‘World of Warcraft’ Breaks 1.5M Subscribers

By Ian Bell March 17, 2005

Building on its record-breaking debuts in North America, Korea, and Europe, “World of Warcraft” has reached global peak concurrency – the number of subscribers playing at the same time in each market – of more than 500,000 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.”

Since its debut in North America on Nov. 23, 2004, “World of Warcraft” has launched to critical and commercial success in Korea and Europe, exploding in popularity across the globe. In the span of a few short months, “World of Warcraft” has achieved record-breaking milestones, including:

    --  Europe:        --  Over 290,000 account creations and 180,000 peak            concurrency in its first weekend.        --  Over 500,000 active subscribers and 230,000 peak            concurrency to date.    --  Korea:        --  The most successful 100-day launch of any MMORPG in Korean            history since its commercial release on Jan. 18, 2005.        --  "World of Warcraft" is currently played in 75 percent of            Korean Internet Game Rooms (IGRs), the primary venue for            playing games in Korea. IGRs subscribe directly to MMORPGs            and then players buy blocks of time from the IGRs for game            time.    --  North America:        --  Over 200,000 subscribers and 100,000 peak concurrency            achieved in the game's first 24 hours.        --  Current subscriber base of over 800,000 players.

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