World of Warcraft: 1.5 million and counting

It's appropriate that World of Warcraft's acronym is WOW. Blizzard's massively multiplayer online role-playing game has been putting up some impressive numbers since its release last November, breaking MMO sales records in each region where it has been released.

Today Blizzard announced that World of Warcraft has reached more than 1.5 million subscribers worldwide. The game has reached the milestone after being released in North America, Korea, and Europe. It's set to be released in another hotbed of online gaming soon--China--and received 100,000 applications for its beta testing in the first hour alone.

Another staggering figure is the number of concurrent global gamers exploring the fictional world of Azeroth. More than 500,000 gamers from around the globe have crowded Blizzard's servers simultaneously. It appears as though those who purchased the game are getting good use out of it--several stats point to regions having nearly half of the game's subscribers logged in at the same time.

"All of us at Blizzard are extremely gratified and amazed at the international demand for World of Warcraft," said Mike Morhaime, president of Blizzard Entertainment. "From region to region, we've seen a phenomenal level of enthusiasm for World of Warcraft, and we're absolutely thrilled people are enjoying the game so much."

For more information on World of Warcraft, GameSpot's 2004 Game of the Year, read the full review.