Blizzard today announced that its massively multiplayer online role playing game World of Warcraft has now passed the 5 million subscriber mark. This figure is worldwide and includes all active regular monthly accounts, prepaid cards, players who access the game from internet game rooms and those who purchase the game bundle and have the one free month. The figure does not include expired or cancelled accounts. Recently World of Warcraft was released to hordes of fans in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau on November 8.
This comes hot on the heels of the announcement of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, the first expansion for the game. Set for release in 2006 The Burning Crusade will add new content, quests, monsters and of course raise the level limit to 70. Blizzard will also continue adding new live content patches to the current game. World of Warcraft is currently the worlds #1 MMORPG, enjoying popularity not only in North America, but in Australia, Europe, and across Asia as well.