WOW: 8 million served

World's top MMORPG proves even more popular, hitting McDonald's-esque milestone more than two years after its release.

Currently, the population of Earth is estimated to be around 6.7 billion people. As of this week, roughly 0.1 percent of the sum of modern humanity plays World of Warcraft. Today, Blizzard Entertainment announced that more than 8 million people subscribe to the massive massively multiplayer online role-playing game, setting a new milestone for the title more than two years after its fall 2004 release.

The tour of Blizzard HQ now includes a visit to its basement (pictured).

As it is with the real-world population, Chinese subscribers are the largest demographic in Azeroth, totaling 3.5 million players. Next up is North America, with 2 million players, followed by Europe, with 1.5 million--the remainder of subscribers are in other territories. Subscription rates vary by region, but US players pay $14.95 each month to play WOW after doling out the suggested retail price for the game, which has been lowered to just $19.99.

"We're ecstatic that the World of Warcraft community has continued to grow steadily since we launched the game," said Blizzard president and cofounder Mike Morhaime, presumably while being fed grapes and fanned with palm fronds atop a gigantic pile of cash. "This milestone wouldn't have been possible for us to achieve without the incredible support of our players."

Though its original world is already popular, World of Warcraft's borders will soon grow, courtesy of next week's release of the Burning Crusade expansion pack. Like the original WOW, it is rated T for Teen. However, at $39.99 it will cost more than the original game, which is required to play the expansion.

378 Comments

  • ElPepaso

    Posted Jan 31, 2007 8:10 pm PT

    Playing WoW consumes a lot of time to make any progress even though it's an awesome game. The fact still remains is that the game consumes a lot of your time to do anything except pvp... I currently have two lvl 60's and believe me it wasn't easy and it definitely was time consuming. Then once your 60 you worry about gear and a bunch of other stuff. There's so much to do in the game at the cost of your time and money. Now the expansion comes and all the time I've put in trying to gear up my characters was nothing but a waste of time. Mostly adults whose got a STEADY job or career has it more easy in playing this game being that your independent so your worries is about maintaining yourself alive and have all your bills paid. As a adult who must work, attend college and pay a few bills has it even harder in enjoying this game. In my opinion, I feel WoW can't be taken into moderation because the game wasn't made that way due to that you must spend a lot of time in doing something. My point is if you got time to spend after doing all your priorities and you got nothing better to do ( which I dont believe cause there's always something better to do ) then go ahead and enjoy this game by all means. As you can see 8 million accounts ( players may have more than one account ) tells you that this game is very good but I'm looking forward to what angry parents have to say about their child playing all the time including those who lost track of real life in the future...

    P.S. Once the expansion came out I had a rude awakening and stopped playing this game cause I realized the time and money spend on this wasn't worth losing my humanity.

  • ----HeReTiC----

    Posted Jan 27, 2007 3:42 pm PT

    Okay. It's clear many things need to be cleared up.
    1. xatman911 Thats a lot of people. I am surprise to see that only 0.1percent of 6.7 billion play games? Can you check that figure again. - no 0.1 percent of ppl play WoW

    2.jokerdk People get it! Stop playing GAMES like wow! There are so many games out there. You will never be a gamer playing one game for years. This is an addiction! Get help! Find a real hobby like sports. 8 million and half of them are trial users! -why are you on Gamespot if gaming isn't a real hobby?

    Princecake well, 8mil sounds all nice and all but there are tonnes of games out there easily beat that number. 3.5mil in china doesn't really qualify a success for that place has at least half a dozen MMO having more than 20mil registered subscribers. -wtf list the game and the link with proof and i wont think ur making that up

    its fast paced compared to other MMOs dont cry about leveling or go play diablo lol..good game

  • GrayHalo

    Posted Jan 25, 2007 11:06 pm PT

    my therapist treats WOW addicts,

  • slyydrr

    Posted Jan 24, 2007 6:38 am PT

    @Kcube.. it's 8 million subscribers, also known as accounts. They're not counting individual characters, but rather accounts...

  • Kcube

    Posted Jan 23, 2007 10:18 am PT

    Where can I find the records for this?

    I want to know if WoW really has 8 million players and it isn't just Blizzard counting our Alts they allow us have.If they are counting the free Alts then WoW could well have only half of that 8 million.

  • mydasx

    Posted Jan 16, 2007 2:54 pm PT

    8 million players averaging at least 6 months of play and the original purchase is...

    (8,000,000 X 50) + (8,000,000 X (15 X 6)) = 840,000,000

    that's nearly twice the GDP of East Timur.

  • billybobzxc

    Posted Jan 16, 2007 2:24 pm PT

    people in canada are paying over 240 a year to play this game now thats f**Ked up

  • CloudStrifeIXI

    Posted Jan 16, 2007 1:46 pm PT

    Seriously, this isn't so great. I played it for a week and got tired of it and banished it from my computer. I love the Warcraft series and all, but this RPG crap is overrated and boring. I've played Warcraft 3 more than have played most other games, and this I couldn't even stand a week. I even played Guild Wars longer than this. In fact, the whole click to move, attack, talk, shop thing is overrated! The only game of those type I EVER really enjoyed was City Of Heros/Villians. Why not play REAL games, like Rakion, Oblivion or Dark Messiah which have any real fun to them. And please, don't even talk about the TES-DM fanboy crap they are both awesome games. Anyway, there must be thousands of these types of games and they are almost all boring, this being no acception. Besides, once you get level 60, or whatever the highest level is in games, what do you do? Run around pking and ****? That's just stupid! And whats worse, it takes away people's lives. Hold on, yeah, i see the picture with the McDonalds thing. Good for a week and then they start ripping you off. 15 bucks a month for this crap, play it for life and you lose thousands. Do yourself a favour, play some games that are worth the money, please.

  • GANGSTA287

    Posted Jan 16, 2007 1:03 pm PT

    8 million!?!?!?!?!?

    that is New York City!!!

    that is the state of Illinois!!!!

    That is 1/5 of SPAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • Princecake

    Posted Jan 16, 2007 6:32 am PT

    well, 8mil sounds all nice and all but there are tonnes of games out there easily beat that number. 3.5mil in china doesn't really qualify a success for that place has at least half a dozen MMO having more than 20mil registered subscribers.

  • gwds

    Posted Jan 16, 2007 3:50 am PT

    Man, I'm glad I dodged this bullet.

  • Liquid_Raiden

    Posted Jan 16, 2007 3:39 am PT

    I think the game is hyped a little too much.

  • rikhan_z

    Posted Jan 16, 2007 12:56 am PT

    in 3 years time, 0.3% of the world will play WoW!

  • KingShivan

    Posted Jan 15, 2007 10:28 pm PT

    ah hahahahahahahhahahahahahaha

    -Shivan's review of this.

  • Hollywood_RFC

    Posted Jan 15, 2007 9:04 pm PT

    I wonder if WoW can be stopped. At this rate, in a decade or two WoW will consume the whole world. Oh and kooptroopa, the game is overpriced, but not overrated. Not even a little bit.

  • guynamedbilly

    Posted Jan 15, 2007 8:09 pm PT

    Lol, love the gold bricks.

  • vatterott

    Posted Jan 15, 2007 6:25 pm PT

    Wow...

  • koopatroopa1015

    Posted Jan 15, 2007 6:13 pm PT

    it's a cool game but i think it's a little overrated. and overpriced.

  • partydude1085

    Posted Jan 15, 2007 5:20 pm PT

    so what if they are making such a butt load of money they made a great game. and even if some ppl do nothing but play wow that doesnt mean everyone does, as someone said b4 me take everything in moderation
    & P.S. i do think the expansion price is pretty expansive but they are adding a whole other world to warcraft, practically making a whole other original game
    but i will still get it :-)

  • Cigaras

    Posted Jan 15, 2007 2:40 pm PT

    Great game, but it's quite expensive for me...

  • jjmullen763

    Posted Jan 15, 2007 2:13 pm PT

    i love world of warcraft it rules and all that gold .... GOLD !!!

  • Robinator64

    Posted Jan 15, 2007 2:02 pm PT

    Good game. Not surprised too much by the number... however there are some big flaws but not all are so much caused by the game itself. Endgame dungeons take up a lot of time and guilds make it so personal connections are often too hard to break. It's tough for people to quit or limit their playing because of this. It was for me. It's a problem for all mmorpg's but this one gets so much bad rep because of the amount of people playing. If you have friends in-game, enough activities that are set in stone, and enough personal self control, buy this game. You'll most likely love it. But if you want it simply because you think you have nothing to do and you're just switching to the next game on your list, be prepared to have it take up more time than you're willing to give.

  • Soulglove

    Posted Jan 15, 2007 10:16 am PT

    wow, I may never go back to it again. How much lag does 8 million people cause?

  • zey2k

    Posted Jan 15, 2007 6:18 am PT

    LOL playing wow doenst necessarily makes your life go away. Some of u who don't play wow probably spend more hours in other games. usually WOW players only play one thing ^^. i play it and it doens't screws my life up..take all things in moderation, even WoW

  • Kh1ndjal

    Posted Jan 15, 2007 4:16 am PT

    blizzard can do no wrong?

  • jimmy-fly

    Posted Jan 15, 2007 1:18 am PT

    lol @ basement... serially tho i bet they make so much money its just crazy

  • stingman212000

    Posted Jan 14, 2007 10:44 pm PT

    I think its so stupid how people come on here and bad mouth WOW and say "oh well I use to play "and "it took up so much of my time" that was probably more than likely before the honor system was scrapped cause really it dont take up a whole lot of time now so for you to say OOOOH no it takes up too much time heh......your fault not the games

  • hafaholo

    Posted Jan 14, 2007 7:11 pm PT

    FORGET ALL YOU! All the people putting down WoW. I have a life, i work,school, and service meetings sort of like church( jehovah's witness) and i play WoW great game and i have time!

  • krazydave

    Posted Jan 14, 2007 6:56 pm PT

    Just cause someone plays WoW doesn't mean they are doing nothing with their lives except playing WoW. I play college football in the summer and spring while snowboarding in the winter. I play WoW and find tons of time to "have a life". Also I think it is really stupid to be upset with Blizzard because they have made so much money, or their product is too big. In a capatalist market, espescially one like gaming, in order for them to succeed the way they have, they had to have a superior product aided by excellent business moves.

  • Swiftstrike5

    Posted Jan 14, 2007 4:27 pm PT

    Wow... just looking at that vault makes me wish I never even bought WoW let alone played it for 5 months. Now its the battle of Microsoft vs Blizzard. Of course microsoft would probably win because they could just fk up blizzard by dropping OS support.

  • Konfusion

    Posted Jan 14, 2007 4:17 pm PT

    I'll never give them one cent. I LOVE the whole WarCraft franchise, but I will never, EVER encourage them with this crap. Just do the maths -- it's INSANE.

  • mr111111

    Posted Jan 14, 2007 12:17 pm PT

    yer all dupid

  • jokerdk

    Posted Jan 14, 2007 10:28 am PT

    People get it! Stop playing GAMES like wow! There are so many games out there. You will never be a gamer playing one game for years. This is an addiction! Get help! Find a real hobby like sports. 8 million and half of them are trial users!

  • skuld_xx

    Posted Jan 14, 2007 6:58 am PT

    8 million subscriber, doesn't mean all play it, some may retired, some may have more than 2 acc, e-bayer, etc etc

    8 million subscriber, doesn't mean all have no life, some may be professional in their career that make big buck, some casual player, some just play to wind up after hard day at work

    my 2 cent

  • Excalibre

    Posted Jan 14, 2007 4:41 am PT

    OK here's just a tad bit of information to educate the ignorant on battle.net. The only servers that blizzard ran for battle.net was the matchmaking and chat server. That was it. EVERYTHING ELSE including the gameplay was all peer to peer. Wow. Amazing isn't it? So just to help you understand, the upkeep, maintenance, bandwidth was a completely different ball game to World of Warcraft. So anyone who thinks they're computer 'savvy' and believes that blizzard hosted servers for thousands and thousands of starcraft, warcraft 2 & 3, and Diablo games is deeply mistaken. READ up before you make ignorant posts.

  • Skater710

    Posted Jan 14, 2007 3:41 am PT

    In Response To: javi66106
    Let me just quote you here: "becuase I used to play but I had a big enough brain to realize that I wasnt gonna let a silly game take control of my life".
    So clearly here you are saying that you are smarter than the average person, yet your whole post is riddled with punctuation, grammar and spelling errors. Yeah...I found it interesting that you said that 8 million people have no lives. That's a fair call. Here's my quest for you; Go talk to the 8 million players of WoW and find out what sort of lives they live. I'm sure you'll be gob smacked!!! However I do agree that a lot of people take the game too seriously, but if you took a deeper and more intelligent look on the scenario you'd find out that most see it as an occasional activity.

    In Response To: MASTERCHIEFUSMA
    I'll quote you here: "Blizz doesnt have to charge a fee, but if u read the entire article it says only US gamers pay it".
    Incorrect. ALL players of WoW pay a monthly fee. I live in Australia and I buy a 60-day Game Card in order to play. If you actually read the article it says that subscription rates vary between regions and then goes on to quote the average price of a US subscription. It says NOTHING of only US citizens paying fees. Check your eyes bud.
    Done.

  • luke_717

    Posted Jan 14, 2007 3:04 am PT

    8.000.000 x 14.95$=.....wow...I want to make a game like this! Who's in!

  • The-Psycho

    Posted Jan 13, 2007 9:38 pm PT

    "Not to bring up a Guild Wars vs World of Warcraft fanboy war, but for those defending the monthly fee; how is ArenaNet able to keep 4 million players and TWO expansions going without a monthly fee for their game in regards to Blizzards monthly fee for ONE game?" its because almost all of guild wars is instanced and mostly run on your own pc. towns and the chat servers are the only servers they have to pay mantanence on

  • javi66106

    Posted Jan 13, 2007 8:40 pm PT

    Ooooooo 8million people with no lives. Sounds like some people need to just say screw it my life isnt worth **** so im gonna spend the rest of my life playing a game full of child molesters and weird perverts that are looking for love on a game (HAHA) yet agian another point showing that our population is becoming very weak minded hehe also very sad that you need a little kid to tell you that you are wasting your time on a stupid game and if your thinking why im typing this yet I think this game is so dumb is becuase I used to play but I had a big enough brain to realize that I wasnt gonna let a silly game take control of my life hope some of you learned something and whoever supports me thanks!!!!

  • Seft_Blade416

    Posted Jan 13, 2007 7:08 pm PT

    Wow....

  • xatman911

    Posted Jan 13, 2007 1:55 pm PT

    Thats a lot of people. I am surprise to see that only 0.1percent of 6.7 billion play games? Can you check that figure again.

  • cjcr_alexandru

    Posted Jan 13, 2007 12:31 pm PT

    The article, the comments... they are all funny. And about the 8 million players, I have only this to say: the population of New York City.

  • cokolino

    Posted Jan 13, 2007 12:11 pm PT

    The drug of this century!!! Btw im 1 of the sucker who got hookd

  • MASTERCHIEFUSMA

    Posted Jan 13, 2007 11:43 am PT

    Blizz doesnt have to charge a fee, but if u read the entire article it says only US gamers pay it, we pay it cause US Citizens less face it have more money and Blizz needs it to Pay employees, Maintenance on severs, Advertising, and other things it needs to keep it going. Me personally i have played WoW for 2 yrs of my life, and now im so tired of it i can barely log on for 5 mins without getting bored, and the expansion is going to be no different.

  • TurinPillager

    Posted Jan 13, 2007 8:05 am PT

    "PS:and some said that blizzard should donate money to charity im TOTALY agreed with this.
    they should say: this money is from all wow players . that would be very nice and then we even feel to doing something important to "

    OR you could do something SHOCKING. Donate DIRECTLY to the charaties!!!!
    I know that may be painful.... but we're here for you.

  • starfoxmcleoud

    Posted Jan 13, 2007 7:36 am PT

    World of Warcrack......8 million lemmings and growing....

  • drunkasaurous

    Posted Jan 13, 2007 7:34 am PT

    its all real gold.

  • SCORPIONIGHT

    Posted Jan 13, 2007 5:32 am PT

    To those who says this game is to expensive to play so and so.
    actualy is not if you working .so if you still live with you parents SHUT UP (those who lives with parents but working doesnt count )
    Other say that people dont have life if they playing wow actualy we do have a life.those who play wow 20 h a day they are sick (sorry but its true) but allmost all my friends play this game and we go to clubs we working and some of us is even study in university and still they have some time to play wow.(and yes somedays (rainy snowy Vacations days we do play wow almost all day) we all have 4 -3 60 charecters so what .
    you just need to find balance with life and wow PS:and some said that blizzard should donate money to charity im TOTALY agreed with this.
    they should say: this money is from all wow players . that would be very nice and then we even feel to doing something important to

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