World of Warcraft hits 12m subscribers

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 7 October, 2010

World domination continues.

More than 12 million people subscribe to fantasy role-playing MMO World of Warcraft, developer Blizzard has announced.

The astonishing number was reached in the wake of the Chinese launch of second expansion Wrath of the Lich King.

"The support and enthusiasm that gamers across the world continue to show for World of Warcraft reaffirms our belief that it offers one of the best entertainment values available today," said Blizzard co-founder and CEO Mike Morhaime.

"We are as committed as ever to taking the game to new heights, and we look forward to demonstrating that with Cataclysm in December."

Cataclysm is WOW's third expansion, and will no doubt catapult the MMO's subscriber number to even greater heights.

WOW is the most popular subscription-based MMORPG in the world. It defines a subscriber as "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 30 days are also counted as subscribers. Players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards, are excluded.

Oli re-reviewed WOW in 2008, giving it 10/10.

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (35) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Benno #1 2 years ago

    massive

  • Nephirion #2 2 years ago

    pew pew

  • Hunam #3 2 years ago

    That last .5 has took them ages.

    Good work for them though.

  • LFace #4 2 years ago

    Also bear in mind I know a lot of people who has cancelled until Cataclysm..

  • onyx_elite #5 2 years ago

    I once saw a man throw up an intact custard cream. It was amazing.

  • Spekingur #6 2 years ago

    One day, these numbers will dwindle! One day!
    I have no idea what day though. Probably a Tuesday. If we still have Tuesdays by then.

  • NimbusTLD #7 2 years ago

    It defines a subscriber as "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".

    Thanks for the clarification Blizzard, I had always wondered what a subscriber meant when you shout out those numbers. However you omit the word "current" or something to that effect, so I infer this means there have been 12 million people who have subscribed since launch, and not 12 million current subscribers. Am I correct?

  • mingster #8 2 years ago

    I thought PC gaming was dead?

  • geeza2020 #9 2 years ago

    God, I dont even play this game and I'm fucking sick to death of it.

  • Daeltaja #10 2 years ago

    These numbers represent total lifetime subs, including cancelled subs, all the trial accounts the gold sellers use (must be a huge number) amongst other things. The number will never dwindle cause it doesn't represent current subs only. Guessing it's around 6-8 mil mark at best now. Still the king of course, by a long long mile but they struggled to get the new 500k subs for a while with chinas release pushing them over. Anyway fair play Blizz, I'm sure Cata will be great.

  • Shikasama #11 2 years ago

    It's an irrelevant number. The vast majority of them are Chinese that pay pennies to play. And like Daeltaja said, that number can never go down because it includes cancelled subs (including mine!).

    Using that same logic we could dwarf Warcraft by looking at how many people have spent -something- on Farmville or Runescape or some such.

  • sneetch #12 2 years ago

    @NimbusTLD
    Thanks for the clarification Blizzard, I had always wondered what a subscriber meant when you shout out those numbers. However you omit the word "current" or something to that effect, so I infer this means there have been 12 million people who have subscribed since launch, and not 12 million current subscribers. Am I correct?

    EG omitted the word "current", Blizzard did not.

    [link url=http://eu.blizzard.com/en-gb/
    ]http://eu.blizzard.com/en-gb/
    [/link]

    "Today we announced that World of Warcraft has passed another major milestone and now hosts more than 12 million current subscribers around the globe. Check out the press release for the full announcement, and thank you to all of our players for making this possible -- we're grateful for all of the support and enthusiasm you've shown over the years, and look forward to continuing to provide you with great entertainment experiences for a long time to come."

  • Daeltaja #13 2 years ago

    "current"

    Don't believe that for one second. It would have to mean that more players are starting to play than the number of players quitting. At this stage it is highly unlikely.

  • NimbusTLD #14 2 years ago

    @sneetch

    Thanks for the clarification! Also, for those too lazy to open the link and ctrl-f:

    The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards.

  • Tonne #15 2 years ago

    so there are 12m guys out there who cant get laid?
    Edited by Tonne at 07/10/10 @ 15:21

  • sneetch #16 2 years ago

    @Shikasama
    It's an irrelevant number. The vast majority of them are Chinese that pay pennies to play. And like Daeltaja said, that number can never go down because it includes cancelled subs (including mine!).

    No, they have 12 million current subscribers, 12 million "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" at the moment in time that they wrote the press release (today). The number does not include cancelled subscriptions.

    "The above [definition of subscriber] 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.[/i]

    It's all in the press release.

    [link url=http://eu.blizzard.com/en-gb/company/press/pressreleases.html?101007
    ]http://eu.blizzard.com/en-gb/company/pre...[/link]

    Where'd you get the idea that the "vast majority" are Chinese subscriptions? Back when it was 10 million subscribers 4.5 million of them were between the US and Europe and the remaining 5.5 million were Asian (China, Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau). What makes you think that has shifted so the "vast majority" are now Chinese?

  • alroste #17 2 years ago

    I've recently re-subbed after a years absence and my daughter is now old enough that she has started subscribing too, a lot of new and old WoW players are coming back, mainly due to Cataclysm and also because, in my case, Starcraft 2 and RealID prompted me to play again.

    Looking at the number of realms on the go and how busy each one appears to be there really doesn't seem to be any dropoff in numbers.

    Blizz might just hook a new generation with the next expansion if my daughter and her friends are anything to go by.

  • butler` #18 2 years ago

    Starcraft 2 and RealID prompted me to play again.

    Ah yes, the Blizzard master plan in action.

  • layleeloo #19 2 years ago

    Used to play thin until they decided to stop taking switch as a method of recurring payment. Now I cant be arsed going though the motions every single month.

  • tenofspades #20 2 years ago

    it is 12m because they have a high number of people who bought the game, and there are many casuals of that who login at say catalysm and notch up the number of current subscribers. They can sustain this level for a while I reckon unless they get some good competition. (read Guild Wars 2)

  • Xardan #21 2 years ago

    When will it end?!

  • Negotiator #22 2 years ago

    Who in the hell plays these shit game's, pouring hours upon hours of their lives into these boring ass games. 12 million muppets sitting in a dark room staring at a computer screen, I like gaming but I can't play any game for longer than an hour at any time.

  • darkmorgado #23 2 years ago

    Also bear in mind I know a lot of people who has cancelled until Cataclysm..

    /waves
    I just got annoyed with constant gear runs of ICC and VoA. Cancelled, and going to resubscribe with the collector's edition of Cata.

  • darkmorgado #24 2 years ago

    At this stage it is highly unlikely.

    Yeah of course, because launching a new expansion in the most populated country in the world, that also happens to be obsessed with MMOs, couldn't possibly cause an upward swing in player numbers, could it?

  • IronCladChicken #25 2 years ago

    @LFace
    I'm doing the same thing myself :)
    See how high that number jumps once Cataclysm gets released...

  • Benno #26 2 years ago

    their current subscribers is going to shoot up come cataclysm,

    I wouldn't be surprised if blizzard celebrate christmas day with 15m+ subscribers

  • Vyggo #27 2 years ago

    It is just amazing the mass appeal this game has. Props to blizzard for not just creating just a game but (arguably) the biggest entertainment product in history.

    I played it again a few months ago, to experience the burning crusade and witch king, but got bored at 73 or so. I get burned out by it pretty quickly because I have problems playing it in moderation.

  • Pirotic #28 2 years ago

    Wow, was kind of expecting the numbers to start dropping off now - hard to grasp that it's still getting more popular despite it's age and how old school a lot of the grinding mechanics now feel.

  • DrMGinius #29 2 years ago

    '' (arguably) the biggest entertainment product in history. ''

    The standard is kind of low then.

    I expect Blizzard does not find this comment when they are (not arguably) the biggest dictators in history. But it'll get downvoted and wont be visible anyway so...
    Edited by DrMGinius at 07/10/10 @ 20:35

  • ndbsolar #30 2 years ago

    Mr Kodick needs a bigger bank to hold his money now...

  • davisorle #31 2 years ago

    Post deleted at 20:44:35 16-04-2012

  • levitate #32 2 years ago

    Believe it or not, but that number will probably increase once Cataclysm is out. I haven't tried it much yet but most of the stuff is amazing.

  • geeza2020 #33 2 years ago

    Unless i worked it out wrong, that works out to around £1.2 billion pounds a year on the standard £8.99 monthly sub. Fucking hell, Acti-Blizz are going to rule the fucking world soon. Of course, you scratch a bit off of that for running the servers and paying the staff and they are probably down to around a billion a year in profit :(

  • IronCladChicken #34 2 years ago

    @DrMGinius
    How do you figure?

  • ircaddicts #35 2 years ago

    if anyone REALLY belive that wow actually has 12 million paying account then I have a bridge and some swamp I mean prime real estate to sell them
    Edited by ircaddicts at 12/10/10 @ 05:46