selling PC game of all time, breaking 3.7 million copies sold in the first full day of its release.
Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft: Shadowlands, which released on November 23 this year, is the ninth expansion for the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) that launched in 2004. The launch-day figures broke the record set by another Blizzard game, Diablo III, which sold 3.5 million copies on its launch day in 2012.
The game has also seen more monthly and longer-term subscriptions for Shadowlands than the same period around every WoW expansion in the past ten years, more time played year-to-date than any year in the past decade, and nearly twice as much time played this year as last year.
This shows strong global engagement for the 16-year-old title, said J. Allen Brack, president of Blizzard Entertainment.
“It’s been a huge thrill to enter this whole-new dimension of the Warcraft universe together with millions of players around the world.
“It’s been equally rewarding to see players enjoying all of the new features and content in Shadowlands – whether they’re exploring new aspects of their characters with the Covenants or setting foot in WoW for the first time with the new-player experience in Exile’s Reach – and there’s much more to come,” he said.
While WoW is mainly sold online through Blizzard’s digital storefront, 30-day game time cards are sold at outlets such as JB Hi-Fi, and EB Games sells the physical Collector’s Edition.
