World of Warcraft Reaches 1.5 Million Subscribers Worldwide

Now that Blizzard's MMORPG World of Warcraft has been released in multiple territories, including the United States, Europe, and Korea, the company has announced that the subscriber base has reached a record 1.5 million users. Furthermore, the game has also surpassed the previous record for simultaneous players playing one game at once, with its high of over 500,000 users over multiple territories. The by-territory breakdown lists Europe has having over 500,000 active subscriptions, with a maximum peak concurrency of 230,000, while America currently has an active subscription base of over 800,000 players. Hard statistics for the Korean launch were not available, but according to Blizzard, the game is being played in 75% of the ubiquitous game rooms and game cafes, and it enjoyed the most successful 100-day launch of any MMORPG so far in Korea. The gigantic success of World Of WarCraft has been in some ways its greatest obstacle, as Blizzard has been scrambling to deal with greater-than-expected server load, sometimes resulting in high lag, queues to join servers, and server downtimes. However, Blizzard has been working to adjust to the problem, and it seems that the connection issues are becoming much less of a problem for players. "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."