WoW Classic’s launch last month seemed to go pretty well, with players returning to vanilla Azeroth in their droves (and causing some pretty gnarly login queues in the process). According to Superdata, many of those returning were lapsed subscribers, leading to a significant spike in subscription revenue as they headed back to the game.
Superdata’s latest report suggests that subscription revenue from the game rose by “an estimated 223% in August compared to July.” That was enough to send the game flying up the analyst’s PC earnings chart, coming in at third place behind Dungeon Fighter Online and League of Legends. World of Warcraft was the seventh top-grossing game in July.
Despite WoW Classic’s success, however, it hasn’t topped the all-time World of Warcraft charts – Superdata reports that total revenue in August was still lower than what Blizzard earned this time last year, with the release of current expansion Battle for Azeroth. Given some of the skepticism surrounding WoW Classic ahead of its launch, however, I imagine Blizzard is pretty pleased with those results.
WoW Classic’s success has, of course, been felt elsewhere. For one thing, Warcraft-related searches on Pornhub tripled in the hours and days after launch, as players found themselves with plenty of time to kill while those queues ticked down.
With WoW Classic’s new community apparently here to stay, it would seem that some of the community’s gripes regarding Battle for Azeroth have been forgotten. Now, it remains to be seen whether the game’s next major expansion will receive as warm as welcome.