Blizzard has announced that the subscriber base for their wildly popular MMORPG, World of Warcraft, has now topped the 10 million benchmark.

Subscriber base for Blizzard Entertainment^®’s massively multiplayer online role-playing game now exceeds 2.5 million in North America, while Europe passes the 2 million mark

IRVINE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--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.

“It’s very gratifying to see gamers around the world continuing to show such enthusiasm and support for World of Warcraft,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “We’re always pleased to welcome new players to the game, and we’re looking forward to sharing the next major content update with the entire community in the months ahead.”

Since debuting in North America on November 23, 2004, World of Warcraft has become the most popular MMORPG around the world. It was the bestselling PC game of 2005 and 2006 worldwide, and finished behind only World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade^®, the first expansion pack for the game, in 2007.^* In addition to being the bestselling PC game of 2007 in both North America and Europe, The Burning Crusade holds the record for fastest-selling PC game of all time, with nearly 2.4 million copies sold in its first 24 hours of availability and approximately 3.5 million in its first month.^* Development is underway on World of Warcraft’s second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King^™, which was unveiled at the company’s BlizzCon^™ gaming festival in August 2007.

World of Warcraft is currently available in seven languages, with a Russian version in development and scheduled for release later this year. In addition to North America and Europe, World of Warcraft is played in mainland China, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau.

For further information on World of Warcraft, The Burning Crusade, and Wrath of the Lich King, please visit the official website at www.worldofwarcraft.com. To keep pace with the continued growth of World of Warcraft as well as development on other Blizzard Entertainment games, the company is currently hiring for numerous open positions -- more information on available career opportunities at Blizzard Entertainment can be found at http://jobs.blizzard.com.

More on WoW here.

This one looks more official. Thread that is

If that was true, why would they release that on a public 3rd party website rather than on the blizzard one?

EDIT: the press release wasnt up when i posted this.

Warcraft realms has us servers listed at 4.1m and eu at 2.7. Also in their last release they didn't give the server breakdown.

I mean 2+2.5+5.5? that's afully round numbers.

Hmm, cool. Congrats to them I guess, but does this only count active subscribers or are they including inactive accounts as well?

I'll never really understand what's so amazing about WoW. I've played it since it came out, and there are other games which are handled better. 1 expansion in 3 years? ehhh

Originally posted by pussaykat

This one looks more official. Thread that is

If that was true, why would they release that on a public 3rd party website rather than on the blizzard one?

Warcraft realms has us servers listed at 4.1m and eu at 2.7. Also in their last release they didn't give the server breakdown.

I mean 2.5+2.5+5.5? that's afully round numbers.

"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."

So they're rounding up/down. They also don't count inactives or trial accounts (the bottom of the press release says so if you follow the link on WoW's main page).

I'm really glad though they finally released regional numbers. I've always been curious where their players are mostly from.

thats not a big shock considering from what ive heard you can take a lvl one to the max level in a day or two using all the cheats for it.  Guess if i had nothing better to do id do it too.

They usually get a big boost in subscriptions/activity around christmas but last year it dropped right after january.

Originally posted by saduce

thats not a big shock considering from what ive heard you can take a lvl one to the max level in a day or two using all the cheats for it.  Guess if i had nothing better to do id do it too.

Your information is wrong.

Originally posted by azgarth

 

Originally posted by saduce

thats not a big shock considering from what ive heard you can take a lvl one to the max level in a day or two using all the cheats for it.  Guess if i had nothing better to do id do it too.

LMAO!

 

Your information is wrong.

I also lol'd at this comment. *golf clap*

It is nice to see some regional numbers. Although if I think about it I have contributed to... 8 of those in NA (go me!)

**edit** 4/8 that I know are currently active ;p

The title of the thread is a little off.  WoW is currently serving over 10,000,000.  If you count all the canceled subscriptions just how high would the number served be?

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Originally posted by saduce
thats not a big shock considering from what ive heard you can take a lvl one to the max level in a day or two using all the cheats for it. Guess if i had nothing better to do id do it too.

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Ya, me too...I had to lol when I read this. I THINK the fastest time from 1-70 is like 6-7days played time meaning a total of 6-7 complete days with a guide that tells you how and when to pair quest up and finish them with limited grinding (run on sentence, but oh well). That's a few 12 hour shifts and can be done in 99% of the MMO's out there. At least in the majority of the ones I have played.

Originally posted by saduce

thats not a big shock considering from what ive heard you can take a lvl one to the max level in a day or two using all the cheats for it.  Guess if i had nothing better to do id do it too.

How is that related to the topic?

Originally posted by Valentina

Hmm, cool. Congrats to them I guess, but does this only count active subscribers or are they including inactive accounts as well?

 

I'll never really understand what's so amazing about WoW. I've played it since it came out, and there are other games which are handled better. 1 expansion in 3 years? ehhh

Cancelled subscriptions do not count. free trial accounts do not count. Box sales have never been revealed in total.

Originally posted by pussaykat

They usually get a big boost in subscriptions/activity around christmas but last year it dropped right after january.

The Burning Crusade expansion hit last January. The numbers skyrocketed and half the servers had annoying login queues.

Originally posted by faefrost

 

Originally posted by pussaykat

They usually get a big boost in subscriptions/activity around christmas but last year it dropped right after january.

 

The Burning Crusade expansion hit last January. The numbers skyrocketed and half the servers had annoying login queues.

A lot of new people join during the Christmas holiday.  I met a 45+ yr old woman here at work that started playing (her nephew's got her involved) on Dec 26th.  She loved it so much she went out and bought a new laptop (her husband was pissed she was spending so much time in the den) and she was fully engaged.  This is a person who had never played an online game in her life (or many games at all in fact). 

WOW definitely knows how to bring new folks to their game.

I am starting to think their counting accounts made and not active subscribers.

Originally posted by Sovren1

 

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Originally posted by saduce
thats not a big shock considering from what ive heard you can take a lvl one to the max level in a day or two using all the cheats for it. Guess if i had nothing better to do id do it too.

---

 

Ya, me too...I had to lol when I read this. I THINK the fastest time from 1-70 is like 6-7days played time meaning a total of 6-7 complete days with a guide that tells you how and when to pair quest up and finish them with limited grinding (run on sentence, but oh well). That's a few 12 hour shifts and can be done in 99% of the MMO's out there. At least in the majority of the ones I have played.

The fastest currently from 1-60 is 1d 20hrs using a Frost Mage to Instance PL. From 1-70 is just a little over 3 days played using the same method, but switching 60-70 to a Blood Furnace PL'ing team of 2-4 people. People are finding ways to PL other characters very easily and it will only become easier. Quite a few people are already sub 5 days /played 1-70 just soloing.

Originally posted by zensaber

I am starting to think their counting accounts made and not active subscribers.

"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. "

Plain english - Only active subscribers, game room players (pay by hour) who have logged in the last 30 days, and those still currently on free trial.

So what they are saying is, in the past month, 10,000,000 active accouns logged in. Scary huge.

Originally posted by Valentina

Hmm, cool. Congrats to them I guess, but does this only count active subscribers or are they including inactive accounts as well?

 

I'll never really understand what's so amazing about WoW. I've played it since it came out, and there are other games which are handled better. 1 expansion in 3 years? ehhh

I'd say its a conglomerate of existing accounts, canceled accounts and everyone that got WoW for a gift and just played the free month, its still empressive figures though.

Originally posted by jinxit

Originally posted by Valentina

Hmm, cool. Congrats to them I guess, but does this only count active subscribers or are they including inactive accounts as well?

 

I'll never really understand what's so amazing about WoW. I've played it since it came out, and there are other games which are handled better. 1 expansion in 3 years? ehhh

I'd say its a conglomerate of existing accounts, canceled accounts and everyone that got WoW for a gift and just played the free month, its still empressive figures though.

"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. "

Plain english - Only active subscribers, game room players (pay by hour) who have logged in the last 30 days, and those still currently on free trial.

So what they are saying is, in the past month, 10,000,000 active accouns logged in. Scary huge.

WOOT thats 4.5 Million Players in the US and Europe and 5.5 Million Gold farmers supporting them, so really if you take out the gold farmers then its more like a real number of PLAYERS.

They also post Active game cards as an account, does that mean all the Cards they have printed that are on shop shelves, as those are active cards ?