WOW Cataclysm sells 4.7 million copies

By Robert Purchese Published 10 January, 2011

In a month. PC gaming is dead.

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has sold more copies in one month than any other PC game - 4.7 million units, according to Blizzard's internal numbers.

This, the third WOW expansion, had previously broken day-one PC sales records by shifting 3.3 million copies.

Mike Morhaime, the man who co-founded Blizzard and probably pays himself a competitive salary, said: "We've been floored by the community's response so far, and we'd like to thank them for their continued passion and support for World of Warcraft, and for helping Cataclysm reach this incredible milestone."

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm ambitiously set out to revamp the entire old world of Azeroth under the guise of returning, destructive super-dragon Deathwing.

Wrote Oli Welsh for Eurogamer: "Cataclysm doesn't just make WOW better. It does something even more valuable than that; it renews it. It fires your excitement at starting on that long road one more time, and invites you to relish the journey just as much as you'll lose yourself in its ending."

Eurogamer starts WOW as a Worgen.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (37) Latest comment 1 year ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • darkmorgado #1 1 year ago

    Here's hoping they funnel some of that cash into fixing the shedloads of broken achievements, broken phasing making dailies unobtainable, and rebalancing some of the cheapest boss encounters yet made.

  • ThePissartist #2 1 year ago

    "PC gaming is dead."

    PC gaming is dull.

    EDIT: Wow, -71 that must be some kind of record.
    Edited by ThePissartist at 11/01/11 @ 12:47

  • spekkeh #3 1 year ago

    Apparently, PC Gamers went from dead to being undead.

    /coat

  • geeza2020 #4 1 year ago

    So thats about eleventy gazillion pounds Blizzard have made then?

    Bastards :p

  • M1chl #5 1 year ago

    As I see, there is really (from the economical standpoint) no point in doing anything different from CoD and WoW...sad, extremely sad : (

  • Eraysor #6 1 year ago

    My only problem so far is the Magmaw fight is bugged to hell; one of my Boomkin guildies was being eaten from halfway across the room instead of the tank half the time. Other than that it's been fantastic.

  • StolenGlory #7 1 year ago

    "PC gaming is dull."

    Just like your posts really.

  • StolenGlory #8 1 year ago

    @Eraysor.

    Also, the hitbox on Magmaw is retardedly big. Which on the upside, keeps the starfall users behaving well :)
    Edited by StolenGlory at 10/01/11 @ 16:18

  • ChthonicEcho #9 1 year ago

    Well, if that thing sold nearly five million units, then PC gaming definitely is dead.

    I kid, I kid. It's unsurprising, really. Blizzard can release just about any add-on to WoW that offers any sort of virtual progress, and people will buy it purely because someone else will, so as to not fall behind. It's admirable that Blizzard does not settle with that.

  • r4z0rbl4d3 #10 1 year ago

    That's WoW: Cataclysm being played in the vid? Shit, I fell asleep! The combat is booring!

  • darkmorgado #11 1 year ago

    It's bound to be at level one when the player has no skills.

    Idiot.

  • SHPanda #12 1 year ago

    One game doesn't save a platform, PC gaming isn't dead but it's far from healthy, besides WoW, Football Manager and Valve games (when they finally get released) game sales are far from stellar when compared to consoles. It's not a put down for PC gaming either, it's the convenience of console gaming that's winning out.

  • bad09 #13 1 year ago

    PC gaming is...oh EG beat me to it :(

    You do have to wonder what some companies are doing wrong on the platform with the sales Blizzrd are pulling with SC2 and this.

  • uknortherner2000 #14 1 year ago

    @bad09 "You do have to wonder what some companies are doing wrong on the platform with the sales Blizzrd are pulling with SC2 and this."

    Clearly these other companies aren't putting out enough sparkly virtual horses for £17 a pop.

  • Shikasama #15 1 year ago

    I'm sick of seeing the phrase 'PC Gaming is dead' used in an ironic way everytime a PC game does well..

    It stopped being clever about 4 years ago.

  • dingo75 #16 1 year ago

    My only problem so far is the Magmaw fight is bugged to hell; one of my Boomkin guildies was being eaten from halfway across the room instead of the tank half the time. Other than that it's been fantastic.

    He probably prefers chicken to canned food / bear flanks.

  • optimusprym8 #17 1 year ago

    Is that global sales, EU or UK?

  • Wyrm #18 1 year ago

    Other than WoW and maybe Football Manager, PC gaming pretty much IS dead. The Witcher is a glimmer of hope, but I bet that'll end up on console before long. Such a shame as well :(

  • evild_edd #19 1 year ago

    "Mike Morhaime, the man who co-founded Blizzard and probably pays himself a competitive salary"

    /Picks up annual board report

    Actually, £7 per hour is pretty reasonable!

    /looks again

    Oh, that's per second!!!

  • WantOn #20 1 year ago

    I nearly fell off my chair laughing at 'competitive salary'. Nice summary, although as others have said, the 'PC gaming is dead' thing is getting a bit worn around the edges now.

  • lockload #21 1 year ago

    didnt halo3 sell that in 24 hours?

  • PatTheMav #22 1 year ago

    Does the Macbook Pro I play WoW on count as a "PC"?

  • darkmorgado #23 1 year ago

    Other than WoW and maybe Football Manager, PC gaming pretty much IS dead. The Witcher is a glimmer of hope, but I bet that'll end up on console before long. Such a shame as well :(

    And Civilisation. And RTS games. And 4X games. And Steam. And all other MMOs. And Action-RPGs. And simulators. And...

  • Shikasama #24 1 year ago

    Hang on, if Cataclysm sold 4.7 million copies, but they keep saying they have 12 million players, isn't that something of a failure?
    Edited by Shikasama at 10/01/11 @ 18:58

  • Spekingur #25 1 year ago

    PC gaming is dead? Have you heard of Farmville?
    Sure, it's the "bane" of what I would like to call proper gaming but it is a game played by... well, a rather lot of people. And played mostly by people who do not really have any interest in playing the next 'console next-gen gorefest of doom zomg'.

  • ircaddicts #26 1 year ago

    and in other news pigs just flew past my window

  • subedii #27 1 year ago

    @Shiksama:

    4.7 million copies and that's called a failure?

    Leaving aside that China hasn't gotten Cataclysm yet (which is maybe half of WoW's total subscription numbers), there's a bigger issue here. Which is that unless your name is Guild Wars, MMO's don't primarily work off of units sold (as much money as that may bring in), they work off of subscriptions (or in some cases, microtransactions. Or both).

    MMO's maintain their subscription numbers not just by having good mechanics or large scenes, but by being constantly evolving entities, ensuring there's always something new and interesting for players. Cataclysm represents a massive shakeup, it changes the entire gameworld, even for people who don't buy it and gain access to its specific content. The point isn't just getting people to buy into the new areas (and those numbers are going to continue to rise, because Cataclysm is going to remain in the charts for months), it's a case of maintaining current subscriptions, and increasing the appeal of the core game to new people by drastically reworking things that have dated over the years.

    Seriously, some people are people trying really hard to classify this as some kind of trainwreck.
    Edited by subedii at 10/01/11 @ 20:43

  • darkmorgado #28 1 year ago

    You're such a blatant troll.

  • Vyggo #29 1 year ago

    Yeah, so I am back in WoW...again.
    Haven't bought the expansion yet, but some of the new zones have gotten an amazing make-over both in looks but mostly in content. Some of my new favorite zones: Thousand Needles (flooded), Stonetalon Mountains (warzone) and Blasted Lands (you get to punch a dragon in the face).

    Too bad I am back in the Outlands again, which is a steaming pile of outdated crap now.

  • Dudeofmanynames #30 1 year ago

    PC gaming isn't dead, it just smells funny

  • Shikasama #31 1 year ago

    subedi - an install base of less than 50% of your players would be considered a failure, yes.

    Now if your point is that China hasn't got it yet, that's a valid one, and you even said it before you went all fanboy militant on it. Of course that raises another question of the reported figures surrounding the MMO. If they are happy to count '12 million players' from the 6/7 million chinese players that pay a few cents an hour to play and don't pay a subscription at all.

    But yes, thankyou for explaining to me how an MMO works. I had no idea before. Go back to grinding your raid tokens and save your little lectures, I played Warcraft long enough to know that talking to the people who still play it as an ex-player is a complete waste of time.

  • subedii #32 1 year ago

    @Shiksama:

    Fanboy Militant now? Kind of hard for that to be the case considering I've never played WoW in my life. I just know the numbers.

    Going by your analysis of how this release is clearly a failure, then Burning Crusade was most certainly a massive failure as well, releasing as it did to first month sales of 3.5 million copies, when its subscriber base was around 8 million people. Less than 50% right?

    You're using an incorrect metric for measuring success here. It doesn't really make too much sense because by those standards both Burning Crusade and WotLK were financial failures as well.

    I don't know, maybe you're of the viewpoint that all of Blizzards expansionss to WoW to date have been failures, but it's not one that I can reasonably get behind.
    Edited by subedii at 10/01/11 @ 22:14

  • cwk27 #33 1 year ago

    "it renews it. It fires your excitement at starting on that long road one more time, and invites you to relish the journey"

    Shame they didn't apply similar changes across Outlands and Northrend. The new 1-60 WoW has spoilt me badly. The problems with the 60-80 game is all the more apparent due to these excellent changes.

    72 now and I'm sorely missing having all the q givers at the entrance to an instance.

  • Dangerous_Dan #34 1 year ago

    Looking at the comments of some, it's really difficult not to become a snobby PC gamer. Must remind myself that not all of them are like that.

  • mAc062 #35 1 year ago

    Selling herion to addicts is easy.

  • FarticusMaximus #36 1 year ago

    Cataclysm has me playing WoW again after nearly a years break.

    I'm finding it to be a well paced expansion with improved in-quest storytelling and a huge amount of content for both high and low level characters.

    I doubt I'll play for more than a month or two but the cost of 2 months subs plus the game compared to the amount of content I have to explore is pretty terrific value, in my opinion.

  • levitate #37 1 year ago

    PC gaming is _far_ from dead. With the indie scene on the rise we can look forward to many good titles in the future (including a full working version of Minecraft). World of Warcraft will dominate the PC game scene for several more years.