World of Warcraft reaches 12 million players
by Adam Holisky 
Oct 7th 2010 at 10:33AM
That's a lot of Deadmines runs.
VanerasToday we announced that World of Warcraft has passed another major milestone and now hosts more than 12 million current subscribers around the globe. Check out the press release for the full announcement, and thank you to all of our players for making this possible -- we're grateful for all of the support and enthusiasm you've shown over the years, and look forward to continuing to provide you with great entertainment experiences for a long time to come.
For those wondering exactly what constitutes a subscriber, check after the break. Otherwise, know that Blizzard has pretty strict accounting practices, and this number isn't blown up by some cheap trick.
Blizzard PRWorld of Warcraft subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access. Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days are also counted as subscribers. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards. Subscribers in licensees' territories are defined along the same rules.
Filed under: News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 7)
Stannislaus Oct 7th 2010 10:40AM
Before Cataclysm??
Damn.
Did the 12 millionth win a free...something?
Darky Oct 7th 2010 10:54AM
Yup, a BRAND NEW addiction. :D
Stannislaus Oct 7th 2010 10:55AM
HAH! Well played.
Scott Oct 7th 2010 11:55AM
Two months after the release of Cataclysm (and harder heroics):
"Blizzard Entertainment would like to announce our current subscriber numbers are back to 9 million."
Amaxe Oct 7th 2010 12:04PM
@Scott
Well, if that be the case, then i expect this statistic would be quickly glossed over in the next stockholder meeting ;-)
Snuzzle Oct 7th 2010 12:07PM
I will gladly shed 3 million players who think Cataclysm is too hard, and I'm sure Blizzard would too.
Stannislaus Oct 7th 2010 12:57PM
Snuzzle, I don't think you are quite clear on the concept of money.
MisturSrs Oct 7th 2010 1:01PM
@Snuzzle
yes, I'm sure Blizzard would be happy to lose 3 million customers who each pay $15 dollars a month so that you can stroke your "@@HEROIC@@" ego in Cataclysm. If the game dropped that many subscribers they'd make the next expansion so EZ mode your head would spin.
QQinsider Oct 7th 2010 1:22PM
@Snuzzle
You're either incredibly ignorant, or just a troll. Business is about making money, and if Blizzard start losing subscribers because of Cata being harder then you can bet it won't stay hard for long. Casual subscribers are far more important to their business model than people like you.
jfofla Oct 7th 2010 1:29PM
Dear Snuzzle,
While hardcores like you frequently unsub for long periods of time, the casual player is consistently loyal.
woshiernog Oct 7th 2010 2:50PM
I hear ya. Would it kill them to give us like a free day? What ever happened to customer appreciation?
Thon Oct 7th 2010 3:12PM
Hey guys, think about it this way, the World's population is about 6.7 Billion. Wow's subscribers are 12 million. That means nearly 2 people in a thousand play WoW! 0.o Which is, needless to say, astounding.
Artificial Oct 7th 2010 4:43PM
This whole idea is silly. Casuals care far more about things like improved starting areas, improved questing, and a generally better level experience. If heroics are harder, so be it. It's not terribly relevant to casuals. In any case, most casuals would prefer harder heroics. Wrath heroics suck for the casuals, where everyone is rushing through. Most I know hate PUGs precisely because of this. They want to do heroics with their casual friends, who will take ten times longer doing them and consider this a *good* thing, since they're focused on enjoying the content, scenery, and story, not accumulating emblems (many of whom will never have enough to buy a complete tier set anyhow, so they're pretty much worthless to them). Every casual I know had said they enjoy doing lower level dungeons with lower level characters more, with careful pulls, crowd control, etc. They hate the frantic pace of Wrath instances and the way people rush though them. Harder heroics would be the best thing that ever happened for casuals.
pdq90 Oct 7th 2010 5:44PM
I don't get why Snuzzle was voted down so harshly.
Obviously he's wrong that Blizzard wouldn't mind losing 3 million subscriptions, but the sentiment behind making heroics a bit more challenging I think isn't so awful.
Steeper gear requirements for heroics just means the regular dungeons will actually be run. It's another tier of progression, and makes running quest lines for gear in high level zones actually somewhat important - which IMO is cool. I'm not anywhere near what someone would consider hardcore, but even I don't really enjoy heroics as they are now.
It's not about ego, it's just about fun. TBC heroics were pretty enjoyable when everyone first hit 70. I'm not saying heroics have to be harder than hard mode raids or anything, but l'd be glad to see something on par with TBC heroics at launch.
The truth is, if Blizzard really does start hemorrhaging subscriptions because of this (which I don't think will actually happen), we all stand to lose something special - because you're right, they will change it.
thegatherer Oct 7th 2010 10:40AM
Now, does this mean 12 million subscriptions, or 12 million individual people with potentially more than one subscription?
Tidus4eva Oct 7th 2010 10:44AM
It says 12 million current subscribers, meaning that 1 person with 5 accounts still counts as 5 subscribers to the count.
What that means is that there is currently 12 million accounts with an active game-time, using credit card, or game time cards.
Looks like WotLK in China is a good thing
mingdi9 Oct 7th 2010 10:44AM
I think they mean individuals. To head off any comments about their definition of subscriber, here it is, directly from the press announcement:
World of Warcraft subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access. Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days are also counted as subscribers. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards. Subscribers in licensees’ territories are defined along the same rules.
Saeadame Oct 7th 2010 11:24AM
@mingdi9 - That's true, but it doesn't say anything about one valid subscriber with multiple accounts. So, people who dual box or even 5-box, and pay for 5 separate subscriptions would count as five accounts.
There's not that many people out there that can afford/want to do that though, so a large proportion of the 12 million should still be individuals.
Tribunal Oct 7th 2010 11:58AM
It's probably by Battle.net account (at least over here). So if you keep all your WoW accounts on separate Battle.net accounts - which is doable - you'd be 5 'people'.
Anyways, glad to see this number out, can bring a bit of a hush to all the "Oh the 11 million number is old people are quitting left and right and the game is dying" whining. Not sure why anyone would take the time to whine about that, but sadly they do.
mingdi9 Oct 7th 2010 4:16PM
@Saeadame
It doesn't say they are counting the number of separate subscriptions. The description says "individuals who have paid a subscription fee," which, logically, should also include individuals who pay five subscription fees. Admittedly I have never tried to do this, so I wouldn't know if it's standard practice to pretend you're five different people in Blizzard's internal systems, each paying one subscription fee, when you're multiboxing.