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World of Warcraft hits 9 million subscribers worldwide
Though World of Warcraft's growth has slowed (at points, reversed entirely) since the release of The Burning Crusade, today it's finally hit 9 million active subscribers world-wide. The game reached 8 million subscribers in January, hit 7 million last September, and had 6 million last March. For those of you not trying to do the math at home, these numbers tell us that they averaged 160k new active subscriptions a month from 8 million to 9 million, 250k new active subscriptions a month from 7 million to 8 million, and 330k new active subscriptions from 6 million to 7 million. Though with a new expansion coming (I imagine we'll be getting plenty of news about it at this year's BlizzCon), I can only imagine we'll see another subscription bump -- and perhaps actually see the predicted 10 million subscriber year.So grats to Blizzard for reaching another MMO milestone!
Disney Mobile talks (some) numbers
One of the lovely perks of existing as a tiny entity within a global megacorporation is that you can be a little coy with your public disclosure and get away with it. That's exactly the game kid-friendly Disney Mobile is playing as it gears up to celebrate its first anniversary, completely ignoring the burning question of subscriber count to concentrate on inane stats like how many people use its GPS tracking services (30 percent, by the way) and the balance of adult users to kids (56 to 44 percent). Sub count is particularly interesting here for a couple reasons: first, all eyes are on the still-maturing MVNO market as players try to find their niches and stake their claims against the big guys, and second, stablemate ESPN Mobile bit the dust last year for lack of interest. To be fair, Disney Mobile's target demographic is utterly different than ESPN's was -- and kiddie phones seem to be hot items these days -- so it's entirely possible all's well in the Magic Kingdom; until Disney decides to release more deets or the division closes up shop, though, it's all speculation.[Via Techdirt]
Burning Crusade tops the 3.5 million mark
Gamasutra reports that the Burning Crusade expansion has surpassed the 3.5 million sales mark -- 2.4 million of which were sold within 24 hours of release. Regions that play on North American realms (which includes Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia) accounted for 1.9 million copies, while the remainder were sold in Europe. BC was recently released in South Korea, and work is underway for Simplified and Traditional Chinese localizations for mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau, with an official release date "as soon as possible." The worldwide subscriber base has now reached the 8.5 million mark, with an increase of 500,000 new players in less than two months. For the mathematically-minded among you, that's a 6.25% noob increase since BC's release. [Via Joystiq]
World of Warcraft breaks 8 million subscribers
The most successful MMORPG of all time just got successfuller: Blizzard today announced that World of Warcraft has surpassed 8 million subscribers. Two million of those subscribers are in North America, 1.5 million in Europe, and 3.5 million in China (the remainder are scattered throughout other parts of the world). Will nothing stop this juggernaut? We recall attending a GDC 2005 session in which pundits asked (and failed to answer) the following question, "When will we see our first truly mass-market MMORPG?" [Image credit: World of Warcraft Coke cans spotted at a supermarket by Flickr user hey-gem] [Via WoW Insider.com]
WoW passes 8 million subscribers
Yes, in a twist that surely suprises no-one, Blizzard announces that WoW now has over 8,000,000 subscribers worldwide. This includes 2 million in North America, 1.5 million in Europe, and 3.5 million in China. They have a fairly tight definition of "subscriber," too: a subscriber is someone with active paid time or game card time, people within their free month, and "Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days" (not really sure what that last one means). They don't count people with trial accounts or lapsed subscriptions.Come to think of it, that 2 million in North American actually feels low to me. If you add up the populations of the US and Canada and divide by 2 million, you get 167: one in every 167 US/Canada residents is a WoW player, approximately. It feels like more than that to me, but that probably says much more about the kind of people I know than anything else.I can't help but think back to when I first heard about WoW, when Blizzard announced it as their next project. I was upset, since I figured I would never want to play a game that required a subscription fee (I was a huge Diablo II fan at the time), and like everyone else, I underestimated the size of the MMO market in general. Which just goes to show, when Blizzard announces that their next project is a cross between NiGHTS Into Dreams, Cooking Mama and DDR, don't doubt them. They'll find a way to pull it off.
Predicting a ten million subscriber year for WoW
Relmstein has a short piece up about Blizzard and their little online game in the coming year, and in the process, he arrives at the exact same subscriber number that I did in my predictions: Ten million subscribers worldwide.The latest figures we have say they're current at eight million, but of course every bit of thinking we do on this issue is clouded by the expansion next week. Personally, I think the expansion will live up to the hype-- when hasn't Blizzard ever done that? Relmstein agrees with me, and says it'll bring a lot of players back. I'm thinking that means even players who don't expect to come back. Once the items start getting out there, and the new instances carve out their place in the culture, I think the Burning Crusade will bring this game back for a lot of people. Heck one indicator is the new PVP system-- if all the new content can revive the PVE game at least as much, it's a good thing Blizz is unwrapping all those new servers.But of course the drawback to an expansion is this: you don't earn a new audience with addon content. I'd hazard a guess that the expansion will sell five to six million copies after all is said and done, but almost every one of those copies will go to someone who's already got an identity in Azeroth: I'd doubt anyone is sitting on the sidelines, just waiting for a Blood Elf or Draenei to come along and pick up the game. Of course, that doesn't mean Blizzard won't make money-- they'll rake it in, and hopefully spend it on even more servers and content. But I'm thinking that while Burning Crusade will bring a renaissance to Azeroth, total subscribers will top out at 10 million. And then, we can talk about another issue: will WoW's base peak in 2007?
TiVo fanatics livid over Series3 shipping delays
So if you're a consumer electronics manufacturer in the midst of a highly-publicized product release, you'd think that the last group of customers you'd want to alienate would be the die-hard fanatics who participate in your forums everyday and were among the very first to place orders for said product, right? Well judging by the tone of the comments on the TiVo Community boards, that's exactly what the company has down to its so-called VIP subscribers -- you know, the ones who possess those coveted lifetime subscriptions and woke up extra-early this past Tuesday to ensure that their new Series3 boxes would arrive the next day. Except TiVo apparently wasn't ready to handle the deluge of orders that it received, and after two days of wondering what the heck was going on (calls to customer service were met by confusion and misinformation on the part of the phone reps), everyone finally received an email confirming the delays and promising shipment by Friday. Luckily TiVo had the good sense to refund the shipping charges -- in some cases $50 worth -- to these early adopters, but much to the VIPs' displeasure, they learned that they'd be unable to cancel their pending orders if they wanted to go the retail route; and what's more, there was some confusion as to whether store-bought TiVos would even be eligible for the $200 lifetime subscription transfer. As of this writing it seems that only a handful of folks actually got their boxes on Friday, with everyone else scrambling to reschedule the CableCARD installation appointments they'd made with their cable providers. So while there's little argument that TiVo makes a fine product with a world-class interface, perhaps when it eventually comes out with the Series4, it'll do some better planning or leave distribution to the professionals -- apparently, TiVo and e-commerce don't seem to go too well together lately.[Via HDBeat]
World of Warcraft hits 7 million subscribers
Elizabeth Harper is covering the MMO-heavy Austin Game Conference for Joystiq and our WoW-obsessed friends at WoW Insider. Wednesday morning at the Austin Game Conference it was announced that World of Warcraft has hit 7 million active subscribers world-wide. While the number doesn't surprise us -- as we've yet to see an MMO present a serious challenge to WoW's dominance of the genre -- such large figures are rather staggering. Despite all of the technical issues and player complaints, the game's popularity has continued to grow on a large scale (the game only announced it hit 6 million active subscribers at the beginning of March, this year). So congratulations, Blizzard, on another million players!
Helio: another MVNO in trouble?
It looks like Amp'd and ESPN Mobile aren't the only MVNOs discovering that their business models may not be getting them where they want to be. An unconfirmed report out of Telecoms Korea is brewing that Helio -- chic Kickflip and all -- has managed to sign up 100 (yes, that's one hundred) subscribers since launching a couple months back. SK Telecom, which teamed up with Earthlink to form Helio, is denying the reports and insisting the true number is in the thousands, but either way they've fallen well short of projections. It looks like we now have an explanation for Helio's shockingly generous gadget trade-in program. SKT also looks to shore up Helio's lineup with as many as five new models by year end, but we have to wonder -- if 100 subs is an accurate count, is there any hope for a turnaround?UPDATE: We just got an official response from Helio about this: "This morning's report by Telecoms Korea is wholly inaccurate and does not represent Helio's membership figures." They wouldn't tell us any more than that, but they're adamant that the figures reported aren't correct.
GSM approaches 2 billion users
Twelve years for the first billion users, two and a half years for the second billion. Those are the staggering statistics being flaunted by the GSM Association this week as they prepare to sign up their two billionth customer, driving home the exponential growth mobile carriers worldwide have enjoyed as of late. Although China represents by far the largest single user base with over 370 million, Latin America and the Caribbean brought their "A" game last year, holding the titles for largest subscriber growth rate (97%) thanks to numerous carriers selecting GSM as their CDMA / TDMA upgrade path. So, how many peeps worldwide are toting cellphones, regardless of technology? According to the GSMA, there are 2.29 billion, making GSM the overwhelming standard of choice; we're guessing you can figure out who slots in at number two.
MMO statistics show WoW wins
We've pointed to MMOGChart before, but the site's latest update is worth commenting on. With subscriber numbers for all major MMOs through to May 2006, there's one game that stands head and shoulders above the rest -- no prizes for guessing which.In fact, the pie chart above shows that over half (50.6%) of all MMO subscriptions are for World of Warcraft. The growth of WoW has been phenomenal, and it's great to be part of its popularity. However, we all know that WoW isn't without its problems, and it's going to be hard for a challenger to come along and threaten WoW's dominance.[Via Joystiq]
Lord of the Rings Online: Future Competition for WoW?
With usage statistics showing World of Warcraft so far above any potential competition, you've got to whether any game could challenge the top spot. The last major MMO release, Dungeons & Dragons Online, saw a slight drop in my guild's raid attendance for a week or so, but then everyone lost interest, and was playing again. (More recently the single-player game Oblivion seems to have caused a heavier attendance drop across the realms - though that may eventually play itself out as well.) While a true test of Warcraft's dominance of the market is bound to come eventually, questions remain - when and from where? Well, the developers of Lord of the Rings Online are aiming high - with a target of a million subscribers. Though this is still significantly less than WoW's six million subscribers, it's a big jump over the next nearest competition (Final Fantasy XI, with an estimated 650,000 active subscribers). With continued technical problems plaguing Azeroth, how many people are simply waiting for the next big MMO to hit? And is Lord of the Rings Online going to be the one, or yet another passing fad?
MMO Account Statistics
Though this site isn't specific to World of Warcraft, MMOGCHART.COM provides some interesting information on the subscriber levels of various MMO's currently on the market as well as the number of people actively playing MMO's. The site has recently gotten its first update of the year, with promises of more updates to come. It doesn't tell us more than we already know - that World of Warcraft is immensely popular - but it does help to put it in perspective. With the next two MMO's below WoW catering to more of the Asian market (NCSoft's Lineage and Lineage 2), it looks like North American competition in the MMO market is pretty scarce.
12-hour Oblivion marathon starts on Monday
It looks like GameSpot's taking a page from Joystiq's gaming book by trying a 12-hour marathon with a retail copy of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion for the 360 this Monday.There will even be a live video feed of executive editor Greg Kasavin "driving" the game, but that will only be available to GameSpot subscribers. (Booo!) The event's currently scheduled for Monday, March 20, 6:00 PM-Tuesday, March 21, 6:00 AM PT.Greg'll be "offering commentary about the experience as it transpires" via the picture-in-picture feed, but he won't be taking part in the concurrent subscriber chat room planned so as "to avoid any outside influences on his time spent evaluating the game." Well, good luck, Greg, and make sure to stay hydrated... 'cuz it's gonna be a long night.See also: Oblivion release imminent -- March 20 (it's official) 48-hour Xbox 360 marathon begins… now! Super-frustrating boss fight in Kameo Joystiq's massive Xbox 360 launch weekend blowout: the aftermath
World of Warcraft hits 6 million subscribers, adds a Spanish localization
With their announcement of a new Spanish-language localization of World of Warcraft, Blizzard has quietly noted that their current subscriber base has reached 6 million players. However, considering current issues with server population, queues, and lag, existing players must wonder if this is really a good thing.[Via Joystiq]
