14 DAY TRIAL // World of Warcraft has once again proven just how powerful it is, as its third expansion, the recently released Cataclysm, has broken PC sales records, managing to move a whopping 3.3 million copies in its first 24 hours of release.
The new expansion was eagerly awaited by many of the game's 12 million subscribers on December 7, and it shows in the sales figures released by Blizzard.
With such a strong performance, Cataclysm overtakes the previous World of Warcraft expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, which only managed to sell 2.8 million copies in 24 hours.
A key role in attaining such strong sales in the first day was played by the huge number of midnight launch events held all over the world, in more than 10,000 stores, as well as the fact that lots of copies were sold digitally by Blizzard itself, thanks to the improved Battle.net service.
"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."
Without a doubt, these sales figures will increase even more this month, as more and more players will want to experience Cataclysm in the peace and quiet of the winter holidays.
In case you still haven't heard about it, World of Warcraft Cataclysm brings lots of interesting things to the popular MMORPG, including an increased level cap to 85, overhauled areas that were "destroyed" by the dragon Deathwing, two new races, the Goblins and Worgen, and many other sweeping changes to the core systems of the online role-playing game.