WoW's customer base reaches 6 million

Amazing. For $13-15/month for one game, it surpasses Xbox Live for $5/month. MS should be ashamed. They need dedicated gaming servers instead of servers that keeps track of customer's action...

WoW!!!!!!!!!!

Congratz WoW! 6 million users!

Meanwhile back at SOE , after self destructing SWG with the NGE, word was announced that Jim Lee is going to be the creative director for the new (but with SOE ill fated) DC heroes MMO.

If its SOE , it isn't going to go.

Love that Jestor, and for a second year SOE Does not!

jestor, thats a lot of abbreviations. sony of europe, star wars galaxies, massively multiplayer online, but whats NGE?

New Game Enhancements or some chit like that.

Sony Online Entertainment ... not Sony of Europe

Has anyone ever found out what Blizzard mean by 'Internet Game Room players' whoom they seem to count as subscribers in their definition? I wonder how many boxed copies have been sold, surely the industry body released that info somewhere? Ssould be interesting to see how many people have ditched the game...

I just can't believe this....that's 6000000 * 15 = 90000000......that's $90mil......man what are they doing with that money? Ferrari Enzo, the other one got the concept car......whatever........kaaaaching!!!!........

I would like to see what thier average logged in accounts for the month are instead of how many accounts they have. I am sure that they include the inactive ones as well.

Never-the-less impressive numbers there.

And SOE is not Sony of Europe that would be SoE. SOE is Sony Online Entertainment :)

In reply to scoot "Internet Game Room Players" probably refers to the players who play on PC Baangs in Korea and maybe other far east territories. Since piracy is so rife out there the MMOG model is a bit different with the cyber cafe buying machine licences and customers able to buy accounts without accuring the game. Guild Wars and I am sure other NC Soft games follow a similar model I believe.

Blizzard has said numerous times that they -only- include currently, active accounts, and that they do not include trial or buddy accounts.

The XBL comparison isn't a very good one. You need a subscription in order to play WoW. You don't need an XBL sub to play Xbox games (and not all games use XBL).

For everyone trying to state that all 6million subscribers pay $15/month, think again...

This makes me wonder what they mean by active.

Take my account for instance. I paid for a second 6-month run in November, but ended up quitting about 3 weeks after the fact (went from loving it to losing all interest during that timeframe, I know, fast). Since my account is still generating them revenue on an accounting basis (the whole deferred income thing), do they count it active? Or do they count people who have not logged in for a week, month, etc? Are they only counting one account if an individual has two?

I'm curious is how many revenue generating accounts they have. This means counting my account that hasn't logged on in 3 months but still has 2 months left pre-paid and those who have two or more.

#8, the majority of the player base is in China, and you can bet that Blizzard sees less than $1 a month for each of those subscribers.

LaughingTarget, there might be a few people with six month accounts that cancelled, but I hardly feel that is the norm. It's not too many people who will pay more than three months at a time...it makes the cost seem smaller (Imagine WoW sold in year chunks only, in the box. Would anyone pay $180 + $50 for the game? Umm....not near as many). So there might be a decent amount, but nothing to reduce such a huge number as six million. And even if there were a MILLION people not playing, and had purchased 3-6 month blocks...you still have FIVE million active accounts. There's no falseness, WoW is just dominating right now.

David D

They need to change the name of the game to World of Waitcraft. You log in and get in a realm queue for about an hour. Then you finally get into the game, select thee battleground that you want, and wait for another hour or two. Seems most of this game is about waiting, not playing. I remember when it used to be fun.

6 million users that amazing atleast they managed to keep there death toll Low.

"Players worldwide" most likely means the number of account keys sold worldwide since launch not current subscribers. Still staggering numbers the same. Oh and Chinese accounts do not pay $15.00 US...probbably more like $3.00 US a month. Staggering still, it is a phenom for sure. Bashing SOE is a cheap shot. They were the standard for a while and lost it; just like UO was and Ford and GM...you get the point. Embrace and learn from the past don't ridicule what you don't understand, or even what you think you do.

from: http://www.forbes.com/2006/03/01/vivendi-universal-earnings-cx_po_0301autofacescan01.html

Vivendi Universal (nyse: V - news - people ) pointed to the "exceptional success" of the World of Warcraft online role-playing game at its games unit, though while the Orc-filled fantasy helped turnaround the unit after it lost the company $242 million in 2004, overall profit for 2005 topped a petite $49 million.