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01/11/07
World of Warcraft Surpasses 8 Million Subscribers Worldwide
"Since debuting in North America on November 23, 2004, World of Warcraft
has become the most popular MMORPG around the world. Today, World of
Warcraft is available in seven different languages and is played in
North America, Europe, mainland China, Korea, Australia, New Zealand,
Singapore, and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau."
http://www.blizzard.com/press/070111.shtml
I
know i just reactivated my account 2 days ago. The game's first
major expansion is hitting the streets on the 16th, and I wanted to
activate now to beat the last second rush. I wouldn't be at all
suprised if 8 million turns into 9 or 10 million in the next few weeks.
For those unfamiliar these figures are historically unprecedented.
Here's a little piechart illustrating WoW's dominance over all
other MMO's currently on the market.
Blizzard is currently making about 250-300 million dollars per year
off of just this one title, and with the release of this expansion next
week...well if every subscriber buys it...8 million X $49 =
$392,000,000 off of just the expansion!
Stores all over the world are selling out of the expansion. I
placed my "pre-order" about 2 full months ago with ebgames.com, but i'm
still not confident they will actually ship me a copy on the 16th.
I'm expecting they'll take way more orders than they can fill,
but i do have one thing going for me...of that 8 million subscribers
worldwide only about 2 million are in north america...that gives me
some hope I may actually get my hands on a copy sometime next week.
Besides me who are all these retards? Well this site has been one
of my favorite sites over the years for mmo demographic information: The Daedalus Gateway
If you're like most people, the first mistaken presumption you may make
is the average age of MMO players. According to the Daedalus Project
it's about 26, but in the gaming cirlces i seem to travel in it feels
more like 30 something. I've been in a few guilds that had
multiple people in their 50's...men and women. It's hard to
imagine what motivates a grandmother to play these games, but I was in
guilds in 2 different games and played right next to grandmothers...One
was actually a guild leader, and big-time pvp leader. I still
remember her barking orders like a military commander over ventrillo (a
voice communications program that allows gamers to chat verbally with
one another through a headset while we play - it's kind of like a great
big partyline, and is absolutely essential for efficiently
communication instructions to large groups of people - it sure beats
typing out hundreds of words while you're trying to fight or whatever.)
The guild i'm currently in is led by a married couple in their early
30's i believe. And i've been in many guilds with multiple family
members playing...one example is a 30ish son and his 50-something
father, and his 26ish sister.
In addition to grandmothers and grandfathers, I've played with
bricklayers, accountants, engineers, rocket scientists, and even a
brain surgeon.
A quick look here will show you the diversity you'll find in mmo's...
Jane is 46, a lawyer doing criminal defense work and
juvenile defense from Akron, Ohio. She played D&D in college off
papers mimeod from a guy named Gary Gygax. Before she graduated from
college, their DM did manage to get an actual set of printed pamphlets.
Nowadays, she plays EverQuest with 4 people in her family.
Bill is a 54-year-old firefighter for the US Forest
Service from Oregon with 20+ years of firefighting experience. He plays
EverQuest with his wife. He has a 51 ranger and a 47 rogue, but his
wife says that “the rogue is more him”.
Alex is 19, a college student majoring in political
science at ASU. He enjoys playing female characters because “little
boys generally think you’re a girl and will be more lenient to you in
bartering or just flat-out give you things.”
“Spark” is a 39-year-old computer scientist who
specializes in security and works for a media and services company
based in the Silicon Valley. She’s been gaming ever since Adventure on
the mainframe around 1978, but only recently began playing an MMO - WoW.
Diane is 33, a professional mom from New Jersey.
She got into Anarchy Online after a conversation with a fellow Lord of
the Rings fan at a laundrymat. She considers herself as more of a
role-player than a gamer. Her ideal game “would be one where
role-playing was mandatory, that didn’t revolves around phat loot or
grinding out levels in hack ‘n slash type way.”
11/15/06
I don't think i have much to say about World of Warcraft atm, but i've
spent so much time in this game that i thought it deserved it's own
section.
I've been playing this game on and off since it was released two years
ago. It started out with a few hundred thousand subscribers,
and
now boasts over seven million! It can be alot of fun, but can
suck up way too much time if you let it. When I play i pretty
much have to drag my ass out of bed at 4:30am to satisfy my WoW itch.
I'm taking a break from the game until mid January when a huge
expansion is due out.
I play on the Turalyon server so roll a toon there if you want to play
with me.
I have 3 lvl 60 toons on this server. Get a free ten day trail here: https://signup.worldofwarcraft.com/trial/index.htm
Romack - 60 Shaman | Romacula - 60 Priest |
Romac - 60 Hunter |
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