9 Million smoking the Warcraft pipe

by Alexander Sliwinski { Jul 24th 2007 at 5:45PM }

After Blizzard phoned-in their E3 appearance, they've hit another milestone before they wreak chaos with BlizzCon and other planned announcements -- they've got 9 million World of Warcraft addicts. Yes, Blizzard is happy to announce that they continue to assist the fall of western civilization with their massively multiplayer crack-dispensing online game.

"We're thrilled that gamers around the world have continued to embrace World of Warcraft so enthusiastically," says Mike Morhaime, president of Blizzard. He better watch out or the US government might drop a napalm bomb on his house Clear and Present Danger-style for being an enemy combatant in the war on drugs. The US is still fighting that, right? It's so hard to keep up with all the world of warcrafting going on.

Since premiering in 2004, World of Warcraft is apparently continuing to increase their player base despite reports to the contrary. The South Park episode featuring WoW was also recently nominated for an Emmy. How do we not have a WoW money-printing animated picture yet? WoW alone must produce more cash per month then the GDP of many nations at this point. Time for another hit.

[Via Press Release]

Tags: blizzard, blizzcon, enemyofthestate, worldofwarcraft, wow

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Scott @ Jul 24th 2007 5:52PM

What people on the WoW forums were wrong?????!??1

This can't be true people on the internet never lie!

Scandal!

Word of the street. @ Jul 24th 2007 5:54PM

I hate how some terms like junkies and crack are often involved with videogames,It makes sound videogames like something dirty.

Silver @ Jul 24th 2007 5:54PM

I've managed to avoid WoW after seeing its devastating (I exaggerate, but only slightly) effect on friends and family.

If Blizzard wants my soul, they'd better hurry up with SC2. For that is one time-decimating forbidden fruit I shall not be able to resist...

Word of the street. @ Jul 24th 2007 6:12PM

While I'm tempted to say "Ride WOW snake" the Drug references in Videogames start to piss me off.

Really try the game for 10 days,I only play 1 hour at day and really is better than wasting that same hour in gamespot forums.Really is one of the best games I have played so far.

hvnlysoldr @ Jul 24th 2007 5:58PM

I thought what smoking the warp pipe? I love the Awkward Zombie webcomic and came across her flash about Mythbusters.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DM_JQUsovEM

cuso26 @ Jul 24th 2007 6:01PM

I refuse to believe the playerbase is still growing by that much this late in the game. I lack any proof, but I think Blizzard is completely blowing smoke with this annoucement.

Jonathan @ Jul 24th 2007 6:13PM

I dont think they are. if you look at it, they dont count canceled accounts, trial accounts or their own probably.

That means 9 million active paying accounts. Now how many of those are located in the U.S.?

The growth is probably coming from China/Europe.

And yes im still playing, but with my lady moving in that leaves less time for wow :(

S.Grey @ Jul 24th 2007 6:12PM

cuso26..

though there isnt exactly proof around, unless you google all round the internet..

your saying you cant actually believe that a game thats world wide, constantly growing, and pwning every other game on the market?..

besides.. why the hell would blizzard lie at E3 and all over news/internet?

nubcake..

Neebs @ Jul 24th 2007 6:12PM

Is this accounts, or subscribers? Because even I created an account for a trial. Couldn't get past level 7. I can't grind.

Word of the street. @ Jul 24th 2007 6:13PM

Hehe lol
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGEUClII8x0&feature=RecentlyWatched&page=1&t=t&f=b

hvnlysoldr @ Jul 24th 2007 6:16PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBsrudbNv3E&mode=related&search=

Grindstone @ Jul 24th 2007 6:14PM

Simple math:

9m x $15 = 135 million each month.
135 x 12 = 1.62 billion a year.

Of course, that doesn't count costs, expansions, merchandize and Leroy Jenkin parodies.

Cost to stay clear of such crap: priceless.

ejordan @ Jul 24th 2007 7:00PM

I did the same calculation. I wonder what other companies boast $1.6 billion in revenue from one product.

I guess windows comes to mind, if you consider it one product.

Djg @ Jul 24th 2007 7:39PM

actually its not 15$ per account a month, they have lots of players in asia where the billing system is totally different (ie: free dl for the game, you pay for hours and not for months, etc) so i dont think the revenue is THAT big.

kbunch @ Jul 25th 2007 9:45AM

Your calculation is flawed. Bliz's price scheme in Asia is hourly and much cheaper then the US 15$ a month. I would like to see how many North American accounts there are. I have a feeling that the growth is coming from the Asian market.

I for one am glad I got away from wow. It is a highly addictive game that I have seen destroy lives.

Word of the street. @ Jul 24th 2007 6:15PM

Thats weird I level up to level 14 in the trial.

JonnyBoy2U @ Jul 24th 2007 6:17PM

All it took was seeing the Southpark episode of World of Warcraft and I made a very serious vow to NEVER play WoW EVER.

Cuz I think its basically a lifestyle and I refuse to let a game dominate my daily life. And frankly I'm almost tempted to call all 9 milllion users of WoW losers but that may be a little to harsh.

JonnyBoy2U @ Jul 24th 2007 6:18PM

Dortamur @ Jul 24th 2007 9:44PM

Right, because there's no-one who's addicted to Halo, Counter-Strike, or any other computer game, right?

WoW is just another game. Some people get hooked on it, and play it whenever possible, others just play it now and again for fun.

Lumping the entire WoW player population into a single Lifestyle stereotype is ridiculous.

Oh wait, this is an Internet forum. Bring on the wild generalisations and negativity!

Tukka @ Jul 25th 2007 2:11AM

You refuse to EVER play a game because of overtly crude and exaggerated parody of some of the people who play the game? That's pretty silly. The actual gameplay of WoW isn't even very accurately portrayed, as should be clear from the fact that the whole plot revolves around bringing down a single uber-powerful high-level griefer that even the game developers are powerless to kill/ban/suspend.

Also, there aren't 9 million WoW addicts. Not even close. A lot of people who play WoW do so compulsively, sure, some to the extent where it starts to take over their life and they could be fairly called "junkies," but by no means is that the case for every player or even most players. Also, as it's been pointed out, this 9 million figure may or may not include trial accounts, canceled subscriptions, people who don't play very often (when I had a WoW subscription, there were spans where I hardly played at all) and you have to remember that 9 million accounts doesn't necessarily mean 9 million PEOPLE. A lot of the really hardcore players have multiple accounts. On the flipside, some people probably share accounts (some families, many gold farmers) but those people almost certainly aren't addicts.

I really don't see the point in such cavalier negative stereotyping.

WiNG @ Jul 24th 2007 7:07PM

Honestly people, just quit wow and play Guild Wars already.

Word of the street. @ Jul 24th 2007 8:04PM

I would but no offense it bores me.Nightfall was cool but the original and Factions ZZZzzzzzz.Whats wrong with Guild wars spells?,my Elementalist(Nuker) seemed like it attacked with fireworks instead of fire,not to mention that the amount of spells you can use are limited.

IMO Neverwinter nights was as cool as WOW.

Evan @ Jul 24th 2007 8:04PM

Our society cannot support millions of people who are more concerned about online activities than real-life! Both the Japanese and British governments have
acknowledged a troubling number of people aged between 15 and 34 who have withdrawn from society. These people are unemployed, unmarried, not enrolled in school or job training. Most live with their parents and spend their days glued to a computer. They have no real-live ambitions, and are a drain on society. Japan has over a million so-called "hikikomori", enough to throw off the birth-rate (because they aren't getting married and having kids)! MMOs like World of Warcraft really are contributing to the downfall of civilization!

blooh @ Jul 24th 2007 8:13PM

i call it natural selection. we're overpopulated anyway

I played wow for about 5-6 months, got a 70 and then decided I'd had enough and it was just going to be a downhill grind from then on. Just quit up like that. That was a month ago, and I haven't really felt the urge to install it again. Just gotta have a little willpower.

Matt H @ Jul 24th 2007 10:48PM

People, people... WoW isn't crack, that's absurd. It's obvious that WoW is *pot*. Duh.

Rare Hare @ Jul 25th 2007 2:36AM

That doesn't even make sense.

opifex @ Jul 25th 2007 3:35AM

Jonnyretard, before you talk complete bullshit, you may wana sit down in the small corner of your room, take your mind off guildwars, put a silly hat on and chant "i am a clever boy"

jees your so dam stupid.. since when did all 9mil people become losers and addicts?

your either some jelous guy thats alrdy played it and had a bad experiance, or you play a shitty rival game like guildwars and cant stand the fact that WoW is good.

you CANNOT judge a game or its users if you have never played it, yes im assuming you never played because the way you talk it sounds like a 8yr old rant. you should actually TRY play the game and see what its like..

QUOUTE"Cuz I think its basically a lifestyle and I refuse to let a game dominate my daily life."

so... you are a retard then? if a game that uve never played will apparantly dominate your life you must have mental issues?

Chrispy @ Jul 25th 2007 12:03PM

Debating this is silly. It [u]is[/u] addictive and it [u]is[/u] a repetitive game designed purely to bring you back with your money each month.
I used to get sucked into online games easily, played a lot of them over the years but like mentioned it ruined my ambitions and basically the really important school years with exams etc.
The problem with debating whether this is crack or not is that with so many users you have the 2 different sets of players.
You have the people who play for a hour a day just like people would play a console etc. Then you also have the hardcore gamers the 24/7 players.

The hardcore ones are in denial, often don't do anything but play and shrug off whatever you throw at them.
Then the softcore ones don't see what the problem is so totally defend the game because the other 5 hours of the day there not playing the game their blogging or reading forums funny enough.

It’s seriously a stupid discussion to have, really gets the coke drinking, candy eating fat kids blood boiling. We’ve already had a few teen angst posts here already, proving my point lol.

Zsavior @ Jul 25th 2007 5:37PM

I always enjoy watching other gamers turn their nose up at another set of gamers because it is not their genre of gaming. It just shows that the gaming base still isn't mature enough to handle mass market appeal.

They complain when a game is to popular and appeals to all they complain when it isn't appealing enough. And I don't fall for the excuse that it is only children acting this way. When a niche set of people are forced to coexist with a new crowd elitism always arises, it is an immature reaction to change.