Mists of Pandaria release date

So Mists of Pandaria finally got an official release date: September 25. That is actually faster than I thought, Blizzard usually needs until the end of the second year to release another expansion. Still, they aren't far off the 2-year cycle.

For the record, I do not believe in the usual release-date conspiracy nonsense. Whatever release date Blizzard would have chosen, some people would always have interpreted it as a conspiracy against Guild Wars 2. I think that Blizzard is well past the point of caring about the competition, especially since GW2 isn't subscription-based. If anything, the minimally accelerated release is a feeble response of Blizzard to Cataclysm having done not so well.

Releasing an expansion for World of Warcraft is still like printing money. It will sell 5 million copies in the first month (not 10, because the other 5 million players are in China, where it will be released later if ever). And it will increase subscription numbers by a million or two for a while. That is a pile of money, you do the math.

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