Blizzard hits 1.5M World of Warcraft subscribers

Blizzard Entertainment announced that its popular MMORPG World of Warcraft has surpassed 1.5 million subscribers in North America, Korea, and Europe, breaking records in each region’s launch.

“All of us at Blizzard are extremely gratified and amazed at the international demand for ‘World of Warcraft,'” said Mike Morhaime, president of Blizzard Entertainment. “From region to region, we’ve seen a phenomenal level of enthusiasm for ‘World of Warcraft,’ and we’re absolutely thrilled people are enjoying the game so much.”

Released in November 23, 2004, the game hit numerous milestones, including:

Europe: Over 290,000 account creations and 180,000 peak concurrency in its first weekend. Over 500,000 active 230,000 peak concurrency to date.

Korea: The most successful 100-day launch of any MMORPG in Korean history since its commercial release on Jan. 18, 2005. Played in 75 percent of Korean Internet Game Rooms (IGRs), the primary venue for playing games in Korea. IGRs, or “PC Bang” subscribe to games and have players buy blocks of time to use the Internet.

North America: Over 200,000 subscribers and 100,000 peak concurrency achieved in the game’s first 24 hours; current subscriber base is over 800,000.

The worldwide subscriber will only increase as Blizzard is preparing to launch WoW in China, where over 100,000 users signed up for beta weeks before launch.