World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade sells 3.5 million, passes 8.5 million subscribers

By Casey Lynch Mar 7, 2007, 17:46 GMT

Evidently lots of people like this game - 8.5 million people can\'t be wrong, can they?

Blizzard announced today that World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade sold through approximately 3.5 million copies within one month following its mid-January launch in North America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia.

This includes nearly 1.6 million sold in Europe, and more than 1.9 million sold in regions that play on North American realms, including more than 100,000 copies in Australasia.

With approximately 3.5 million copies sold through, The Burning Crusade has now established the new one-month record for PC-game sales.

Additionally, World of Warcraft’s worldwide subscriber base now numbers more than 8.5 million and is continuing to grow as new and returning players join existing players in the game.

Blizzard previously announced that this first expansion set for World of Warcraft sold through nearly 2.4 million copies worldwide in its first 24 hours - more than any other PC game in history had sold within an entire first month of availability.

“We’re thrilled about the overwhelming response that we’ve received for The Burning Crusade,” said Mike Morhaime, president of Blizzard Entertainment. “We have worked hard to build upon nearly every aspect of World of Warcraft with this expansion, and it’s gratifying to see that players and reviewers are enjoying the new content.”

According to Tricia Brennan, Commercial Director of the GAME Group, UK, “The Burning Crusade saw record-breaking first-week sales at GAME and sales have been continuously strong since then. World of Warcraft has proved such a success thanks to its strong player following and superb gameplay, and we anticipate more people joining this fast-growing community throughout the year.”

World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade is Blizzard Entertainment’s first expansion for its subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game, World of Warcraft. It adds an extensive amount of new content to the game, including an increase in the level cap, complete with new spells, abilities, and talents for players to acquire as they advance their characters; huge new outdoor zones and dungeons for players to explore after they journey through the Dark Portal into the shattered world of Outland; two new playable races; flying mounts; a new character profession: jewelcrafting; and much more.