Blizzard announced their Sales Figures today, and all of the major media organizations (IGN, Joystiq, Gamepro, etc. etc.) are reporting that Cataclysm sold 3.3 million copies within the first 24 hours.

In actual fact, all of that information is completely false. It's like they just read the Subject Header without actually reading any of the factual information.

Blizzard sold a "record 3.3 million copies sold through as of its first 24 hours of release*". There was even a asterisk pointing to a small little caption at the bottom of their announcement, but no one seems to be paying attention. =]

Normally, Pre-Sales are included in industry announcements - but the new Digital Download process makes this a very different case. It's like heavily hyping a game, pushing it's "first" release date, allowing players to buy the game and install it on their PC, then have a "second" release date but say all of the sales were actually made on the "second release date". Most if not all other developers can't do this, making this a special case.

That 3.3 million sales figure was based on ALL sales over the past several months and included Pre-Order Sales and Digital Downloads (which went live Nov. 3, 2010). Blizzard is a master in the communication arena and it's like what I've always been saying - it's all about wording. Sales during the first 24 hours were probably significantly less than 2.5 million, but there's no way to tell since Blizzard opened up Digital Downloads during the same quarter as the release. Very sneaky.

Jay Allen Brack originally stated, "We expect the Cataclysm sales to exceed the levels of the previous versions, but we do not have an exact target." So that new announcement needed to be worded in such a way that it didn't make him look bad. I'm really disappointed with the lack of transparency.

But it gets even more sneaky..

1. Let's ignore all of Digital Downloads (over one month prior to retail launch day) for a moment.

Blizzard didn't actually count sales during the first 24 hours of Dec. 7th. In fact, they included sales from Dec. 7th, Dec. 8th, and Dec. 9th. Dec. 10th was the actual "ending date" of the 24 hours sales period. =]

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm was simultaneously released in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Europe, Russia, Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand on December 7, and became available in Korea and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau on December 9.

Cataclysm became available in Korea and parts of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau on December 9th. So, they counted the 24 hour sales period from geographies that contained the smallest number of sales but added in 3 WHOLE DAYS OF SALES from their largest subscriber based geographies. Nice.

That's a HUGE amount considering the daily trends of average game sales. For example: 5M sales opening day, 3M sales next day, 1.5M next day, 750k next day, etc. If Cataclysm sales were based on previous Expansion Pack sales (and there was never a Digital Download), that 3.3 million number was actually calculated over a 3 day period, and it would have ACTUALLY been closer to 2 million on the first day, 1 million the second day, 300-500k on the third day, and so on.

2. Blizzard stated that Cataclysm sales made "it the fastest-selling PC game of all time.*". However, that statement also had a little caption attached. It was, in fact, the "fastest-selling PC game" based on Blizzard's internal lineup of games and the use of special calculations from their own "internal company records". Meaning that they included 2 months of sales, but are classifying it as "sales in 24 hours".

3. They also called it a "PC game", but Cataclysm is not a stand-alone video game. It's an expansion pack (it could even be classified as a large patch or DLC) with a much cheaper pricing model than a real PC game purchase. I don't know if you could even classify the retail DVD as a large patch.. it's just the 4.0 update which players can (and already have) download for free. Really, if you get technical, you're just paying for a code to "unlock" new stuff for your account.

Sales did not actually "shatter" anything and if you've been reading earlier posts you'll know that 3.3 million sales over a 2 month period are not good at all. It also looks like this little prediction came true. =]

This time it's leaked video footage of the work-in-progress Starcraft 2 Heart of the Swarm ending CGI.

Here's a link to see the video yourself. Keep in mind, it contains big spoilers. =]

(NEW LINK HERE - they're being pulled down all over the place.)

It might have been an alternative ending to Wings of Liberty, but based on Activision Blizzard's flurry of recent take down notices - it probably is indeed the ending to Heart of the Swarm.

(Update: Confirmed to be a legitimate leak.)

What's on the video (SPOILERS):

Kerrigan either turns back into the Zerg hybrid, or she's a clone created by Mengsk so that he could take control of the Zerg armies for himself.

It appears that up until now, the Zerg have always been controlled by some nefarious overmind. In this case, Arcturus Mengsk has been working with Kerrigan (or a clone) for some time and possibly controlling her. So the Zerg's actions (in WoL or HotS) were all the result of Mengsk's decisions. He has a lab full of Kerrigan (human) clones with PSI abilities that can reach out to Zerg/Kerrigan to hurt and possibly control her.

Mengsk calls her his greatest failure, and then she and Raynor kill Mengsk. The Zerg/Kerrigan also appears to be super-PSI powered as well. =]

Basically, the Zerg are finally free from all control and can now decide their own destiny. In the end, Raynor asks "What now?" Kerrigan responds with, "I keep my end of the bargain, and leave humanity to it's fate. The Zerg are free now.. slaves to no one, not even me. So whether they be the bringers of light or destroyers of worlds, I'll help them find the answer out there amongst the stars."

So yeah.. Cataclysm is out tonight.

For the past couple weeks, there's been a lot of hype about the game and all the "amazing new changes" to starter leveling zones.

It's funny listening to all of the forum comments. For example, "Wow! There are so many AWESOME changes in the Undead starter area.. this is my first time starting an Undead character, but I can tell that they made a lot of changes! This is great!"

I even noticed that some people were complimenting the massive changes made to the Blood Elf & Draenei zones. /sigh

Based on the amount of time spent working on Cataclysm and all of the features removed, I think people should stop sucking Blizzard's dick for a moment and be a little more critical. Now that I've personally had a chance to see all of the changes done to Azeroth, I have to say that I'm a little disappointed.

Sure, there are some cool areas and some fun new quests but for the most part nothing has changed at all. All of the zones are the exact same, but with new NPCs, grass, trees and textures sprinkled in. I still remember the excitement built up when Cataclysm was first announced. Blizzard promised that the "world would be devoured by rage", "Azeroth would be shook to it's foundations", "the lands torn asunder", "Azeroth re-forged", "classic zones forever changed by the cataclysm", and that the "face of Azeroth will be changed forever by the awakening of Deathwing."

What happened, Blizzard?



I was expecting some pretty exciting and massive changes, but it looks like all of the best parts (ie, the biggest visual changes) were already displayed in the Cataclysm teaser video. It still funny to watch though.. I think everyone was more excited about flying mounts in the Old World then anything else.

Cataclysm File Size

The Cataclysm game isn't as big as some people are expecting. For the most part, you already had Cataclysm installed with those 4.0.1-4.0.3a patches. =]

The Cataclysm retail DVD mostly contains old files and patch data to make sure your version is most up-to-date... to 4.0.0 that is. If you install Cataclysm from the Retail DVD, it will in fact downgrade your entire install to 4.0.0 and you'll have to go through all of the updates from scratch again. There's going to be a lot of pissed off players when they realize this.

Here's a faster way if you purchased the retail copy. You can actually do this too without purchasing Cataclysm, but you'll still need the upgraded key to play Cataclysm.

With your existing 4.0.3a patch, it's also possible to upgrade your game client to the Cataclysm retail with about 327MB of data and even then, some of that data is just replacement information too. The new Cataclysm Digital Download [expansion3.MPQ (632.3MB), expansion3-speech-enUS.MPQ (55.5MB), expansion3-locale-enUS.MPQ (1.0MB)] is a little less than 700MB size, but it contains a lot of replacement information that's about as superfluous as a third nipple.

All of the Cataclysm data files amount to about 1/4 the size of WOTLK, but it should increase as Blizzard Blizzard applies for fixes, patches, and content updates to Cataclysm over the next several months.

Cataclysm Sales Predictions

Surprisingly, there really haven't been a lot of predictions made for Cataclysm.. possibly because they learned their lesson from the last expansion pack (overestimates.) Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia predicts that Cataclysm will sell between 3.5 and 4 million copies in their first month of sales. Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter predicted instead that Cataclysm will sell over 6 million copies in December (and 6 million for SC2).

For the sake of comparison, WOTLK sold 2.8 million copies in it's first 24 hours and TBC sold 2.4 million copies.

Even Blizzard themselves made a prediction, which I haven't seen in a really long time! Jay Allen Brack said, "We expect the Cataclysm sales to exceed the levels of the previous versions, but we do not have an exact target."

Very interesting indeed, but it shouldn't surprise me since Blizzard really went ALL OUT for this expansion pack and are trying to push as much revenue as possible this time around.

So, what exactly has Blizzard done?

This year, Blizzard has done quite a number of things to push sales of their new expansion pack while also driving revenue for the quarter across the board. It's quite a big deal too.. maybe they're trying to prove something to their investors. =]

- Cataclysm was designed from the ground up for intro-level players, and is a way for new players to join without fear of too many high-leveled or experienced players. It's sort of a "reset" to bring everyone back to the same level ground. It also encourages veteran players to invite more friends since they will be creating new characters (possibly on new servers too.)
- Cataclysm was also designed to bring back old players who miss the "good ol' days" and want Classic realms to make a return.
- Introduced the new Digital Download system for Cataclysm.
- Paid Faction and Race Changes available on the FIRST DAY for the new race/class combinations.
- New [Moonkin Hatchling] and [Lil Ragnaros] pet sales "for charity".
- Special Christmas (limited time) offers: Blizzard lowered the cost of WoW to $5, TBC to $5 and WOTLK to $10.
- Heavy media and email campaigns to bring back players, friends, and family members.
- Offering 7 days of free game time to all non-active players (right up to the day before Cata - Note: the expiration date was actually extended). These game offers actually concern me sometimes.. whenever Age of Conan, SWG or another failed MMORPG tried to get players to "Come Back!" it just came off as a sign of desperation.
- New forum system - completely cleaned house and made it easier to remove negative comments and old critical posts, while also further crippling search capabilities.
- The new Blizzard Digital Sales system will now obscure true sales numbers (since retails sales are tracked by NPD) and Blizzard is under no requirement to release sales figures to the public. They can pretty much announce anything they want - e.g. "biggest sales yet!" without actual figures or breakdown of Cataclysm vs previous expansions.
- And of course, the game was released right before Christmas during the largest sales period of the year.

All of these activities were planned for years in advance and deployed simultaneously to drive revenue as high as possible for the quarter. It will be very interesting the see the results. Their MMO revenue for this quarter should be at minimum in the $600 million mark based on analyst's predictions. (WoW currently makes about $270-300 million per quarter on average by the way.)