World of Warcraft: Leigon Does Very Well

World of Warcraft has been bleeding subscribers. Realizing that dropping numbers can be an exponential problem in an MMORPG, where other players are the main draw, Blizzard did the reasonable thing and stopped talking about the number of players currently on their servers, all the way back in 2015. Having silenced themselves, we could only guess at the relative success of World of Warcraft, although we could safely assume that it was at least still earning money for Blizzard, even if it wasn't anything close to as dominating as it was back when it was still running 12 million folks per month.

Well, with the release of Legion, the latest expansion, Blizzard has once again found itself emboldened by its success, and in an excited, bragging fit, has recently broken its silence in order to brag about sales. Namely, it felt it necessary to share that the new expansion sold 3.3 million units in the first day of launch, meaning that we can safely assume the game has more players than that playing this month. This surge of players matches the growth seen after the release of other expansions.

Mike Morhaime, CEO and co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment, had this to say:

"It's been a thrill to see players hunting demons, powering up Artifacts, and freely exploring all the new zones in Legion. We worked hard to make this the best World of Warcraft expansion yet, and we look forward to providing players with even more content as Legion's epic story unfolds in the months ahead."

Good news? Sure, I suppose, but it's not really that surprising. World of Warcraft has always gotten a surge of interest after the release of an expansion, the problem was always keeping those players coming back in the coming months. Typically, these are mere explosions of popularity, wanting for momentum or sticking power, and we have yet to see if Legion will remedy this problem. I personally don't feel it will (Blizzard's created some pretty powerful competition for itself with Overwatch) but who knows? Maybe I'll be surprised.