‘World of Warcraft’ Breaks 1.5M Subscribers

By Ian Bell March 17, 2005

Building on its record-breaking debuts in North America, Korea, and Europe, “World of Warcraft” has reached global peak concurrency – the number of subscribers playing at the same time in each market – of more than 500,000 players.

“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.”

Since its debut in North America on Nov. 23, 2004, “World of Warcraft” has launched to critical and commercial success in Korea and Europe, exploding in popularity across the globe. In the span of a few short months, “World of Warcraft” has achieved record-breaking milestones, including:

    --  Europe:        --  Over 290,000 account creations and 180,000 peak            concurrency in its first weekend.        --  Over 500,000 active subscribers and 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.        --  "World of Warcraft" is currently played in 75 percent of            Korean Internet Game Rooms (IGRs), the primary venue for            playing games in Korea. IGRs subscribe directly to MMORPGs            and then players buy blocks of time from the IGRs for game            time.    --  North America:        --  Over 200,000 subscribers and 100,000 peak concurrency            achieved in the game's first 24 hours.        --  Current subscriber base of over 800,000 players.

Publisher

I work with the best people in the world and get paid to play with gadgets. What's not to like?

Gaming

Warcraft III: Reforged update fixes game-breaking bugs, but is it enough?

Warcraft III Orc

Player vitriol won this campaign. After it stumbled at launch, Blizzard has fixed game-breaking bugs and updated Warcraft III: Reforged. The game's latest update addresses several issues that could stop players from progressing as Blizzard works toward rebuilding trust with its audience -- provided they haven't already received full refunds.

The latest Warcraft III: Reforged patch was released on February 6 and makes improvements across the entire game. It fixed a significant campaign bug that caused a failure screen to appear when players loaded into a mission. Digital Trends ran into this bug when playing the game for review, and had to reboot it.

Gaming

Unhappy with Warcraft III: Reforged? Blizzard is offering refunds

Warcraft III Orc

Warcraft III: Reforged launched on PC last week, and the reception hasn't been particularly kind. Players criticized the game for missing features present in the original version, a poor interface, and bugs. For those unhappy with the technical state of the game, Blizzard is offering automatic refunds.

Blizzard is now offering speedy and automatic refunds to those who have already purchased Warcraft III: Reforged, as a Reddit user pointed out in a February 3 post. The user said the process was quick and that reporting it as a "tech issue" expedited the process. The reported bugs, rather than issues about game quality, could be why Blizzard decided to offer refunds. The bugs include the failure to load into custom games, with defeat screens instead being displayed when starting a mission.

Gaming

Revisit a strategy masterpiece in Warcraft III: Reforged, out today

Warcraft 3 reforged image

Warcraft III: Reforged, a remastered version of Blizzard's acclaimed real-time strategy game, comes out today. The new version bundles the original game with its expansion The Frozen Throne, and Blizzard has provided system requirements so players can determine if their systems can run the game ahead of launch. The system requirements are fairly accessible allowing most people to take advantage of the remastered game.

Warcraft III: Reforged comes with a very specific launch at 3 p.m. PT/6 p.m. ET on January 28. The game requires an internet connection, and those who pre-purchased will receive special hero skins and extra content in fellow Activision-Blizzard games World of Warcraft, Diablo III, Heroes of the Storm, Overwatch, and Starcraft II.