Do you think D3 can hit the highest sold pc game ever? Or is it not even going to make a dent?
It feels like the fanbase is as big as its ever been and i think it will ATLEAST beat out D1 and D2 sales by a longshot.

Highest sold pc games ever

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Q u o t e:
* The Sims (16 million shipped)[143]
* The Sims 2 (13 million)[144]
o The Sims 2: Pets [expansion pack] (5.6 million)[145]
o The Sims 2: Seasons [expansion pack] (1 million)[145]
* World of Warcraft (11.5 million subscribers)[146]
o World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade [expansion pack] (3.5 million)[147]
o World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King [expansion pack] (4 million)[146]
* StarCraft (11 million)[148]
* Half-Life (9.3 million,[21][22] may include PS2 version)
o Half-Life: Opposing Force [expansion pack] (1.1 million)[21][22]
* Half-Life 2 (6.5 million,[21][22] may include Xbox version but does not include Steam sales)
* Guild Wars (6 million in North America, Europe, and Asia; includes Factions, Nightfall, and Eye of the North)[149]
* Myst (6 million)[150]
* Counter-Strike (4.2 million,[21][22])
* Cossacks: European Wars (4 million)[151]

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source wikiepedia

I know that comparing one number to another seems to be a good idea for how to gauge popularity or success of something, but statistics can be shaped and formed to fit any outcome desired. It sometimes takes a lot of research and information to find an actual common ground to compare one number to another.

A lot of these lists do their best to post numbers released by the different companies, but if you look at what the numbers are actually saying you couldn't accurately compare all of them.

In our case not every region that plays World of Warcraft purchases a boxed product, so that coupled with the nature of the game, possibly the "best" number for us to gauge worldwide popularity is through active subscription numbers. For every release we also include a piece of text that explains exactly what we count as an active subscriber, and it's a very logical, no-pulled-punches way of describing them.

To take that number of subscribers though and compare it to total boxes sold of other games would be inaccurate. These types of lists just don't wholly exist with an actual baseline to compare them accurately, and that's not the list maker's fault, it's just the nature of business to release a statistic that is favorable to your product.

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Q u o t e:
o World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade [expansion pack] (3.5 million)[147]
o World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King [expansion pack] (4 million)[146]


Hmmm... that makes no sense. How could more people by Wotlk then BC when Wotlk needs BC?

Unless these are comparing very different stats like overall and first day/week etc...

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Exactly. Because those stats are copies sold within X amount of time, not total copies sold ever. See how these numbers can't be compared? They're pulled from press releases and laid out side-by-side with no logical way to compare them, except that they exist.