NPD: World of Warcraft has sold 8.6 million boxes at retail
by Mike Schramm 
Jul 30th 2009 at 1:00PM
Gamasutra has received an interesting stat from the good folks at NPD: after hearing that The Sims 3 sold over 800,000 copies in its first month, they were curious to see what kind of unit sales our own World of Warcraft has experienced. And the numbers are pretty big: among the original game and all of the expansion packs since the vanilla release over four years ago, NPD says 8.6 million boxes of WoW have been sold in the US. That's a little misleading if you're comparing it to actual subscription numbers: remember that this is over three different releases (so the actual number of all-time players, not current players, is probably 1/3 of that), and it includes different collectors' editions of each of the three game editions. So there are nowhere near 8.6 million US players of WoW -- that's just how many times players have come through the retail line with the various releases.What that is, however, is a lot of money. Gamasutra estimates that at an average of $30 for each unit sold (the vanilla game currently retails at $20, but the expansions all sell at $40, and of course the original game was more expensive once upon a time), that's $258 million in income for Blizzard. In short, Blizzard's making a mint at the retail counter, even before they sign anyone up for subscriptions.
Then again, if you look at their own costs, those aren't insubstantial, either -- Activision's Bobby Kotick claimed that anyone starting up an MMO to compete with WoW would have to throw at least half a billion dollars into the mix just to get started, so we can presume Blizzard has spent at least $500 million on their staff, development, and hardware. So it's not like they're taking it all to the bank, though we can at least presume they're sitting firmly in the black.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Blizzard, The Burning Crusade, Making money, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Remen Jul 30th 2009 1:07PM
So you count 3 copies per account. But also take into account, multi-boxers, banned accounts that needed a new copy and anyone else who just likes to have multiple copies, what do you end up with? Subscriber base much smaller than 1/3 of the number of units sold. An impressive number none-the-less. But still it explains the large number of copies sold compared to the subscriber base.
Remen Jul 30th 2009 1:09PM
Mind you multi-boxers are still paying for multiple accounts so they count as individual subscribers. But the number of players has to be well below 1/3 of the total units sold.
Rugus Jul 30th 2009 1:07PM
> So there are nowhere near 8.6 million US players of
> WoW -- that's just how many times players have
> come through the retail line with the various releases.
And the report does not count players who downloaded the game (TBC/WOTLK at least). I guess most of us did so, with WOTLK. All in all... I guess there are a *lot* of players.
Jeremiel Jul 30th 2009 2:15PM
Also...
"NPD says 8.6 million boxes of WoW have been sold in the US."
Only those sold in the US were counted :P
Robert M Jul 30th 2009 1:21PM
Kotick’s numbers are inflated. Sure, Blizzard raised the stakes, but there is no way they expected to reach the kind of numbers for their MMO that they have because there was no precedent to imply those were anywhere close to reasonable expectations.
Do you think Activision thinks they have to drop another half billion for the next gen mmo? If they are, that’s just trying to catch lightning in a bottle twice. I am not implying the next gen won’t be great, but to start out with any expectation that all the WoW players will just migrate over to the new game and allow them to hit the ground running at the WoW level isn’t likely.
“Compete” is the important word here, I don’t think anyone expects to compete with the level of subscriptions that WoW has, but many of the new MMO’s expect to build a fanbase, or tap into an already existing one (I’m looking at you SWTOR), and chip away at Blizzard and hopefully wake up one day and find they have toppled them.
Sometimes the big brother is able to fend off the attacks of the little brother, but sometimes, the little brother gets to be bigger and stronger than the older brother and when he does, the balance of power changes. Kotick’s number is just a way of intimidating anyone who might try and play king of the hill with WoW, and not necessarily something to be taken as gospel.
devilsei Jul 30th 2009 2:42PM
"Sometimes the big brother is able to fend off the attacks of the little brother, but sometimes, the little brother gets to be bigger and stronger than the older brother and when he does, the balance of power changes"
It also helps that since the big brother is older, that when he becomes some old, crotchity grumpy man with a bad hip and hatred for kids, that lil' bro is in his prime, so he'll be able to pull off a Zangief and pile-drive Big Bro into the ground. =P
Robert M Jul 30th 2009 3:41PM
Touche' my friend, touche'
Are you implying the boys at Blizzard might have turned into our grandfathers and are swinging their Diamond-Tipped canes (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45861) at the young whipper snappers at SWTOR?
Badger Jul 30th 2009 7:34PM
Congratulations, you two, for creating the most apt analogy in Internet history. ^_^
Ophelos Jul 30th 2009 1:22PM
i get a kick out of these NDP charts saying sold in the US. if you ask me i think these numbers also include how many are sold in canada also.
Daniel Jul 30th 2009 1:23PM
Actually, all this shows is how susceptible numbers are to manipulation. After all, it's highly doubtful that everybody who bought the original version bought all the expansions. People played vanilla and then never played again. So taking the total number and dividing it by three is misleading. Then, as the above poster showed, lots of people downloaded (such as me) and I don't know if that was counted or not.
I agree that they made a ton of money but given how incomplete all statistics are all one can come up with at best a ball park figure. All the pros who have looked at this issue have decided that the number is about five million *unique* subscribers in the USA. That works for me. Other than that, only the bean-counters at Blizzard know for sure.
Lab Monkey Jul 30th 2009 1:32PM
Also the "that's $258 million in income for Blizzard" line is false. Only a percentage of the end sale price goes to Blizzard, the rest to the merchant and the Tax Man.
yunkndatwunk Jul 30th 2009 1:56PM
Exactly what I was thinking. Over 66% could have been vanilla, meaning half of them never went on to buy future expansions. Which is certainly plausible, though I expect more than 50% who bought vanilla bought TBC we truthfully have no idea.
Firestyle Jul 30th 2009 1:28PM
For the three months ended 3/31, Activision Blizzard's sales of products is up by 629 million since same period 2008. Their subscriptions are up by about 10%.
They had no income tax expense, which means the are carrying forward net tax losses from prior periods. It's good they are in the black, so they keep making expansions.
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/718877/000110465909031052/a09-11498_110q.htm#CondensedConsolidatedStatementsOf_155028
Melvyl Jul 30th 2009 1:29PM
After trying out the trial version for a few days, I ordered the retail box from Amazon. When I hit 55, I logged into the Blizzard website and upgraded my account to BC and then WOTLK. I would assume the Amazon purchase is included in those numbers, but I don't know about the other two.
Ventroo Jul 30th 2009 1:32PM
The one big thing that we are forgetting here is that online sales and walmart are not included in the NPD figures.
Robert M Jul 30th 2009 2:08PM
awww, Blizzard and Wal-Mart kinda makes me think of a marriage between Darth Vader and Cruella DeVille.
Leon Jul 30th 2009 1:40PM
“$258 million in income for Blizzard????”
Not really; retail price is the final number, not Blizzard’s revenue. You need to subtract taxes, the store’s profit, carriers, if Blizz doesn’t do there own packaging, packaging as well, manufacturing, and any other intermediary that we might not know about. After all, Blizz is just taking home a fraction of the 258 million, not nearly enough to pay for the “$500 million on their staff, development, and hardware”.
What it really makes net profit for them is branding, all this manufacturers paying millions to stamp Blizzar’s trade marks in the most random crap.
yunkndatwunk Jul 30th 2009 1:53PM
"so we can presume Blizzard has spent at least $500 million on their staff,"
no, we can't. He isn't saying that's what Blizzard spent, he is just hypothesizing what it would take to compete. Which could be more than Blizzard spent due to marketing or inflation, or less (there is research to say it costs 75% of original R&D to steal an idea from another company)
This article is full of wild claims about numbers. I know you are not actually claiming real knowledge just hypothesizing, but it exhibits a painful lack of understanding of costs of business, and even moreso a scientific approach to understanding what people are saying and then judging what you can know based on that.
Netherscourge Jul 30th 2009 1:55PM
There's probably around 3 Million active, INDIVIDUAL WoW Subscribers in the US right now.
lazymangaka Jul 30th 2009 2:05PM
Truth is, downloading is where it's at for alot of people. You pick up one of those $1.99 trial disks, then you upgrade for full price at a later time. That, I would imagine, is where they're making a good chunk of their money. With little production costs, it's profit all the way down the line.
World of Warcraft: It prints money~!