Also take into consideration that half of the subscribers outside Asia are in europe, paying in Euro which is more $ due to the exchange rate.
Add the extra services like server transfers, character redesign, and the client sales (which is still in th etop 10) then you know that Blizz makes more than a Billion US$ per year just with WoW. Subtract costs from that (development, hosting, bandwidth, admin, development of the other games) and you come to the figure mentioned.
No, 5 million in US alone? There are "only" 2.5 Million WoW players in USA, a little more than 2 Million in Europe. The rest is in China or other countries.
"Bliz will make millions" is a little bit wrong. First the sales of the package alone isn't counted into profit as the money is being spend in marketing, paying the bandwidth of the first 4 weeks (which are free usually) and support.
The money of the retail box usually stays with the distributor Vivendi (or Activision)
You wrote that this isn't a levelling spec. I am Disc as well and levelling in the beta easily so far. No worries, you won't need to spec shadow to level. With Powerword Shield and the reflected damage you can tank quite a few mobs :)
I am using this device right now and it works flawlesslay. The only worry I have: most accounts are hacked by asian hackers and on the back of the device it says "Made in China" :p
I wonder. WoW can be played in Russia on their servers since years. I was in internet cafes in Moscow and Kiew and they had WoW there to play, on their "own" servers for free.
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Jan 31st 2009 1:13AM (WoW)Add the extra services like server transfers, character redesign, and the client sales (which is still in th etop 10) then you know that Blizz makes more than a Billion US$ per year just with WoW. Subtract costs from that (development, hosting, bandwidth, admin, development of the other games) and you come to the figure mentioned.
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Jan 21st 2009 7:20AM (Engadget)Analyst: Wrath will sell five million copies
Nov 8th 2008 9:28AM (WoW)"Bliz will make millions" is a little bit wrong. First the sales of the package alone isn't counted into profit as the money is being spend in marketing, paying the bandwidth of the first 4 weeks (which are free usually) and support.
The money of the retail box usually stays with the distributor Vivendi (or Activision)
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