World of Warcraft Tops 10 Million Subscribers

via IGN


Subscriptions to the World of Warcraft persistent online role-playing game have surpassed the 10 million subscriber mark worldwide, according to Blizzard Entertainment.

The game, now more than three years old, has become the most popular massively-multiplayer online role-playing game, taking the top sales spot among PC games around the world in 2005 and 2006. WoW was only outsold in 2007 by its expansion pack – World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade. A second WoW expansion, World of Warcraft: The Rise of the Lich King, is in development.

"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."

The company counts more than 2 million subscribers in Europe, more than 2.5 million in North America, and about 5.5 million in Asia. Blizzard said it includes as subscribers not only active, long-term members but also prepaid subscription cardholders and players who recently bought the game and are within their first free month of service.

According to figures release by the NPD Group today, World of Warcraft and two related expansions – Burning Crusade and Battle Chest – held three of the top five sales slots among U.S. PC game sales last week.

All three titles were topped by Activision's Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, which sold more than twice as many copies last week than the World of Warcraft standalone game.