WoW:BC sales forecast rises with strong adoption rate

Forecasts for World of Warcraft’s expansion, The Burning Crusade, increased by 269,600 copies (+4.02%) yesterday following news that the highly anticipated expansion has “sold approximately 3.5 million copies” and “established the new one-month record for PC-game sales.” The game has been released in North America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia. Sales are likely to leap once the expansion is released in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau. Trading on the simExchange is currently forecasting the game will sell 7.00 million copies globally (700 DKP share price).

Blizzard had announced on January 11, 2007 that its World of Warcraft active subscribers had reached 8 million globally with strong growth coming from the game’s introduction in China. China alone accounts for 3.5 million subscribers. Yesterday, Blizzard announced that World of Warcraft has acquired an additional 500,000 players, for a total of 8.5 million subscribers.

Due to the expansion’s unavailability in Chinese speaking markets, number one ranked trader Zukaus notes that there are “only 5 million available buyers” for The Burning Crusade, which translates into “an amazing 70% of available buyers have already purchased [Burning Crusade] within two months of its release.” Zukaus calculates that 2.45 million copies could be sold to existing Chinese subscribers if the Chinese market carries the same 70% adoption rate.

Other players discussed how much higher the adoption rate may increase, weighing factors that new players likely did not buy The Burning Crusade yet as they cannot make use of many of the features beyond level 60. Joe80 speculates that 500,000 of the 2.5 million subscribers who picked up World of Warcraft since March 2006 “have no reason to buy Burning Crusade for a while." This sentiment had pressured shares of WoW: BC for several months as traders wondered how many players would buy the expansion knowing they could not make use of much of the new content.

Shares of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade (PC) were trading up 2.11 DKP (+0.30%) to 700.00 DKP in this afternoon’s trading.