5 million Lich Kings to be sold in November, analyst guesses

by Michael Zenke Nov 8th 2008 at 1:00PM

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Expansions

Wrath of the Lich King is due out in ... approximately 4 days 10 hours, according to WoW Insider's countdown. That's exciting news for World of Warcraft players, and even more exciting news for Activision/Blizzard. The company, which relies on WoW's income for a noteworthy part of its profits, is expected to sell some 5 million copies of the MMO's second expansion just in the game's first month. Gamasutra reports on this speculation, which comes from Janco Partners analyst Mike Hickey.

Hickey thinks that the flagged US economy will ultimately not have an impact on Blizzard's numbers this holiday season, and is impressed by WoW's continued success in the face of competition like Age of Conan and Warhammer Online. We'll know very soon how well Blizzard's second MMO expansion does . We only have about 4 days, 9 hours, and 40 minutes left to wait ...

Tags: activision-blizzard, analyst, business, mmo-industry, world-of-warcraft, wow, wrath-of-the-lich-king

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Abriael said on 1:50PM 11-08-2008

got a call from blizzard about not hyping WOTLK enough? :D

Wispur said on 3:10PM 11-08-2008

Ok, what game do you play that is so much better than WoW that it causes you to hate WoW so?

Clearly you've found the perfect game that makes all overs fail in comparison. Please share. =)

Abriael said on 5:36PM 11-08-2008

I'm playing warhammer at the moment, and while not being perfect yet, i definately find it superior to wow in basically every aspect.

I don't "hate" wow, but I do think it's massively overrated, and that while it brought something good to the MMO market, economically (lots of people), it damaged it in so many other ways (expecially community-wise, and in making any attempt to innovate seem almost detrimental) that it's impact on the MMO market is to be considered almost completely negative.
One of the reasons why i'm rooting for WAR (besides the fact that it's providing me with the most fun i ever had on a MMO) to be very successful on the long run is that someone needs to demonstrate that it's possible for other MMOs that aren't WoW to cut for themselves a sizeable and profitable niche of the market, or the pay to play MMO market will suffer, as more and more developers will consider it too risky to even try.

Bigfoot said on 9:12PM 11-08-2008

The 2nd expansion to the most successful MMO on the market is coming out. Do you expect Massively to not hype it up?

And people can have their opinions, whether they think it rules or not. Massively posting that a % of players are coming back to WoW is just news. It's not like they're saying "HAHAHA, EVERYONE IS COMING BACK TO WOW, WARHAMMER SUCKS".

And just fyi, I'm playing no MMOs atm, so I'm not being biased towards one game or the other. :P

Abriael said on 9:54PM 11-08-2008

It's not news anymore when it's the second article in a few days about it.

Vorgaak said on 5:31AM 11-10-2008

@Abriael:
1) In a game as large as WOW, there are going to be a lot of people in it for a lot of reasons. I'm sorry you were to klutz to find your niche.
2) WoW has not destroyed the MMO community. If you want to play your game that 50k people play, its still out there. But now, you have a huge audience, many varieties of gameplay, organic evolution (which is quite substantial), etc... You make another stupid comment like this, and you will show your true colors.
3) As a WoW enthusiat, Massively is very lite on wow. Yeah, articles about how Azeroth has more citizens than you have brain cells may get old, but get over it.

Zandareth said on 7:14PM 11-08-2008

I see right now:

5 articles about Eve Online.
1 article about SW: TOR.
1 article about Everquest II.
2 articles about Warhammer Online.
1 article about WoW.
1 article about Social failings of all MMOs.
1 about Machinimas
1 about SWG.
1 about WoW and Eve.

So tell me where is the hype? i remember i saw like 27934625634785 articles about Warhammer when it was in open beta, and articles like 10 mmos better than WoW or the Warhammer Guide to WoW players.

Abriael said on 7:30PM 11-08-2008

It's a matter of tones. All the articles on wow are very hypish: all telling on how it rules, how it's better than other game, how people that went to other games are coming back, how it will be the king "indefinately" blah blah blah.

torak said on 6:57AM 11-10-2008

This site has an EVE bias if anything, tones aside.

Jack said on 9:37PM 11-08-2008

I'm playing WoW at the moment I did buy Warhammer and AoC, I am already burn out on Warhammer (see a other comment why) and AoC is still well crap....

WoW is superior to WAR for the player base and now that Warhammer take out the pvpers that where the worst part of the player base the game did get better in basically every aspect

Abriael said on 9:53PM 11-08-2008

LOL. WoW has the worst community ever seen in a MMORPG, whose older part is inherited directly by battlenet (which is the worst community saw in a game ever), and whose younger part is made by 8 years old that don't even know how to live in an online society. Hearing someone saying that wow is superior to ANY game for it's playerbase is probably the most laughable experience ever.

So basically wow would be better now that warhammer took away the only skilled players it had? Funny indeed :D be careful out there, the mobs could spank you :D

Rozo said on 6:15PM 11-09-2008

In all honesty I'm burned out on WAR. I was praising it a month or two ago but now, i just get the overall feeling of "meh". Even after transferring to a populated server it was fun again for about a day, then I realized that it was just getting repetitive. I mean that's a common argument among mmo's and that few if any can stave off the repetitive nature of the genre but in WAR it just seems like SC's are the way to go to quickly level and even those get boring quick. Also add to the fact the vein issue of armor generally looking the same. It's a minor issue but atleast in WoW there is a wide variety of armor and how it looks. sure you do get the clown syndrome when leveling or when a new expansion comes out (some what solved with lich king) but the enjoyment of leveling and getting a new piece of gear was not only stats, but also how it looked.

I like WAR, i do, I think it's great for PVP but maybe for a month or so, atleast for now. down the road once it gets its legs going i'm sure it'll be great, but right now overall I give it a "Meh"

I won't go back to WoW. again it's the repetitive nature of the beast and the fact that even with another 10 levels, end game is, and always will be "you have to be in a raiding guild, thus you have to play at a scheduled time and listen to some guy you never met giving you orders in order for the possibility to get that new piece of gear" that's not my idea of fun.

I was hoping that WAR could bring me taht fun, and granted it did for a bit. However, I don't think the game is quite there yet.

WoW. nope. I won't go back to that. I spent my 4 years with it, and I'm Done.

Instead (queue mocking) i'm going back to EVE where I can do whatever i damn well want.

Rozo said on 6:16PM 11-09-2008

Vlatch said on 11:39AM 11-10-2008

@Abriel
"Massively Goes to WAR" was a month of non-stop hype for Warhammer. I'll give you a simple formula that Massively follows for every major patch/xpac/game release in the MMO genre:

1. New game coming out - what will it be like? (see SWKotR)
2. Game just days/weeks away - how big will it be? (see AOC/WAR)
3. Game launched - what's the deal with it? (beginners' guides/reviews of opening content/player reactions)
4. Post launch - what were the successes? (see WAR/AOC)
5. Post luanch - what were the failures (see every MMO)

This is across the board. No MMO goes un-spared, nor underappreciated given its reach in the genre. Just because you don't like WoW doesn't mean other readers aren't interested in reading about it. So please, lay off.