Wrath of Lich King; 24 Hours 2.8M Sold

With the holidays fast approaching, November is prime time when it comes to game releases. Whether it’s for PC, PS3, Xbox 360, or the Wii, the big AAA-titles usually hit store shelves sometime between mid-October to early December.

Not one to deviate from the norm, Activision-Blizzard released the latest expansion pack for World of Warcraft last week. While high sales numbers were expected, setting a new sales record for the year was an added bonus. Within its first 24 hours of sales, Wrath of the Lich King (or WotLK), sold an astounding 2.8 million copies, becoming the fastest selling PC title of 2008. The record was previously held by another World of Warcraft expansion, The Burning Crusade, which sold 2.4 million copies at release back in January of 2007.

For the release, over 15,000 stores worldwide opened their doors at midnight to sell WotLK to gamers. GameStop, one of the largest game retailers in the USA, was all about WoW for the expansion’s release day. "After a single day of availability, Wrath of the Lich King is already the bestselling PC game of 2008 at GameStop and ranks as one of our top-selling products so far this year," said Bob McKenzie, GameStop’s senior vice president of merchandising. "In keeping with the tradition established by their previous releases, Blizzard Entertainment has again created a product that not only reflects their high standards of quality but is clearly an instant hit with gamers around the country."

"We’re grateful for the incredible support that players around the world have continued to show for World of Warcraft," said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “Wrath of the Lich King contains some of the best content we’ve created for the game so far, and we look forward to seeing even more players log in to experience it in the days ahead." Blizzard, who has already expressed interest in doing more WoW expansions , will likely make another announcement later this month regarding WotLK hitting five million units sold. With a user base of over 11 million, WoW doesn’t look to be slowing down anytime in the near future, and any expansion is a guaranteed hit.