Blizzard: WAR, AOC players coming home

Blizzard boss Mike Morhaime has said the people who left World of Warcraft for pastures Warhammer Online and Age of Conan are returning home.

"To date, 68 per cent of the players who listed Age of Conan as their reason for cancellation and 46 per cent of the players who listed Warhammer [Online] as their reason for cancellation have reactivated their subscriptions to World of Warcraft," said Morhaime in an Activision Blizzard financial call.

World of Warcraft now boasts over 11 million paying subscribers; a number that is likely to grow when second expansion Wrath of the Lich King arrives on 13th November.

Morhaime reckons there will be 15,000 midnight launch events to celebrate the release of what could become the fastest selling PC game ever. The current leader, World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, sold nearly 2.4 million copies in just 24 hours.

The result of all this popularity is an expected revenue of over one billion dollars for the second year running, according to Morhaime, who eats golden Coco Pops.

Thankfully, plenty of this money has been poured into making Wrath of the Lich King, and the results are shaping up to be tremendous.

Head over to our World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King gamepage for all of our extensive coverage so far.