Although much of the gaming populace grinding in World of Warcraft didn't have a lot of love for the physical aspects of gaming, the World of Warcraft: Trading Card Game has done quite well on its own. WoW Insider's Mike Schramm was able to visit the Darkmoon Faire in Chicago and meet Ben Drago, Manager of Organized Play, to ask just how well TCG was doing.

And by the looks of things, WoW: TCG was doing quite well compared to Magic: The Gathering. Drago said, "It was very successful. From the end of last year to the end of this year, it outsold Magic: the Gathering. That is the first card game to ever do that."

And it not only outsold a legendary trading card brand, but also sold out in stock. "Product was sold out probably for the first four months. We reprinted more than once," said Drago, mentioning that the WoW: TCG launch was just as successful as Magic's launch back in 1993.

But they weren't aiming to beat Magic to consider themselves successful, but Drago admits it does give them a way to create a milestone for their product's performance. Drago added, "There's been a lot of trading card games that have come out and have had varied levels of success. But coming out and being able to step up into that Tier 1 rank was pretty important."

And surprisingly, according to Drago, WoW: TCG has done extremely well to offer something different for trading card gamers, especially Magic gamers. It's not that WoW: TCG offers anything new - in fact it really doesn't - but the card game has dropped the limitations of other card game rules to add more flexibility.

Organized Play is planning more TCG tournaments to occur worldwide and mentions that TCG aspirants should watch for them this summer.

 

Blizzard's Darkmoon Faire Chicago kicked off and ended without a hitch. While there were a lot of World of Warcraft players in attendance, both for the Trading Card Game (TCG) and the MMO game, we'd like to bet that there are still a handful of players who wanted to be there but weren't able to attend.

Anyway, WoW Insider was lucky enough to be in Chicago and took snapshots of the said event. TCG players would probably want to take note of the WoW goodies they had on display such as the playmats and extended art Leeroy Jenkins.

The few screens for the WoW online game, on the other hand, would probably attract players from that niche. That said, we won't bore you anymore with useless prattle. Here are the pictures. Enjoy!

  

More pictures of the Darkmoon Faire Chicago in the full article

Here are some pictures of the surprisingly quiet Burning Crusade launch at Chicago. Opening at midnight, the retail stores proved to be rather efficient with their service to the people lined up outside the icy, cold night.

True, there weren't any fancy fireworks, Hollywood-ish events, nor rare appearances from the head honchos of Blizzard. But nonetheless, the launch pulled off without a hitch, and, well, the fans were just happy to finally have this expansion of WoW. And nobody was robbed at gunpoint.

Knowing that there are eight million of them fans out there, we sure hope there's enough to go around for everybody.