BC download now available for North America as well
by Eliah Hecht 
Feb 1st 2007 at 9:00PM
Rejoice! Now we North American types can also upgrade and download the Burning Crusade! I was heading over to www.worldofwarcraft.com just now and was hit with the following message:- You can now buy account upgrade keys and download the game client for World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade directly through the account management section of www.worldofwarcraft.com. With this new direct online upgrade method, you don't even need to leave your desk if you decide to upgrade to The Burning Crusade and join more than two million players who are already adventuring beyond the Dark Portal.
I was chatting with Elizabeth Harper about why they might choose to offer direct download now, and not at launch. Here's what I came up with:
- Offering direct download at launch might irritate retailers.
- Offering it now might get a few people to buy who weren't motivated enough to go out to the store.
- It probably costs them relatively little to do this.
[thanks also to Doug for tipping us off]
Filed under: Blizzard, News items, Expansions, The Burning Crusade
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Remil Feb 1st 2007 10:38PM
umm, where was this 3 weeks ago?
Cheesehound Feb 1st 2007 9:29PM
> Offering direct download at launch might irritate retailers.
With this kind of market dominance why would they give a damn about retailers? After all Valve bypassed them without any of the clout that Blizzard has.
If they had offered downloads from the start they would have missed out on masses of 'Look at these geeks queuing all night' coverage.
Chubbs Feb 1st 2007 9:34PM
Where's the fun of searching for a hard copy on release day?
Hewhosmells Feb 2nd 2007 5:22AM
A guildmate of mind lives in a region where he still can't buy a retail version of TBC so hopefully now he will be able to play with the rest of the guild :)
RogueJedi86 Feb 1st 2007 9:45PM
@#1/Cheesehound
"If they had offered downloads from the start they would have missed out on masses of 'Look at these geeks queuing all night' coverage."
AKA free publicity. Publicity is good. You know several people ended up buying BC just to see what the commotion was about.
PoliticalGamer Feb 1st 2007 9:52PM
Wait, you have to search to find Burning Crusade? I found piles of them at a local Target just yesterday.
As I see it: 30 minutes max to go to and from local store, maybe 1 hour if you go to a mall or mall-like area; 30 minutes install w/ CDs. Or I can wait 5+hours just for the download (it took nine for me to download the original WoW for the 10-day trial). They both cost basically the same, it's just one takes a lot of time vs one requires you to actually see daylight.
Chris M Feb 1st 2007 9:52PM
Woot! I've been putting off buying the expansion for aeons really. I saw no reason to, and Best Buy is out of my way on the way to work and such.
So, here we are.
Chris
nate Feb 1st 2007 10:30PM
I think the retailer issue is only real reason behind why there wasn't a download available at launch. Sure, TBC was going to be a "sure thing" at retail, so one might think Blizz/Vivendi is able to "afford" to piss off retailers by eating into their profits by offering a download. However, Vivendi puts out plenty of games that aren't sure things, and for these, they need retailer support. Waiting for a few weeks after launch to offer the download is clearly a nice concession to the retail channels to keep up the relationship...
Rockman Feb 1st 2007 10:46PM
I don't understand how only 2 million out of 8 million have upgraded? how can you not upgrade? I must so so addicted that not upgrading seems totally insane!
Jay Converse Feb 1st 2007 11:09PM
@8: That 8 million subscriber figure doesn't equate to 8 million players. I know quite a few people who have two accounts that they keep up on, so that number's slightly inflated.
As for the main question at hand, I think it mostly has to do with bandwidth concerns. Remember how long it took to download that 5 MB patch on launch morning? Yeah? How it took 30 minutes (at least for me)? Now imagine downloading a much larger amount (I have no clue how much TBC adds). Would ANYONE have gotten a chance to play on launch day? Probably, but not nearly as many people as ended up being able to play. I think that was the main reason, wait until the hype dies down a little bit, then offer it for the people that really want it.
nate Feb 1st 2007 11:22PM
I don't think the delay in downloads had to do with bandwidth -- Blizz could have partenered with any number of download providers (direct2drive for example), or otherwise outsourced the hosting of the files.
Also, regarding the 8mm subscribers, many are in China, where TBC hasn't released yet. In the U.S., they sold almost as many copies of the xpack on day 1 as total retail sales of the original product, from NPD data...
Avonturier Feb 2nd 2007 4:29AM
There wasn't a download available at launch because people sleeping in front a game shop, just so they can be the first to get a copy of the BC, is great publicity for Blizzard!
Cheesehound Feb 2nd 2007 5:22AM
@3 You got my point, well done you.
Thesian Feb 2nd 2007 6:05AM
@8 has it right. Far far far too much bandwidth. What was it; over a million in the first week? The patch was about 1.5gig I think 1.5g x 1,000,000 would bring down half the internet let alone blizzards servers. Maybe google could handle that but I doubt anyone else could.
Muess Feb 2nd 2007 6:31AM
A combination of all of the above.
1) Keeping the retailers happy. Vivendi DEFINATELY has to do this, it's been discussed before with other companies and this is a key point. Yes, there are companies breaking this mold with episodic content but Vivendi is a huge publisher and can't afford to risk it.
2) Boxes on shelves can catch the eye of non-WoW players whereas Direct Downloads (DD) probably won't.
3) DD would indeed be insane bandwidth but they could of had it background downloading for a month to offset the server load somewhat.
4) Free publicity from the launch hype to draw in new players.
5) Selling strategy guides. A lot of people would have picked this up when they went and bought their copy of TBC (no idea why but I saw lots doing it when I bought my copy) which wouldn't have happened if it had been DD.
In regards to why only 2 million (Believe it was actually 2.5 million in the first week) people bought it: It has only been released in the West so far and there are only 3.5 million players here, the rest are in Asian countries.
umamasyean Feb 2nd 2007 1:24PM
Can't the Asian countries Download it now too? Perhaps that's one reason why they are offerring it now. So they don't have to worry about physical distribution to the other countries? And I'm sure asians itching to play don't want to pay for shipping from the US.
Belais Feb 2nd 2007 5:44PM
Well actually for me is a big difference... they are selling BC here as low as $65!!! NO WAY!!! So... i left it downloading while I`m at work (didn`t count on my sweet mother turning off my notebook)... hopefully when I get home i'll just have to wait 3 more hours to finally meet my Blood Elf Pally...