Anticipation for new expansion helps boost World of Warcraft subscriptions

With a new expansion coming next month to behemoth MMO World of Warcraft, developer Blizzard says that the decade-old multiplayer game has seen a notable boost to subscription numbers in anticipation. The game received a significant update this week called The Iron Tide, and next month will the next big update, called Warlords of Draenor, will be released. While the game has been hemorrhaging subscribers for a long while now, these updates have breathed some new life into the title. Subscriber numbers have jumped up from 6.8 million to 7.4 million, says Blizzard. It surely helps that Blizzard is offering all current and former World of Warcraft players all previous expansions for the game for free, in a bid to entice players back. The upcoming Warlords of Draenor expansion has been pre-ordered by more than 1.5 million players.