Enough smack talking. Make your sales prediction here.

[Sjofn]

He needs to talk less.

I've thought this since the very first time he opened his mouth.

[Triforcer]

Paul Barnett is an idiot, but I can't believe that he would have said those numbers without SOME idea from the internal metrics of preorders and such what things were projected to be.  3 mil is a bit high, but stably above 1 is realistic. 

[apocrypha]

I reckon it's going to sell very well in the first month - 1.6 million or so. There's enough of an ex-WoW sub, current-but-bored-WoW sub and Warhammer tabletop base (although that group is likely to have a high WoW-sub proportion anyway) to give them a good kick-start and an bit infusion of cash.

I reckon they'll keep 1/3 of box sales past the first month, so say 500k. Then WOTLK will hit and those numbers will drop to about 200k and stay there. What happens after that will depend, IMO, entirely on how the early months of live go in terms of patching, fixing, addressing issues and community management. Which are, unfortunately, things that I remember being done really badly by Mythic/GOA in the past :(  I really hope they do better, I'd love to see those 3m sales and 1m stable subs, but I think it's unlikely. Just my opinion though.

Copypasta summary:

1.6 million box sales, 500k subs in first couple of months, dropping to 200k by 2009.

[schild]

1.6 million box sales, 500k subs in first couple of months, dropping to 200k by 2009.

This sort of math always seems wonky to me. There's no way to gauge how much people will fall into the community zone with their guilds. It's a lot safer to say 750k-1M subs in 2009.

[amiable]

I think folk are really overestimating the allure of WOTLK.  The third expansion of any game is going to have a "been there-done that" feel to it.  I'm not saying there won't be folks who will leave for WOTLK, I just don't think you are going to see en mass movement,  (Especially since I hear rumors that Blizzard is releasing the game uncharacteristically early, and it it lacks polish, especially for a Blizzard title).

[Tarami]

I think folk are really overestimating the allure of WOTLK.  The third expansion of any game is going to have a "been there-done that" feel to it.  I'm not saying there won't be folks who will leave for WOTLK, I just don't think you are going to see en mass movement,  (Especially since I hear rumors that Blizzard is releasing the game uncharacteristically early, and it it lacks polish, especially for a Blizzard title).

Agreed, actually. The first expansion that comes around holds promises of "fixing" all that people didn't like with the vanilla game. The hopes may not be well-founded or anything, but that's hope for you. With the second expansion the standard is set and people subconsiously know it won't really change from the game that's there today. I'm personally finding WotLK lacklustre due to that reason - that I know it won't really change WoW in a way I'd like to see, just as little as tBC did in the end.

[Mrbloodworth]

He needs to talk less.