Blizzard claims WoW: Cataclysm to be the fastest selling PC game of all time

Blizzard has declared World of Warcraft: Cataclysm to be the fastest selling PC game of all time. According to the company's internal data, the newly released expansion for its monolithic MMO sold 3.2 million copies within the first 24 hours of its release on December 7th. This achievement dwarfs the former record of 2.8 million copies set by Blizzard's previous World of Warcraft expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, released in November 2008.

"We had to bring Azeroth to the brink of destruction in Cataclysm, but the result was our best expansion yet," said Blizzard's CEO Mike Morhaimein thecompany's official announcement.

"We want to thank all of our new, existing, and returning players throughout the world for their incredible enthusiasm and support, and we look forward to hearing what they think about all the new content."

Cataclysm's launch was a global affair, with over 10,000 stores across the world participating in midnight launches and over 15,000 players taking part in launch parties across North America, the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and Russia, Sweden, Spain, France and the region of Taiwan.

Inan addendum to today's news release, Blizzard also issued a call forfuture employeesneeded to, “keep pace with the continued growth of World of Warcraft," as well as work onfuture Blizzard Entertainment titles. Requirements may or may not include washing Morhaime's car on an hourly basis, but there are worse ways of breaking to the industry.

Dec 13, 2010

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Matt Bradford wrote news and features here at GamesRadar+ until 2016. Since then he's gone on to work with the Guinness World Records, acting as writer and researcher for the annual Gamer's Edition series of books, and has worked as an editor, technical writer, and voice actor. Matt is now a freelance journalist and editor, generating copy across a multitude of industries.