WoW - 10 Million Subscribers

Pixel · 22 Jan 2008 at 17:36

Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. announced today that subscribership for World of Warcraft®, its award-winning massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), has continued to climb, recently passing 10 million worldwide. Interest in the game has remained high in all regions, with thousands of new and returning players signing up through the holiday season. World of Warcraft now hosts more than 2 million subscribers in Europe, more than 2.5 million in North America, and approximately 5.5 million in Asia.

Source: http://www.blizzard.co.uk/press/080122.shtml

I'm looking forward to seeing any MMO in the future beat these kinds of numbers, just incredible.

scorza · 22 Jan 2008 at 18:01

That truly is phenomenal - that must be well over $100m a month in turnover thanks to exchange rates atm.

Cuppa · 22 Jan 2008 at 18:11

Amazing really. I suspect it s going to be going for a long time as well, I'm looking forward to WotLK very much.

Sinny · 22 Jan 2008 at 18:19

Thats not counting the amount of people who have left the game, which is a lot compared to those who joined.

im waiting for Warhammer, WoW died for me the moment the expansions were released.

Margaret · 22 Jan 2008 at 18:21

Too bad the game started sucking majorly when the first expansion was released, 40 man Molten Core/Blackwing Lair/Naxxramas > Any of your 25 man crap.

...and yes I did my fair share of 10-25 man raiding before anybody says otherwise!

/gets coat.

Spitfir3 · 22 Jan 2008 at 18:21

Sinny said:
Thats not counting the amount of people who have left the game, which is a lot compared to those who joined.

im waiting for Warhammer, WoW died for me the moment the expansions were released.

Yeah I left a while after Exp pack.. came back hit 70 and quit for good.

I thought it had peaked and now its starting to dip?

The amount of goodbyes before I left on my realm forum (unoffcial) increased in number rapidly. Also I remember seeing an ad saying "1 free month if you get someone whos left back" on the WoW site.

Sinny · 22 Jan 2008 at 18:26

Spitfir3 said:
Yeah I left a while after Exp pack.. came back hit 70 and quit for good.

I thought it had peaked and now its starting to dip?

The amount of goodbyes before I left on my realm forum (unoffcial) increased in number rapidly. Also I remember seeing an ad saying "1 free month if you get someone whos left back" on the WoW site.

it doesnt really say "active accounts" just says subscribed, im still subscribed but dont officially play it".

scorza · 22 Jan 2008 at 18:30

Sinny said:
it doesnt really say "active accounts" just says subscribed, im still subscribed but dont officially play it".

You're still paying for an account but not playing :confused:

Kainz · 22 Jan 2008 at 18:31

More than half of those are alt bot accounts.

rick827 · 22 Jan 2008 at 18:50

Koreans.

Sinque · 22 Jan 2008 at 19:07

World of Warcraft's Subscriber Definition

World of Warcraft subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access. Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days are also counted as subscribers. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards. Subscribers in licensees' territories are defined along the same rules.

tomanders91 · 22 Jan 2008 at 19:16

blizzard must be the richest games company? Seeing as they possibly make anywhere between 50-100 million a month.

.Lethal · 22 Jan 2008 at 19:19

Got to be EA no?

I remember when Blizzard almost got sold off before WoW!! They were having a really crappy time.

Grats to Blizz on there success

Tombstone · 22 Jan 2008 at 19:40

Got to say, I'm amazed that its still rising in figures, out of the few hundred people in the guilds I knew who started only 3 are left playing, all the others including myself of course became bored and quit.

Its only a matter of time before the figures are bettered though, I remember when EQ1 hit its huge figures almost a decade ago and people said there was no way it would ever be beaten, but it was

, and although 10 million seems a lot, its still a small amount on a planet of 6 billion. MMOs are increasing in popularity all the time, and as those figures show anything which can tap into the Asian market successfully in particular stands a good chance of acquiring massive figures. Even that isnt taking into account the potential markets of emerging countries such as India and Pakistan etc. In fact isnt there an asian MMO which supposedly has 25 million accounts?

Always good to see an MMO doing well.

EDIT: Ah yeah , its Maple Story, it has a total of nearly 50 million accounts, (roughly 25 million in China alone) , its not what westerners might think of as an MMO, but I guess it counts as one

jojothemonkey69 · 22 Jan 2008 at 19:45

I've never played WOW as I simply know that i'd get sucked in and I just don't have the time. I wrote an essay last year on 'addiction' to video games and enjoyed doing the research and reading for it. When they say 10 million thats regularly paying customers which is amazing. However I heard on the US PC Gamer podcast a few months ago that there's some other MMORPG's that have even more players 15 million +

Skyboat · 22 Jan 2008 at 21:38

As long as it funds further development on Starcraft 2 :cool:

Thank the Koreans/Chinese for the huge profits.

Robert · 22 Jan 2008 at 21:42

jojothemonkey69 said:
I've never played WOW as I simply know that i'd get sucked in and I just don't have the time. I wrote an essay last year on 'addiction' to video games and enjoyed doing the research and reading for it. When they say 10 million thats regularly paying customers which is amazing. However I heard on the US PC Gamer podcast a few months ago that there's some other MMORPG's that have even more players 15 million +

Lineage 2

Kainz · 22 Jan 2008 at 21:48

Back a few years ago Lineage and it's sequels were the biggest MMO's out. WoW was tiny compared to them. How things have since changed I've no idea but I reckon WoW's 10million is nothing compared to the Korean mmo's.

MHayes · 22 Jan 2008 at 23:02

I think WoW has overtaken Lineage 1 and Lineage 2 now worldwide. Lineage 2 gets crazy hard at high levels, we assume Koreans like grinding but maybe they are seeing sense.

My off topic amazing prediction is that Aion will do well because of this, nice graphics and stlye of L2 but with the gameplay of WoW.

dbmzk1 · 22 Jan 2008 at 23:47

MHayes said:
I think WoW has overtaken Lineage 1 and Lineage 2 now worldwide. Lineage 2 gets crazy hard at high levels, we assume Koreans like grinding but maybe they are seeing sense.

My off topic amazing prediction is that Aion will do well because of this, nice graphics and stlye of L2 but with the gameplay of WoW.

WoW overtook Lineage a long time ago now. Lineage peaked at 3.25 million subscribers and Lineage 2 at about 2.15 million. Both are now in decline. Even combined WoW overtook Lineage at the start of 2006.