Blizzard’s World of Warcraft: Cataclysm expansion sold-through 3.3 million units during its initial 24 hour in the wild, the company revealed today.
The figure includes digital pre-sales and comes from “internal company records” and reports from “key distribution partners.”
Calling it a new “milestone,” Blizzard said the third expansion to its massively popular World of Warcraft online roleplaying game topped Wrath of the Lich King‘s November 2008 unit sales of over 2.8 million copies sold in 24 hours.
Wrath of the Lich King held its sales record against subsequent high-profile contenders like Modern Warfare 2 and Black Ops, though when you include day-one sales of those two games across all platforms, they easily surpass Cataclysm’s.
Cataclysm launched simultaneously in nine countries on December 7 and added Korea, regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau two days later. Blizzard said over 10,000 stores worldwide made the game available at midnight, and that some 15,000 players attended official launch events hosted by Blizzard and several of its retail partners around the globe.
The expansion’s 3.3 million unit 24-hour take topped StarCraft II’s 1.5 million in July.
GameStop senior vice president Bob McKenzie said both games’ sales made for “a record year for Blizzard” at GameStop.
Prior to Cataclysm’s launch, Blizzard claimed over 12 million active worldwide players, making it the biggest subscription-based MMO on the planet.
Stand by for the inevitable 13 (or 14, or 15) million subscription presser claims to splash across the news aggregators any day now.
Follow us on Twitter (@game_on)