Enticed by the sweet siren call of the Warlords of Draenor expansion, World of Warcraft subscriber numbers have jumped from October’s 7.4 million to more than 10 million, all of them apparently on my home server of Moon Guard.
Blizzard announced the massively multiplayer jump today, along with the news that 3.3 million copies of the expansion were sold within the first 24 hours of last Thursday’s launch, including physical and digital copies. A substantial portion of that number is likely lapsed players returning to check out the fresh content, succumbing to that rumbling ache we get in the pit of our stomachs when a game we used to play gets a major update.
“We’re thrilled that so many players jumped in to play Warlords of Draenor on day one and are having a great time with the new content,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment via official announcement. “We poured a lot of hard work and passion into this expansion, and we appreciate all the kind words from players and the overwhelming support they continue to show for World of Warcraft.”
The huge jump in subscribers was also a likely factor in the technical issues and steep login queues that plagued the first few days of Warlords of Draenor‘s launch. Thanks for the free five days, everybody!
Blizzard and Activision are generally quick on the trigger when it comes to massive jumps in subscriber numbers, but not so much on drops. It will likely be a while before we see how many of the new 2.6 million stay on once the new content is spent.
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4 responses to “World Of Warcraft Gains 2.6 Million Subscribers In One Month”
How do Blizzard sleep at night?…
…On top of a pile of money, with many beautiful ladies..
I am still amazed by the longevity of the game. Kudos to Blizzard.
They announce their earnings, figures and financial plans every quarter (they just usually jump in with the subscriber count a little early if it’s high).
see:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/4219-WoW-Down-to-6-8-Million-Subscribers
OT, I expected the count to go up like it does with ever expansion but nowhere near this much. Nice to know there was a good reason for the server queues =D
That’s impressive, but I’m still glad I quit when I did a few months ago.