Lessons In Success

From a post by Elysium on one of my favorite boards, Gamers with Jobs:

If you want a sense of how big World of Warcraft is consider that The Burning Crusade expansion sold nearly 2.4 million copies within the first 24 hours at retail. A big number to be sure, but not only did that 2.4 million break the single day PC gaming record for sales, it broke the PC record for sales for an entire month. Let me say that again, The Burning Crusade sold more copies in 24 hours than any PC game had ever sold in entire month. That's how big a deal this game is.

Yesterday Blizzard piled on a few more largely deserved heapings of self-praise, pointing out that the expansion has gone on to sell roughly 3.5 million copies in its first month, expanding the total player base for the game to a staggering 8.5 million worldwide, it is worth thinking a bit about what makes the game arguably the most successful title in PC gaming history. It's the question every developer in the business is asking themselves: what makes World of Warcraft so great?

Read on for the rest of the article, Lessons In Success.