Guild Wars 2 sells over 2 million copies in first two weeks

I recall a magazine ad a few years back which summarized a mantra mainstay for MMOs: "If you're going to sit in your basement pretending to be an elf, you should do it with friends." The swelling Guild Wars 2 community took this to their gold-plated Renown Hearts, as ArenaNet and NCsoft announced today that Guild Wars 2 sold over 2 million copies in just 14 days since releasing.

By comparison, BioWare and EA's Star Wars: The Old Republic sold over 1 million copies in its first two weeks, though a majority of that figure was from pre-order players receiving early access. Guild Wars 2 followed suit with a similarly stellar pre-order performance and a peak player concurrency ballooning to 400,000 during its head start period.

Guild Wars 2's numbers are impressive, especially in the wake of NCsoft actually halting (and subsequently resuming) sales of the digital version as a safeguard for server stability, overflow and grouping issues , and a really, really confusing trailer . We certainly love our elf-enacting binges , and we equally love chopping the ears off other elves -- and humans, and giant hairy humans, and giant hairy cats -- during PVP.

Omri Petitte is a former PC Gamer associate editor and long-time freelance writer covering news and reviews. If you spot his name, it probably means you're reading about some kind of first-person shooter. Why yes, he would like to talk to you about Battlefield. Do you have a few days?