In the onslaught that is the success of World of Warcraft, Blizzard today celebrated that the MMORPG has passed the 1.5 million subscribers mark, reaching a global peak concurrency of more than 500,000 players. The company has posted a breakdown of these remarkable figures for the game, with 290,000 created accounts and 180,000 concurrent players in Europe in the first weekend – those figures now stand at 500,000 active subscribers and a peak of 230,000 concurrent users. Figures in North America also show that the success of the game is continuing with over 800,000 subscribers to the game. North America posted over 200,000 subscribers and over 100,000 concurrent users in the first 24 hours of the game’s release.

In Korea where WoW only went live in the last 8 weeks (on January 18th 2005), the figures are even more remarkable as the game now holds the 100-day launch record of any MMORPG title in Korean history, and is currently being played in 75% of all Korean Internet Games Rooms – a method of playing in Korea where the IGRs pay for the subscription and gamers then buy time to play the game…

Describing the news, Mike Morhaime, President of Blizzard Entertainment said, "All of us at Blizzard are extremely gratified and amazed at the international demand for 'World of Warcraft…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."

World of Warcraft is set to be released in China and Taiwan in 2005 with other regions to follow. Anticipation is already reaching huge proportions in China with over 100,000 applications to the BETA in the first hour on February 28th 2005.

We’re still loving WoW here in TVG Towers, so we might just see you strolling through Elwynn Forest very soon...