[jcl]

I'm not sure World of Warcraft is a fair comparison, given that it is a massively multiplayer subscription game with social ties, where the economics are totally different.

But if someone has the numbers, I'd love to see how its profit stacks up against, say, the number one best-selling PC game -- The Sims (and number two: The Sims 2). On the one hand, WoW benefits from consumer psychology; it's like buying a new AAA title every three months, and it takes effort to cancel. On the other hand, WoW must have huge ongoing administrative, overhead, and content generation costs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bestselling_games