Battle for Azeroth beats out past World of Warcraft expansions in day-one sales

Newsbrief: The latest expansion pack for Blizzard’s 14-year-old massively multiplayer online game World of Warcraft has set a series-wide record for the day-one sales.

Activision-Blizzard announced that the expansion Battle for Azeroth sold 3.4 million on August 14 to outsell all past World of Warcraft expansion launch days and, according to the company’s own internal records and estimates, put it in the running as one of the fastest selling PC titles to-date.

Priced at $49.99, the Battle for Azeroth expansion marks the seventh expansion to hit World of Warcraft since its original 2004 release, following behind 2016’s Legion. The expansion is also the first to hit following a major change to World of Warcraft’s content distribution structure.

That change, in effect as of July 2018, gives players access to World of Warcraft and all its expansions through Legion for free, so long as they maintain the monthly subscription fee required to play the game. Prior to that shift, players purchased access to expansions one through six through a one-time ‘Battle Chest’ purchase.