WoW surpasses 10 million subscribers, now half the size of Australia
World of Warcraft continues to live up to the acronym, now supporting a subscriber base of more than 10 million. (Actually, those subscribers do the 'supporting' – due to pay nearly $2 billion to Blizzard and its parent companies over the course of this year.) Just how big is 10 million? If Blizzard drafted all WoW players into a private army, the armed force would easily trump the size of the world's ten largest armies combined. In civilian terms: WoW players now equal half of Australia's total population.
Blizzard defines subscribers as those who have paid a subscription fee or are using an active prepaid card, 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 during the last 30 days are also counted as subscribers, but players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or canceled subscriptions and expired prepaid cards are excluded. WoW currently totals more than 2 million subscribers in Europe, more than 2.5 million in North America and approximately 5.5 million in Asia.
[Via WoW Insider]
