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World of Warcraft Tops 5M Subscribers
jkdove writes "In a press release today, Blizzard announced that it 'has surpassed five million customers worldwide.' GamerGod had an opinion article on why exactly so many people are playing, back when the four Million player mark was reached." From that article: "Thus, if you want to produce the next smash hit MMORPG, is it enough to make the game easy to solo and to level? I don't think so, although I'm pretty certain that there will be some game developers trying this strategy. World of Warcraft has a secret weapon, which isn't that easy to clone..."
The article doesn't link to Blizzards full press release http://www.blizzard.com/press/051219.shtml which states the following:
"World of Warcraft's Customer Definition
World of Warcraft customers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or purchased a prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the installation box bundled with one free month access. Internet Game Room players that have accessed the game over the last seven days are also counted as customers. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired pre-paid cards. Customers in licensees' territories are defined along the same rules."
So those 5 million customers are based on anyone who has a current paid-for account.
Just wait to you get to lvl 60, you won't be able to do anything worthwhile without a group. The game (or insanity) starts at 60. 1-60 is just a prelude.