The Old Republic rocks past 2 million, Blizzard in denial

We spent a while thinking about jokes relating to Blizzard moving to Egypt (cos they're living in denial), but we'll probably just stick with the facts-jack. When you choose to let the spirit slip away, once and for all, in Warcraft – something kind of interesting happens. KitGuru pulls out PhoneCam at crucial moment when warrior commits suicide.

Nothing lasts forever. If you're not sure, ask Microsoft how its monopoly on operating systems is going. Blizzard's World of Warcraft not only brought Dungeons and Dragons action to the masses, it made it cool enough to get its own, high-quality TV programming. At the peak of its popularity, Warcraft was attracting subscribers by the million. Now, as recently reported on KitGuru, it is losing members on a similar scale.

At the same time EA, Bioware and Lucasarts have managed to pull off a great launch with Star Wars: The Old Republic (SW:TOR)  – with some very impressive sales figures.

How impressive?  Well it past the 1 million mark in less than 3 days. Before the end of December, SW:TOR members had already clocked up 60 million man-hours of game time, completed over 260 million quests and vanquished over 3 billion enemies. Yep, we can certainly feel the force.

At the start of February, we can report that sales of SW:TOR have now passed the 2 million mark.

OK, you get it. Warcraft is on life support and SW:TOR is learning to walk – so why the headline?  Simple. When you end your Blizzard subscription, the Warcraft creators want to know what you are falling on your sword for the last time. It presents a menu of ‘places you might go next' so it can track the market. Notice anything missing from the form?

KitGuru says: If Blizzard's aim is to achieve a phantastique state of extreme denial, then it might be on to a winner. However, if the WoW powers that be want to know how much and how badly they are losing ground to SW:TOR, then a different research option is needed.

Comments below or in the KitGuru forum.

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