Guild Wars 2 fastest-selling MMO ever apparently

By selling 3 million copies in nine months, Guild Wars 2 has been crowned - by research company DFC Intelligence - the fastest-selling Western MMO of all time.

"After triangulating against multiple data sources, it's clear that Guild Wars 2 is the fastest-selling Western MMO of all time based on the first nine months of availability," commented DFC analyst David Cole.

"This puts Guild Wars 2 in an impressive position when they release in China, where we've seen similar franchises really take off."

The numbers aren't new or even up to date - NCSoft announced 3 million Guild Wars 2 sales in January. NCSoft also hinted to me recently that another milestone was around the corner. Nevertheless, puffing one's chest out in front of Blizzard is not an opportunity to be missed.

By comparison, World of Warcraft (which launched November 2004 in the US and February 2005 in Europe) took until June 2005 to reach two million subscribers, although by December 2005 it had rocketed to 5 million subscribers.

The key word there being subscribers; Guild Wars 2 has no fee beyond buying the game - so are comparisions fair?

A free Guild Wars 2 trial will be available next Friday for the whole weekend. You can register a trial account on the Guild Wars 2 site.