Activision Blizzard is having a pretty good year. Weeks after its "Call of Duty: Black Ops" game set a five-day sales record of $650 million, the company announced Monday that "World of Warcraft: Cataclysm" sold more than 3.3 million copies in its first 24 hours, making it the fastest-selling PC game of all time.

Those sales numbers surpass Activision's previous PC sales champ, "World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King," which sold 2.8 million copies in its first 24 hours.

"World of Warcraft: Cataclysm" made its debut in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Europe, Russia, Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand on December 7 and in Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau on December 9. About 10,000 retailers opened their doors at midnight for eager fans, and about 15,000 players attended official launch events hosted by Blizzard and its retail partners.

"We had to bring Azeroth to the brink of destruction in 'Cataclysm', but the result was our best expansion yet," Mike Morhaime, chief executive and co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment, said in a statement. "We want to thank all of our new, existing, and returning players throughout the world for their incredible enthusiasm and support, and we look forward to hearing what they think about all the new content."

Bob McKenzie, senior vice president of merchandising at GameStop, said the 'Cataclysm' release was bigger than "StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty," another monster summer release from Blizzard.

In October, Blizzard Entertainment announced that its World of Warcraft subscriber base had grown to 12 million users, up from 11 million in October 2008.

To keep pace with the growing popularity of "World of Warcraft," Blizzard said it is currently hiring for numerous positions.

For more details, see PCMag's hands on with "World of Warcraft: Cataclysm" and slideshow below, as well as the Best Tech for "World of Warcraft: Cataclysm."