BlizzCon breaking news: Wrath of the Lich King may require Burning Crusade

We attended a press conference at BlizzCon this morning that was held far too early for people who had been out all night ogling people in World of Warcraft contests. In attendance were J. Allen Brack, senior producer for WoW, Rob Pardo, the Senior VP of Game Design for Blizzard, and Frank Pearce, Executive VP of Product Development at Blizzard.

One big tidbit that they dropped was the fact that The Wrath of the Lich King expansion pack may require you to have the Burning Crusade as well. Blizzard isn't sure if this will require an additional purchase, or if they will bundle it in at no extra cost. When asked how retailers might react to this, no one had any idea. If you're Joe Retailer and selling copies of Burning Crusade pretty well, will you want to put something on the shelf that will cannibalize those sales, or will you just stop carrying the older title altogether?

Another interesting fact is that if you pick up say, the latest expansion pack a couple of years from now, when there are three are four out, will you have to go back and buy the others? That could get potentially very expensive for players who have already shelled out for the base game and are paying $14.95 a month. What are we, made out of gold? We'll follow this as it develops.