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World of Warcraft: Over 10,000,000 Served
Szark
News ManagerMember Posts: 4,420
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.
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More on WoW here.
Comments
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.
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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
"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.
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-Yes.
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Your information is wrong.
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
"They essentially want to say 'Correlation proves Causation' when it's just not true." - Sovrath
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?
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.
How is that related to the topic?
-Would you like cheddar or swiss cheese?
-Yes.
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Cancelled subscriptions do not count. free trial accounts do not count. Box sales have never been revealed in total.
The Burning Crusade expansion hit last January. The numbers skyrocketed and half the servers had annoying login queues.
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.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I am starting to think their counting accounts made and not active subscribers.
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.
Bear "replicant" Powell
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"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.
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.
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 ?
It truly is as if people are completely illiterate, yet still somehow manage to type messages into the forum.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.
How does this happen?
5.5 million gold farmers in Asia? Are you racist against Asian people? Are you saying they are all poor and get paid to play WoW all day farming gold?
It's not illegal or against the EULA of ANY MMORPG to farm. It's only illegal to sell in game items for real life currency.
Gold farmers are players, they are logging in and playing the game. Gold SELLERS are not players, they are against the Agreement terms they supposedly read when they signed up.
Nice try.
It truly is as if people are completely illiterate, yet still somehow manage to type messages into the forum.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.
How does this happen?
Eh?
I guess I will never make it in marketing. WoW is a great game, but does not really stand out as all that different from the other games since the original EQ. It seems that most of the fantasy MMO since EQ are more or less the same. Why did this one blow up so big and the others did not? There are lots of games just as good as WoW. It is great for blizzard. With that kind of subscriber base, they should have the funding to do amazing things going forward. I can't see how any fantasy game will be able to approach WoW now due to the crazy funding that they have. They are bring in like 150 million per month in revenue. I bet that is bigger than most games yearly income.
Wether people are creating accounts to farm or whatever you'll never see an article stating WOW's numbers decreasing. By the time WOTLK gets here and release Blizzard will tell you they in herited more accounts somehow, some way just to market/ hype their product up. Smart marketing move I would say but it is just unreleastic that every mmo can lose accounts except for Blizzard ? Come on people, use common sense. Nothing new here.
well it's not surprising WoW is asia heavy is it built like one of their 'standard' type of mmos (not that it's a bad thing ofc, i like FFXI
) but if their not facting in farmers trail account bots ruff guess i'd say about 1% are famer account tbh.. so still a lot of subs from asia, then again SC is HUGE there 
..Now all they need to do is add Mechs and in WoW (and possibly call it 'the world') and they've got the whole market, HELL if they did that I'll be back in :P
but 4/5-ish million of the westen market.. not bad, at least theres still room for other mmos to have a densent amount of subs past the WoWaholics out there
Bring on the WARRRRGGHH!