Deathwing welcomes you to "World of Warcraft: Cataclysm." (Courtesy Blizzard Entertainment)

“World of Warcraft” has been around a while now but the game has serious legs. Tom Magrino over at GameSpot wrote about last week’s launch of the newest expansion, called “World of Warcraft: Cataclysm.” Within 24 hours, the expansion sold 3.3 million copies, outstripping the success of the previous two expansion packs, which sold 2.4 and 2.8 million copies within 24 hours.

The numbers are impressive, and it propels “Cataclysm” to a new sales record for video games. But to achieve those sales, Blizzard released the game simultaneously in the United States, Australia, Europe, Chile, Mexico, Canada, Argentina, Russia, Southeast Asia and New Zealand, according to Technolog’s Winda Benedetti. That’s a massive effort and it yielded equally massive results. Magrino said around 12 million people play the game and more than a quarter of them bought the expansion within a day of its release.

“Cataclysm” introduces two new races of characters, the Goblins and the Worgen, according to Magrino. Blizzard said that a dragon called Deathwing changed Azeroth, the world in which the game is set, and made it possible for characters to reach level 85.

It’s impressive to me that the game is still as popular as it is. And expansions like this keep the game fresh for many people, which means that Blizzard will keep the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) franchise going, at least for another year or two. Magrino said that an alleged leaked schedule shows that Blizzard will release another expansion pack for the venerable MMORPG in 2012. Though there’s no proof that the schedule is real, I can’t imagine why Blizzard would hesitate to develop yet another expansion pack, if company executives think it’ll sell.

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