Kester Posted December 3, 2004 http://www.blizzard.com/press/041201.shtml Colour me surprised. I knew the PC market was something of a niche market, but I didn't realise just how much that was true. Or have MMORPGs suddenly become mainstream while I wasn't paying attention? Is the PC market really this dominated by 'hardcore' (or whatever this week's epithet is) gamers? If so, I'm not sure I hold out much hope for it lasting too long at all. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ryam BaCo Posted December 3, 2004 are they selling these pre-beta-versions now? or have i missed something? in my point of view these numbers aren't representative for the whole success of wow. i think that it will - of course! - sell excellent, but won't beat the sims or other successsuccessuccessfullllll games pushed by non-hardcore gamers in long terms. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
manny_c44 Posted December 4, 2004 Blizzard is absolutely great at bringing things to the mainstream, I had two friends who'd never touched a MMOG and were already on the blizzard website oggling at this game months ago. One of them is a very casual gamer, only playing blizzard games and a few other titles, so I'd say the name recognition plays a large role in te fast sales. Plus the huge beta helped create alot of hype for the game. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
lailoken Posted December 4, 2004 yeah, it's been hype everywhere! I remember being quite sceptical at the idea of blizzard going into the mmorpg market like that. after all, they never actually made a roleplaying game. they might have created tons of IP and context rich environments but nothing on this scale. then all of a sudden the whole press got behind it and now everyone thinks it's great. man if it wasn't actually great, this could be quite spooky but i guess it's ok. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Marek Posted December 4, 2004 Much like City of Heroes, WoW in its own way tries to make the MMO genre a lot sexier and a lot less cyclical and slow-paced. I'm really impressed by what I saw. I think the "gain XP even if you don't play" mechanism is a Godsend for the genre. That said we have a LOT of best-selling games this year. It is just baffling how much quality and quantity there is in just these few months. If only there were less sequelitis. And if only the games were spread out more accross the year, so I could play more than 2% of them. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ThunderPeel2001 Posted December 4, 2004 World of Warcraft - Fastest selling game EVAR! It's the fastest selling PC game ever. I'm sure it didn't touch San Andreas. Still, it just shows how geeky us PC gamers actually are Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ryam BaCo Posted December 5, 2004 Pre-beta? Say what? i read a blizzard ad, where they offered a wow-beta-version you can purchase and download and if the game will be finally out, you'll get it too. are they already selling the full version of wow??? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
netmonkey Posted December 5, 2004 It's the fastest selling PC game ever. I'm sure it didn't touch San Andreas. Still, it just shows how geeky us PC gamers actually are It's the fastest-selling PC game ever in North America. Oh right, North America is the only place that exists in the world. I forgot. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Bc9b Posted December 5, 2004 ThunderPeel2001: It's the fastest selling PC game ever. I'm sure it didn't touch San Andreas. Still, it just shows how geeky us PC gamers actually are It's the fastest-selling PC game ever in North America. Oh right, North America is the only place that exists in the world. I forgot. I thought the title smelled funny. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tanukitsune Posted December 5, 2004 In Spain if you preorder the game and pay about 6€ extra (yes, you heard me, EXTRA), you get a beta CD... I'd preorder and go for it, but I wan't the CE edition and I think you can only preorder the normal one... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Roderick Posted December 6, 2004 That said we have a LOT of best-selling games this year. It is just baffling how much quality and quantity there is in just these few months. If only there were less sequelitis. And if only the games were spread out more accross the year, so I could play more than 2% of them. The bright side being that as soon as you get around to playing the other 98%, they'll be ultra-cheap. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kester Posted December 6, 2004 ThunderPeel2001: It's the fastest selling PC game ever. I'm sure it didn't touch San Andreas. Still, it just shows how geeky us PC gamers actually are netmonkey: It's the fastest-selling PC game ever in North America. Oh right, North America is the only place that exists in the world. I forgot. I thought the title smelled funny. Bah, pedants! And I imagine N. America is probably a fairly good yardstick for the rest of the world as far as game-buying habits go. Apart from Korea, because everyone knows the country is crazy and will buy 10 copies of any Blizzard product for every citizen. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Metalmickey Posted December 9, 2004 Apart from Korea, because everyone knows the country is crazy and will buy 10 copies of any Blizzard product for every citizen. ...and not only that, but at least 3 copies of each of the 7 Korean-only clones that come out. I once had the pleasure of language testing a Starcraft clone by the name of Atrox, fresh out of Korea. I literally had to change 1/3 of the words in the entire 30 page manual! They hadn't even run it through a basic spell-checker. Some of the stuff was so confusing it was hilarious. Well, if you like that sort of thing anyway Random unedited gem: Hamelt: "But we cannot help it. If the location of our battle force is uncovered, the history of human race will be completely obliterated by the enemy. Sacrifice always subsists. I believe that the time has come to protect our selves with our own strength. The human willpower became awfully deteriorated because we always relied upon the power of machines. I truly think that just proving the human willpower to human race is worth fighting for." Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dalixam Posted December 9, 2004 In Spain if you preorder the game and pay about 6€ extra (yes, you heard me, EXTRA), you get a beta CD...I'd preorder and go for it, but I wan't the CE edition and I think you can only preorder the normal one... Those extra money is refunded once the game is released here in Europe, so you'll end up having got the Final Beta key and soundtrack cd for free. (That's how it works here in Denmark at least and I haven't heard of it being any different in other European countries.) Also, yes, you can pre-order the CE edition and get the beta key. However, it might be too late. The CE is gone everywhere in every country I know of, they've only made a limited number of these and they are sold out everywhere. I didn't pre-order early enough so there were none left and I had to "settle" for the normal edition. I can almost gurantee you there will be no CEs in stores once the game goes retail in January/February - unless Spanish retailers has some kind of exclusive deal with Blizzard to get a sh*tload of extra CEs. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tanukitsune Posted December 9, 2004 Those extra money is refunded once the game is released here in Europe, so you'll end up having got the Final Beta key and soundtrack cd for free. (That's how it works here in Denmark at least and I haven't heard of it being any different in other European countries.)Also, yes, you can pre-order the CE edition and get the beta key. However, it might be too late. The CE is gone everywhere in every country I know of, they've only made a limited number of these and they are sold out everywhere. I didn't pre-order early enough so there were none left and I had to "settle" for the normal edition. I can almost gurantee you there will be no CEs in stores once the game goes retail in January/February - unless Spanish retailers has some kind of exclusive deal with Blizzard to get a sh*tload of extra CEs. I think Spain never got any CEs in the first place, it's not that I find it out of stock in any stores, I just don't find it at all... EDIT: It seems NOBODY in Europe is getting the CE... Great, it's not even out and it's already rarer than ID Anthology... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dalixam Posted December 9, 2004 EDIT: It seems NOBODY in Europe is getting the CE... A lot of people are getting them - those who pre-ordered fast enough. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tanukitsune Posted December 9, 2004 A lot of people are getting them - those who pre-ordered fast enough. How on Earth did they do it? No store, retail or online, seems to have it for pre-order! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Nick Posted December 9, 2004 How on Earth did they do it?No store, retail or online, seems to have it for pre-order! You're wrong, it was just hard to find. I think some other countries versions where not translated so some people got it that way as well. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tanukitsune Posted December 9, 2004 You're wrong, it was just hard to find.I think some other countries versions where not translated so some people got it that way as well. No, it was never availible in the first place! Even if the game is out of stock before the game is out it should still appear in at least ONE online European store, none of the stores I visited had it... Think is extremely irregular, how can it be you can easily find Wardraft III CE and not WoW CE? This is ridicilous, Collector's Editions are not THAT rare, what on Earth happened to supply and demand? If lots of people want WoW CE, they should have a chance to get it! I'm quite good at finding rare games, and yet I can't even find proof that the European WoW CE will exist at all! If it is limited and availible at launch, then why can't I pre-order it? If was availible for a limited time I should have found some proof by now... This doesn't make sense! If 50.000 people are willing to buy WoW CE then why release 50 copies? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Metalmickey Posted December 9, 2004 A bunch of us at Babel pre-ordered our collector's editions from gameplay.co.uk They had a special section specifically for WoW game and figurine orders that used to be at: http://shop.gameplay.co.uk/ext_shop/worldofwarcraft.asp?ref=WOW ...but which now just redirects you to their main site. They sold out of CEs within a few hours of us noticing the site though, and that was about a week ago now. Every half hour, the stock left indicator was changing: 'plenty left' -> 'some left' -> 'only a few left!' -> 'sold out - sorry'... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tanukitsune Posted December 9, 2004 A bunch of us at Babel pre-ordered our collector's editions from gameplay.co.uk They had a special section specifically for WoW game and figurine orders that used to be at:http://shop.gameplay.co.uk/ext_shop/worldofwarcraft.asp?ref=WOW ...but which now just redirects you to their main site. They sold out of CEs within a few hours of us noticing the site though, and that was about a week ago now. Every half hour, the stock left indicator was changing: 'plenty left' -> 'some left' -> 'only a few left!' -> 'sold out - sorry'... So only ONE store had a handfull of copies, for a few hours? This is pure malady!!! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dalixam Posted December 9, 2004 So only ONE store had a handfull of copies, for a few hours? This is pure malady!!! No, several stores had it, but they sold out fast. I ordered at a Danish online retailer who had the game for pre-order for like a month before the official date (November 26th). They had the CE too, but I kept thinking "I'll order it tomorrow", suddenly they were out of CEs I can only imagine it has been the same in other countries. I ordered right after because I feared they'd run out of beta keys too - which they did, but apperantly Blizzard will issue more of these. Why the CE is so limited is beyond me too. Here you can see a list of retailers having the pre-order deal in the partipating countries. Apperently it's something called CentroMAIL in Spain. Check them out, maybe they have some CEs left. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tanukitsune Posted December 9, 2004 No, several stores had it, but they sold out fast. I ordered at a Danish online retailer who had the game for pre-order for like a month before the official date (November 26th). They had the CE too, but I kept thinking "I'll order it tomorrow", suddenly they were out of CEs I can only imagine it has been the same in other countries. I ordered right after because I feared they'd run out of beta keys too - which they did, but apperantly Blizzard will issue more of these.Why the CE is so limited is beyond me too. Here you can see a list of retailers having the pre-order deal in the partipating countries. Apperently it's something called CentroMAIL in Spain. Check them out, maybe they have some CEs left. CentroMail only let's you pre-order the normal one.... Meh, since the CE is already gone for good, why bother to pre-order? I'll wait a little to see it they release some more copies... Frankly this is just unfair... When I heard about the European WoW beta is was closed, when I heard that the WoW CE was availible for pre-order it was out of stock.... This just doesn't make sense! Blizzard, wouldn't you rather make more CE and make more money? Argh, how could they release so little copies! EDIT: Hmm, the stores are closed, but I'll give them a call tomorrow, it's worth a shot... (crosses fingers) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
