World of WarCraft Cataclysm hits 4.7M in first month

World of WarCraft Cataclysm had stellar sales in its first month, topping 4.7 million units sold for the expansion to what was already the world’s most lucrative online game.

It’s further proof that video game launches have become like premieres of Hollywood blockbusters, both in the dollars consumer spend and the time they devote to the product. Cataclysm sold well even though Call of Duty Black Ops was selling at the same time and raking in $1 billion in a month. At $40 apiece, the expansion generated an estimated $188 million in retail sales in its first month. Try to find a movie that has done that — and that keeps paying off an annuity to its creators — and you won’t find many.

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Blizzard Entertainment, publisher of the game and a division of Activision Blizzard, launched the game on a larger scale this time, simultaneously releasing the game in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Europe, Russia, Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand on Dec. 7. It followed up with releases in Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau on Dec. 9.

On the first day, Cataclysm’s sales topped 3.3 million sold. By comparison,World of WarCraft’s previous expansion pack Wrath of the Lich King sold 2.8 million units on its first day in 2008 and The Burning Crusade sold 2.4 million units on its first day in 2007.

The growing popularity of World of WarCraft is all the more amazing because it still charges a subscription fee of $15 a month in most regions. At the same time, a sea of free-to-play games have grown up around it. Those games offer free play and then let users pay real money for virtual goods. Many games, such as Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online, have attempted to turn around their sliding subscription revenue by shifting to free-to-play.

Blizzard managed to stoke demand with a huge makeover, which took the form of a cataclysmic disaster which tore the older World of WarCraft landscape apart under the auspices of the arrival of the dragon god Deathwing. Blizzard also introduced thousands of new quests, new lands, and new races to play, said Mike Morhaime, chief executive of Blizzard.

Prior to the launch of Cataclysm, World of WarCraft’s subscriber base was 12 million global players. At $15 a month, those players generate more than $1 billion a year in revenue. That doesn’t come for free: The company puts hundreds of developers to work on the game. But it can easily afford the expense for a media property that keeps on giving.