500 fans of the World of Warcraft turned up at the midnight launch of its latest expansion Wrath of the Lich King in Dubai.
When World of Warcraft debuted, perhaps even Blizzard Entertainment, the makers of the game, did not have any idea how popular the title would become.
The latest expansion of the game, World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King was introduced in the UAE by Red Entertainment just after midnight on November 12. The launch took place at Geekay Games, Mall of the Emirates.
The pre-registration campaign that began on November 7 on Megamers.Com as well as all Geekay Games outlets in the UAE saw over 400 registrations online and 400 at the store, a total of approximately 800 registrations.
Of these, about 500 people turned up on November 12 with some camping outside the store from 7pm. The first customer to purchase the game was a young Emirati. Of all the customers, 63 per cent were over the age of 20 and 26 per cent were between 16 and 19.
The best thing about Lich King is that it gives Warcraft players more of what they love about the most popular online game. It picks up where The Burning Crusade left off and gives players the ability to do quests and explore dungeons in a new continent – Northrend.
The maximum level for players' characters has been raised from 70 to 80, and new dungeons have been opened for players at every point along the way.
Since debuting in North America on November 23, 2004, World of Warcraft has become the most popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) around the world. It was the bestselling PC game of 2005 and 2006 worldwide, and finished behind only World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, the first expansion pack for the game, in 2007.
In addition to being the bestselling PC game of 2007 in both North America and Europe, The Burning Crusade holds the record for fastest-selling PC game of all time, with nearly 2.4 million copies sold in its first 24 hours on the market and approximately 3.5 million in its first month.
World of Warcraft was recently launched in Russia and Latin America, and is currently available in eight languages. In addition to North America and Europe, the game is played in mainland China, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Chile, Argentina, and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau.
- For more information on World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, and Wrath of the Lich King, visit the official website at www.wow-europe.com.
