World Of Warcraft Subscriber Base Grows To 8 Million

Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. announced Thursday that its subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), World of Warcraft has achieved a new subscriber milestone, with more than 8 million gamers around the world.

In a statement yesterday, the Irvine, California based premier developer and publisher of entertainment software renowned for creating many of the industry's most critically acclaimed games said that the number of subscribing World of Warcraft members has exceeded 8 million worldwide.

Aside from the global subscriber milestone, World of Warcraft has also succeeded to achieve 2 million players in North America, more than 1.5 million players in Europe and more than 3.5 million players in China, while another million or so spread throughout the other territories, including Australia.

“We’re ecstatic that the World of Warcraft community has continued to grow steadily since we launched the game,” said Mike Morhaime, president and co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment. “This milestone wouldn’t have been possible for us to achieve without the incredible support of our players. With the release of our expansion pack, World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade™, coming next week, we’re looking forward to welcoming more players to Azeroth and offering even more quality content for our community to enjoy.”

Since its launch in 2004, World of Warcraft has easily become the most popular online role-playing game. World of Warcraft subscription is priced differently in different regions of the world. U.S. players pay a subscription fee of $14.95 each month to play WoW.

Blizzard, which hopes to continue to produce a flurry of hit games, is anxiously waiting for the release of the long-awaited first WoW expansion, called World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, which will be available in North America and Europe on January 16, 2007.

Priced at $39.99, more than the original WoW, the expansion is rated T for Teen, and will be available in Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and Thailand the same week, with availability in mainland China and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau to be announced at a later date.

Blizzard has added some fabulous content to the game, including a whole new continent that players with high-level characters can explore, an increase in the level cap up to 70, complete with new talents and abilities, new races, new professions, new quests, new magical items, new monsters and much more.

The WoW expansion will be available in the GameStop/EB Games store at 1000 Universal Studios Blvd. in Universal City, Calif. and three Fry’s Electronics locations — 1077 E. Arques Ave. in Sunnyvale, 10800 Kalama River Ave in Fountain Valley, and 3370 E. La Palma in Anaheim.

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