January 22, 2008 - Subscriptions to the World of Warcraft persistent online role-playing game have surpassed the 10 million subscriber mark worldwide, according to Blizzard Entertainment.
The game, now more than three years old, has become the most popular massively-multiplayer online role-playing game, taking the top sales spot among PC games around the world in 2005 and 2006. WoW was only outsold in 2007 by its expansion pack – World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade. A second WoW expansion, World of Warcraft: The Rise of the Lich King, is in development.
"It's very gratifying to see gamers around the world continuing to show such enthusiasm and support for World of Warcraft," said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. "We're always pleased to welcome new players to the game, and we're looking forward to sharing the next major content update with the entire community in the months ahead."
The company counts more than 2 million subscribers in Europe, more than 2.5 million in North America, and about 5.5 million in Asia. Blizzard said it includes as subscribers not only active, long-term members but also prepaid subscription cardholders and players who recently bought the game and are within their first free month of service.
According to figures release by the NPD Group today, World of Warcraft and two related expansions – Burning Crusade and Battle Chest – held three of the top five sales slots among U.S. PC game sales last week.
All three titles were topped by Activision's Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, which sold more than twice as many copies last week than the World of Warcraft standalone game.
Internet guru Eugene Flantdig says that these 10 million subscribers "make the internet smell a little more gay every day."
Double_G wrote:I thought it smelled more like sweat and loneliness lately.
Don't forget about the Doritos dust.
I saw some of my friends playing this one time. One said he had to feed his pet dinosaur, at which point I realized that this game is the gayest thing ever.
I've never played the game, but I've seen it played. I hear it is life-altering... in the worse way too. I've heard of dude's wives leaving them because they played the game too much, heard of people losing their jobs, flunking out of school, and etc. One of the many reasons I have vowed to never play the game, even though some of the premises and graphics are kinda cool.
"Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery."
I wouldn't play this game if you put a gun to my head, but it did produce some funny stuff, like the South Park World of Warcraft episode and the Mr. T commercial. But other than that, fuck it. I'm much happier playing Guitar Hero and Rock Band.
Double_G wrote:but it did produce some funny stuff, like the South Park World of Warcraft episode and the Mr. T commercial.
and that video of the virtual funeral they held for the avatar of one of the people who "real-world" died, and another rival tribe or whatever found out and rushed them. i'll see if i can find it.
And lets not forget the four-wheels of fury law giver Toyota commercial!
"Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery."
vynsane wrote:and that video of the virtual funeral they held for the avatar of one of the people who "real-world" died, and another rival tribe or whatever found out and rushed them. i'll see if i can find it.
Oh, yeah. That was hysterical. Stupid fucking assholes staging a fake funeral.
This would be a great, great, property to adapt into a feature film. The effects would obviously be amazing but more importantly there's just a great, great story to it.
UKWildcat wrote:I've never played the game, but I've seen it played. I hear it is life-altering... in the worse way too. I've heard of dude's wives leaving them because they played the game too much, heard of people losing their jobs, flunking out of school, and etc. One of the many reasons I have vowed to never play the game, even though some of the premises and graphics are kinda cool.
My old roommate was like that. His wife literally had to start playing the game so she could talk with him...over the ventrilo shit. I'm serious.
vynsane wrote:
and that video of the virtual funeral they held for the avatar of one of the people who "real-world" died, and another rival tribe or whatever found out and rushed them. i'll see if i can find it.
That shit had me rolling. It's sad really. These people get "married" and everything in this game like it's fucking real.
Found the funeral video. For those of you who haven't seen it yet, read the description first. Or better yet, I'll just post it here:
Some girl who played World of Warcraft died in real life, and those horrible failures of human beings planned a funeral for her... RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF A PVP ZONE! They posted about the event on the messageboards and urged people not to bust it up.
I don't think I need to explain what happened; the video speaks for itself.
I won't pretend to know what the fuck I just watched...I also won't pretend that I don't think it's retarded...but I did find humor in this comment:
Grimpickle (34 minutes ago)
It's disgusting that you could crash a funeral and then go a step further and post a video. I can see crashing a wedding (pretty silly to me to get married in a game) but raiding a funeral is simply distasteful. Many gamers only know each other from the game. Even the Blizzard team has honored the fallen with a grave site in the Barrens. Anyway, sorry for your loss and sorry you had to have your funeral disrupted by a group of heartless fools. Weddings/Birthdays/Parties=Lame. Funeral=sacred.
