Hearthstone gains 20M players in a year, surpassing 70M to date

Blizzard's cross-platform digital card game Hearthstone has surpassed 70 million registered players, according to the company, which is making a show of giving away free in-game card packs to mark the occasion.

Given that Hearthstone is free-to-play and it costs nothing to create an account, this nice round milestone is mostly notable for the impression it gives of the game's growth rate. Late last April Blizzard announced the game had hit 50M registered players, so it appears as though it attracted roughly 20 million new accounts in the last 12 months.

The game's audience has grown to the point that Swedish politician Rickard Nordin told Glixel earlier this year he regularly streams himself playing it and talking to viewers about political issues like eSports legislation. 

"In one way this is just being where the people are," he said. "Some politicians stand outside the supermarket discussing food prices. I'm on Twitch discussing eSports."