Warcraft Fastest-Selling PC Game
Blizzard discovers a good kind of mess.
In the face of overwhelming demand for its recent Massively Multiplayer Online RPG World Of Warcraft, the company had to fire up another 40 servers to handle the crushing load of hundreds of thousands of gamers trying to establish themselves in Blizzard's game world at once.
The doubling of Blizzard's server capacity came just days after the North American release of World Of Warcraft.
More than 240,000 gamers bought the title on release day in North America, making World Of Warcraft the fastest-seller the PC game business has ever seen.
What's more, nearly all of the buyers went straight home to create accounts on the densely populated servers.
By the end of last week, World Of Warcraft had sold over 350,000 copies, which now places Blizzard in the enviable position of having to hold back shipments while it evaluates whether it can support more gamers right now.
The company's current plan is to ship more copies of the game to retailers as additional servers are rolled out, to ensure that everyone gets the best experience possible.
We will have to wait until early 2005 to see if this situation repeats itself at the European launch of the game.
Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo Games
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