Blizzard Entertainment has announced that World of Warcraft (WoW): Cataclysm, which is the third expansion for the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), sold over 3.3 million copies in the first 24 hours following its release.

 

This has made it the fastest-selling PC game of all time according to the company, toppling the former record of more than 2.8 million copies sold in 24 hours, which was set in November 2008 by the second WoW expansion, Wrath of the Lich King.

 

Activision Blizzard’s latest game in the Call of Duty franchise, Black Ops,also broke sales records this year with a combined 5.6 million units in its first day of release across the US and UK, which was more than previous record holder, Modern Warfare 2's 4.7 million units. This FPS title however was released across muplitple platforms, the likes of the PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii as well as the Nintendo DS. 

 

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm was released in the US, South Africa, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Europe, Russia, Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand on 7 December, as well as in Korea and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau on 9 December. 

 

Over 10 000 stores from around the globe held midnight launches for the game, whilst about 15 000 players attended official launch events that were hosted by Blizzard along with its retail partners in the States, Canada, France, Germany, Russia, Sweden, the Netherlands, Spain, the UK and the region of Taiwan.

 

“We had to bring Azeroth to the brink of destruction in Cataclysm, but the result was our best expansion yet,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment. “We want to thank all of our new, existing, and returning players throughout the world for their incredible enthusiasm and support, and we look forward to hearing what they think about all the new content.”

 

“World of Warcraft: Cataclysm delivered even bigger day-one sales than we experienced with StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty in July,” said Bob McKenzie, senior vice president of merchandising at GameStop, “ making this a record year for Blizzard Entertainment at GameStop.”

 

The company also revealed in October that the subscriber base for World of Warcraft (WoW) had surpassed the 12 million mark worldwide.