When Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty was released, analysts were bullish with their estimates, with projections of as many as 7 million copies this year. Blizzard is making headway towards these figures, as the publisher today announced one-month sales of 3 million copies.
Starcraft II sold 1 million copies on July 27 when it hit stores across the world and a further 500,000 copies on day two, making it the fastest-selling real-time strategy game of all time, according to Blizzard. While these numbers don't come close to matching those generated by World of Warcraft--Wrath of the Lich King sold 2.8 million copies in its first day--Blizzard's CEO Mike Morhaime today declared himself pleased by "how strongly the global community has already embraced [Starcraft II]."
Colin Sebastian of Lazard Capital Markets, who made the 7 million sales estimate, said today that the one-month figures show that "sales were not as front-loaded as some had expected" and that Starcraft II's numbers "are tracking slightly ahead of our 4 million estimate for [the July-September quarter]." These estimates include some monetization of sales in South Korea, one of the major markets for the game, which Sebastian said had not yet had an impact on sales figures because of an extended free trial period for gamers in the Asian nation.
After officially announcing the title in South Korea at the2007 Worldwide Invitational in Seoul, Blizzard confirmed in 2008 that the game would come in three parts. Wings of Liberty, the first in the trifecta, was initially due out in 2009 but was delayed just before the holiday season. While Wings of Liberty focussed on the Terran race, the other two parts--Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void--focus on the Zerg and Protoss, respectively. Neither of the other two parts--which are technically expansions--have a release date yet.
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