Launch of World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft went on sale in North America and Australia on November 23, 2004, and sold more copies in its first day than any PC game before it, by Blizzard's count. Demand was far larger than the company had planned for: realms filled on the first day, players waited in login queues, and stores ran out of boxes. Within a year the game had more than four million paying players worldwide.

Launch day

According to Blizzard's press release of December 1, 2004, more than 240,000 copies sold through North American stores on launch day, which Blizzard called the biggest first 24 hours for any PC game up to that point. Players created more than 200,000 accounts on the first day, and more than 100,000 were online at the same time by 5:00 p.m. Pacific time.

The game launched with more than 40 realms (servers), and every one of them reached capacity within the first day. Hundreds of Wal-Mart, Best Buy, EB Games and GameStop stores sold out the same day. By the end of the Thanksgiving weekend, Blizzard had added more than 40 more realms and sales had passed 350,000 copies.

Queues and server trouble

The extra realms were not enough. Players reported overcrowded zones and login queues of up to two hours, and Blizzard said it was weighing whether it could ship more copies to stores at all. Years later, at the 2012 DICE summit, co-founder Frank Pearce said Blizzard had "grossly underestimated" demand, and that the company stopped shipping boxes to retailers while it improved its server technology.

The worst stretch came in January 2005. Around the Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend, as many as 20 of the game's 88 realms went down, and Blizzard capped the population on struggling realms to keep them stable, which made queues longer. Blizzard president Mike Morhaime posted a public apology on January 21, 2005. He acknowledged extended downtime at peak hours and emergency maintenance on 20 realms, and Blizzard credited players on those realms with free play time: three days for the earlier problems plus another four days.

At the time, Blizzard had no service for moving a character from a crowded realm to a quieter one.

Going worldwide

The game launched in other regions over the following months:

In China the limited open beta drew 100,000 applications in the first hour after sign-ups opened on February 28, 2005.

Growth

Blizzard announced on March 17, 2005 that the game had passed 1.5 million subscribers worldwide, with more than 500,000 players online at peak. On August 29, 2005 it announced more than one million paying customers in North America and more than four million worldwide, before the game's first anniversary.

World of Warcraft was the best-selling PC game of both 2005 and 2006. On January 22, 2008 Blizzard reported more than 10 million subscribers, and the game peaked at 12 million in October 2010.

The game kept growing while it was still being patched heavily. In its first year it gained the Honor System, battlegrounds and new raids, and in September 2005 the Corrupted Blood Incident showed how quickly a bug could spread through a world this crowded.

Sources

• World of Warcraft Shatters Sales Records, GameBanshee (Blizzard press release, December 1, 2004)
• World of Warcraft wows retailers, GameSpot
• Blizzard admits to "grossly underestimating" demand for World of Warcraft in 2004, Engadget, February 12, 2012
• World of Warcraft wracked by problems, GameSpot
• Blizzard President Sends World of Warcraft Players an Apology, Worthplaying, January 21, 2005
• World of Warcraft Hits 1.5 Million Subscribers, GameBanshee (Blizzard press release, March 17, 2005)
• World of Warcraft Hits Four Million Subscribers, GameBanshee (Blizzard press release, August 29, 2005)
• World of Warcraft, Wikipedia