Network now...NEWS
WoW Crosses 11M Mark
World of Warcraft now lays claim to 11 million players worldwide, Blizzard said Tuesday, reminding the MMO space who's the undisputed leader.
Blizzard made the announcement just weeks before the November 13 launch of the highly-anticipated expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. One analyst estimates that the expansion could boost the subscription base another 1 million players over the next 12 months.
In a statement, Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime said, "We remain fully committed to responding to that enthusiasm with a high-quality, constantly evolving game experience."
In late July this year, Blizzard said the subscription base for WoW had hit 10.9 million.
WoW originally launched in 2004.
In China, many gamers play WoW at Internet cafes, gaining access to accounts by purchasing CD keys as opposed to monthly paid subscriptions. U.S. users pay a monthly subscription of $13-$15 per month depending on the payment plan.
The first expansion, The Burning Crusade, released in 2007, selling 2.4 million copies in its first 24 hours.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but this game does have a montly fee right? And isn't it around 10 bucks a month? For 11 million subscribers that is around 100 million bucks a month. That means Activision Blizzard makes over 1 billion dollars a year just from WoW...wow!
Actually you're only partly right. A lot of people forget that in Asia, the subscriptions work differently. I've updated the story to explain. Regardless, they're raking it in.
and besides this, does the number of subscribers indicate active subscribers who are paying at the moment, or it's just the total number of the registered users?
I don't believe this could possibly be active subscribers. Perhaps number of accounts with created characters on. I know it's fairly commonplace (in the US especially, no doubt so in Korea/China/Russia) to do something known as "dual-boxing" or "quad-boxing" -- whereby a player has 2 or 4 instances respectively, being played on a single machine and screen. Using a series of macros they can control both/all 4 and play both/all 4 at one time.
I'd like to know figures in terms of actual people playing. What's the most people they've ever had logged into WoW, worldwide, at anyone time?
Thanks for the update. It seems so (that they're raking it in).