2.7 Million copies of MoP sold, WoW passes 10M Subscribers
Blizzard just published the sales numbers for Mists of Pandaria and it looks like our favorite game is back over the 10M subscribers mark. For reference, the sales number for the previous expansions were:

  • The Burning Crusade - 2.4M First Day, 3.5M First Month
  • Wrath of the Lich King - 2.8M First Day, 4M First Month
  • Cataclysm - 3.3M First Day, 4.7M First Month

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
PARIS, France -- October 4, 2012 -- Following the September 25 global rollout of World of Warcraft®: Mists of Pandaria™, the new expansion to the world’s #1 subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game, Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today announced that millions of players have already joined the fight for Pandaria. During the first week of launch, prior to the release in China on October 2, the expansion had already sold through approximately 2.7 million copies and the game’s global player base passed 10 million subscribers, with growth across all major regions.*

“With Mists of Pandaria, we set out to expand on the sense of fun and discovery that’s always been at the heart of World of Warcraft -- in addition to adding a huge variety of new content and features to the game,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “It’s been gratifying to see the results of all of the work we put into this expansion and to hear all of the positive feedback from players so far.”

The World of Warcraft development team is already hard at work on the first major post-launch content update. Further details, including features and release timing, will be provided in the weeks ahead.

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This article was originally published in forum thread: 2.7 Million copies of MoP sold, WoW passes 10M Subscribers started by Boubouille View original post
Comments 337 Comments
  1. vep's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by rs10 View Post
    Gained like 1 million subscribers so far! Keep it upp Blizzard. Mists of Pandaria best expansion to date!
    How can you claim it's the best expansion so far when it's been out only a week? That puzzles me....
  1. mmoc522dc42c8a's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by SiMka View Post
    2.7M Sold.. so.. It means that there are only 2.7M people playing with current expansion..?!
    Only? Compared to previous expansions, it's clearly less. But 2.7 million people is not a little.
  1. Starscream101's Avatar
    I played wow with some people from china i do not play wow anymore but i do still talk to them in Mumble. I have 4 friends from china and they said why they liked wow was because it was not another Asian MMO. It looked more western. They said if they wanted to play a Asian themed mmo they would just play Terra and Aion which they all have. And 3 of them say they will not be playing MoP. I think the Asian theme may turn off a lot of the Asian players.
  1. Queen of Hamsters's Avatar
    I'm not surprised at all. And it's hilarious how people now grasp after things to be negative over, such as the Annual pass and Chinese players. Seriously, get over it already and find a new game that you can enjoy. ^^

    Now, back to playing this amazing game.
  1. Bahska's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Rorcanna View Post
    I'm not surprised at all. And it's hilarious how people now grasp after things to be negative over, such as the Annual pass and Chinese players. Seriously, get over it already and find a new game that you can enjoy. ^^

    Now, back to playing this amazing game.
    ^My thoughts exactly
  1. mrwingtipshoes's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Seolla View Post
    Wait til the first Annual Pass wave is over (which I believe is coming up in a month or so), the sub will drop back below 10mil again. A lot of people right now are "forced" to subscribe even tho they are no longer playing WoW
    This is a complete fallacy. You can quit the AP anytime you want. But people keep using that as a reason...:

    "Just wait, you'll see the space between xpacks you will see a HUGE drop it will kill wow!"
    ".. you just wait! MoP will see a huge drop! It WILL kill wow!"
    "... Well the AP ending will kill wow you just wait and see how those numbers dive!!"

    Whats next? /Pizza is going to drop subs?
  1. Yuuki Asuna's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by mrwingtipshoes View Post
    This is a complete fallacy. You can quit the AP anytime you want. But people keep using that as a reason...:

    "Just wait, you'll see the space between xpacks you will see a HUGE drop it will kill wow!"
    ".. you just wait! MoP will see a huge drop! It WILL kill wow!"
    "... Well the AP ending will kill wow you just wait and see how those numbers dive!!"

    Whats next? /Pizza is going to drop subs?
    You do know you can't cancel the AP unless your bank denies it right? It's a contract with Blizzard that you won't cancel for a year.
  1. ZeroEdgeir's Avatar
    1: It's September so part of the demographic is IN school, be it high school or post-secondary. The ones in high school may have to convince parents to buy it for em, which may take time. The ones in post-secondary are probably making sure their course-load is gonna be manageable before they upgrade.

    2: No expansion has even covered HALF the playerbase in the first MONTH. Okay, yeah, Cataclysm out-sold MoP on it's first day by about 600,000, but ONLY got another 700,000 in the next 29 days. Maybe the expansion fell between paycheques for people, had to wait til this week to buy it. Yes, each expansion has had a burst of sale RIGHT away, but then trickles about another 33% more over the course of a month. And when we get the one-month figures for MoP, and they exceed any previous expansion's one-month sales... then what? What will be the reasoning then of "why it sucks"?

    3: Anyone saying the "daily quests are a job/chore/labourous" don't realize - THEY ARE OPTIONAL. The MOST you might NEED to do, provided you open up everything right away, is the Golden Lotus (about 10 a day while Friendly) and The Klaxxi (6 a day at Honored). 16 dailies... we did more in the Molten Front, Tol Barad, or Argent Tournament in a day, with ALOT less variance. Plus, both those hubs help you get rep with The Black Prince (which most of us do need). Once you finally hit Revered with the Golden Lotus, there is more dailies, but you'll also not NEED to do Klaxxi or Golden Lotus by then, unless you NEED to have Exalted (which is just a choice, cause the rewards from Exalted are all vanity-based really).
  1. mmoc587e02651b's Avatar
    The 2.7 Million copies sold are when they aren't counting digital copies. Almost everyone bought it digital.
  1. kazso's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by mikencarly View Post
    LOL you do know that almost all annaul pass holders will keep playing right only like 5 to 10% of those won't be most people got it because they was going to play wow anyways honestly people like you are very silly if you think all of those were not planing to play wow even after the pass is up.im a annaul pass holder hint hint will keep on playing and almost all the rest will as well.
    That 5-10% is a wrong estimate. 40-60% would be more realistic. But one thing is sure: at least 0,000075% will quit the game after the AP runs out
  1. mmocca8cc527ec's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by This Guy View Post
    The 2.7 Million copies sold are when they aren't counting digital copies. Almost everyone bought it digital.
    2.7 million copies ARE counting digital copies, clearly.

    ---------- Post added 2012-10-05 at 03:28 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by ZeroEdgeir View Post
    2: No expansion has even covered HALF the playerbase in the first MONTH. Okay, yeah, Cataclysm out-sold MoP on it's first day by about 600,000, but ONLY got another 700,000 in the next 29 days. Maybe the expansion fell between paycheques for people, had to wait til this week to buy it. Yes, each expansion has had a burst of sale RIGHT away, but then trickles about another 33% more over the course of a month. And when we get the one-month figures for MoP, and they exceed any previous expansion's one-month sales... then what? What will be the reasoning then of "why it sucks"?
    No. Cataclysm out-sold in 1 day what Mists of Pandaria sold in 1 week.

    I really don't understand the need to dream such unreasonable results. The game still sold a lot of copies. A LOT. But its numbers are clearly on the decline, and will keep being on the decline if compared to the past. No need to be on denial about that. It's still one of the major franchises out there.
  1. mmocc12e1a6c25's Avatar
    This worries me a lot. People seem to be less willing to hand over their money at the first sign of expansion this time around, whereas in previous expansions, most people had bought into it within a week or so. Remember, these are sales figures for a few weeks in. Not first day sales. First day sales include all the hardcore raiders and wow fanatics for the most part. Many people buy the game within a week of the expansion release and I'd go out on a limb to say that for cata, around 25% of sales were first day and 40-50% within the first week or two.
    And let's remember that this month is when annual passes run out. that number could potentially dip very quickly and very soon, so coming out with a sales and subscriptions number right now is a good move... but i don't expect this 'high' to last by looking at these numbers.
    Please remember that I'm not bashing the game, I am merely making assumptions based on numbers. If i wanted to see a game crash and burn, I'd be posting on SWTOR / Tera forums. But the fact of the matter is that people are getting tired of the game. It has lasted a long time and has produced some extremely enjoyable content but I don't see it lasting much longer as the #1 MMO. Maybe 1-2 years.
    Unless they bring out WC4 and a sargeras expansion... ;P I'd totally throw money at them for that.

    ---------- Post added 2012-10-05 at 08:01 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by kazso View Post
    That 5-10% is a wrong estimate. 40-60% would be more realistic. But one thing is sure: at least 0,000075% will quit the game after the AP runs out
    Add another to that number. Plus a lot of people have cancelled their AP early (around 1-2% only but still). The number for AP holders will be an extremely important figure and it will no doubt have an effect on the direction of the game if people who *were sure they would play for a year despite lack of new content* then turn around and stop playing when a huge amount of content has been added recently. These should be the kind of people that are the most loyal and the most sure to be retained in an expansion.

    ---------- Post added 2012-10-05 at 08:11 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by vep View Post
    How can you claim it's the best expansion so far when it's been out only a week? That puzzles me....
    This.
    When (if?) the next expansion is out and you're looking at MoP in retrospect, you'll be able to say if it was the best expansion. Cata was amazing to begin with and I enjoyed playing it for a long time but things just got worse and worse with nerfs and raidfinder and dragon soul. So please remember...the shit part of the expansion, if there is one, can come after the release. Personally I feel like Wrath and bug-free TBC were the best. But Wrath was the best to play as it had such a huge production quality when compared to TBC and vanilla. Even Cata felt more buggy than Wrath.

    Oh and ToC was not a raid. you lie. It was a dungeon. And nothing else.
  1. Pecan's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by skeith20 View Post
    You people are funny saying that it sold worse than cata.

    When cata came out the game at a 12+ million player base and out of those 12 million only 3.3 million of those bought the expansion on first day. That's about 1/4 of the game subscription base.

    If you consider that first week sales is very similar to first day sale for mist, Of the 10 million of the subscription base we have now, 2.7 million bought mist which is still about 1/4 of the subscription base.

    It would still not be a good comparison since, as someone else mentioned, China and Korea don't pay for their expansions. We'd have to use the proportion of US/EU players out of the 12 and 10 million subscriptions to make a better comparison.

    Absolute numbers are useless when doing comparisons like that.
    Yeah, the people are suggesting 1/4 slice of a bigger pie is... BIGGER. My people are going back to reality.
  1. mmoc918d4fc85a's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Seolla View Post
    Wait til the first Annual Pass wave is over (which I believe is coming up in a month or so), the sub will drop back below 10mil again. A lot of people right now are "forced" to subscribe even tho they are no longer playing WoW
    EXACTLY what I said!
  1. fizzbob's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Merp View Post
    2.7 million copies ARE counting digital copies, clearly.

    ---------- Post added 2012-10-05 at 03:28 PM ----------



    No. Cataclysm out-sold in 1 day what Mists of Pandaria sold in 1 week.

    I really don't understand the need to dream such unreasonable results. The game still sold a lot of copies. A LOT. But its numbers are clearly on the decline, and will keep being on the decline if compared to the past. No need to be on denial about that. It's still one of the major franchises out there.
    the sales from the first day of cataclysm counted all the pre-orders too + the first THREE days including launch day. you gotta learn to read blizzard's footnotes, they explain this stuff, what a subscriber is, etc

    it's not all obvious stuff, they can legally do this as long as they define these asterisked words too

    ---------- Post added 2012-10-05 at 03:19 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Shininglight View Post
    You do know you can't cancel the AP unless your bank denies it right? It's a contract with Blizzard that you won't cancel for a year.
    not true. if you unsub on blizzard's page, they won't charge your account anymore and they'll remove the goodies
    no questions asked, no penalties. i did this, then i resubbed later and it was never an issue.
  1. mmoc918d4fc85a's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by mikencarly View Post
    LOL you do know that almost all annaul pass holders will keep playing right only like 5 to 10% of those won't be most people got it because they was going to play wow anyways honestly people like you are very silly if you think all of those were not planing to play wow even after the pass is up.im a annaul pass holder hint hint will keep on playing and almost all the rest will as well.
    Did Your magic glass ball tell You that, or do You have a TimeTravelMachine?...
  1. Nikijih's Avatar
    So this makes absolutely no sens whatsoever. There are only 2.7 mil ppl with the current xpack. meaning they have over 7 million farmers and botter and inactive accounts somehow being counted.
  1. mrwingtipshoes's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Shininglight View Post
    You do know you can't cancel the AP unless your bank denies it right? It's a contract with Blizzard that you won't cancel for a year.
    Go to battle.net
    Go to account with AP on it
    Click unsub.
    ???
    Done.

    You are NOT legally tired to the AP they do NOT stop you from unsubbing i wish people would stop spreading this incorrect, ignorant, assumption.
  1. Meera's Avatar
    Let me guess. This expansion is really short compared with the others on selling. I remember cata hitting 4 million. 2.7 is too short. Expect a lot of people leaving when they see they can't enjoy the game.
  1. nanessa's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by fizzbob View Post

    not true. if you unsub on blizzard's page, they won't charge your account anymore and they'll remove the goodies
    no questions asked, no penalties. i did this, then i resubbed later and it was never an issue.
    Did you have Diablo 3 and did they took that account too?

    On topic, game is old and this number is amazing, considering that there are tons of new games out there and WOW is still number 1 MMO, even though its 8 years old. I stopped playing months ago for many reasons, but game is far far away from being dead.

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