World of Warcraft Subscribers Now 11.5 million (Timeline Included)

By Henry Wilson
23 December 2008 @ 06:31 pm EDT

World of Warcraft has passed another milestone on Tuesday, as developer Blizzard Entertainment reported its subscriber base reached 11.5 million, up about 15 percent since it reached 11 million in late January.

The home page of the World of Warcraft web site is seen on December 23, 2008.

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In a January 22 update, Blizzard Entertainment announced it had reached 10 million online users for its massively multiplayer online role-playing game. The base was at 9 million in July, 2007 and 8 million that year.

The game's second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, sold 4 million copies in the month following its November 13 launch. The original World of Warcraft game launched in November of 2004.

In January, Blizzard said it had more than 2 million subscribers in Europe, 2.5 million in North America and approximately 5.5 million in Asia.

GameStop vice president of merchandising Bob McKenzie said the base of users using the original game and first expansion, world of Warcraft Battle Chest are performing better than last year. He attributed the results to "an enthusiastic player base" for Blizzard's products.

World of Warcraft had its most dramatic rise in 2005, according to MMOGData, when the subscriber base went from 750,000 in January to 5.5 million that December.

History of Subscriber World of Warcraft subscriber growth.

According to Blizzard:

11.5 million Dec 23 2008

11.0 million Oct 28 2008

10.0 million Jan 22 2008

9.0 million July 24 2007

8.0 million Jan 24, 2007

7. 0 million Sept 6, 2006

6.0 million March 2006

According to MMOGData:

5.5 million Dec 2005

0.75 million Jan 2005