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..."

Comments

Now or Have had?

[imunfair]

It seems like people are assuming they have 5 million current subscribers - but the press release never really specifies (unless I missed it). It could be they've had that many over the life of the game. That would explain the steady increase.

Blizzard is just maintaining its high standard

[fain0v]

Diablo I and II, starcraft, 4 warcraft games. Almost every single game they have ever released has been a must have. Why does it suprise anyone that they probably have the best mmorpg ever made? Make the best game and apparently 5 million people will come.

5 million subscribers ...

[jchenx]

... and 100 whiners on their forums, claiming to represent the entire playerbase. ;)

My wife and I are both WoW addicts. Blizzard has done a great job of making MMOs approachable to "casual gamers", so much so that we're probably not considered "casual" anymore by most standards. Not only do they bring some innovation to the genre, they just know how to POLISH their games so well.

Congrats to Blizzard!

Re:It's simple, really

[HD Webdev]

realize that your clientele are NOT the diehard gamers whinging in your forums.

Exactly. And, that goes for any game.

Many companies screw up by changing a game based on the rabid whingers on forums only to find out that most of them will never be happy and will just start crying about something else. They should let that less than 1% of their forum membership rant. They usually whinge everywhere for every game they play and trying to shut them up by changing the game will not work.

If the game is well made, and extremely bug free, those changes will often piss off the more silent majority and they'll bail out to another game. For games that cost $$$ per month, this is even more crucial. When a customer has to see a charge every month, they'll reflect on whether the cost is worth it every 30 days.

Re:Soloing

[Rhys]

Go play everquest.

Or EQ2. Or DDO.

Seriously. A game where I don't have to group up with the tools spamming "ur gay" in the barrens is a game I can appreciate. Warcraft is the first game since AC that really had any strength at soloing. CoH had a little of it, but it was only a little and has since been nerfed into the ground. (though in a way that made the solo game stronger as the high-end there degenerated into herding madness which usually means a lot of players to get the instance to spawn that many mobs)

There are group quests from NPCs. They're called instances. Go try one solo, you'll be back looking for a group nice and quick.

Or go try PvP. If you don't work with your group (pickup or not) prepare to be owned by the other side. There was a match I was in last night with a group of 10 horde. 7 were a lowbie (20-29) PvP guild and the last three were a couple friends and myself (all on TeamSpeak).

To say we owned hardcore would be an understatment. At one point I lead the charge into the alliance coming down midfield. I had support behind me but I figured I'd die for it as I had all the alliance (7-9, hard to get an exact count with pets) on me and would be solo for at least 3-4 seconds. Somehow, through well timed heals arrived when I was around 10% health (from I think the druid on our team) and I lived through it. I had absolutly no right to, not even geared out as insane as I am. (why yes those are level 38 leather legs I'm wearing at 29 thanks for asking! Yes that is 2k health I'm sporting no it's not a typo.)