Can WoW be stopped?  I think not, at least not for a while, and I see WoW at 15 million by summertime with the launch of WOTLK.  I think WOTLK will surpass TBC's opening bow, and really just dominate all gaming sales for the holiday season.  Personally, I'm trying to get my game-on with as many new games as possible before I'm consumed on the DeathKnight's march to glory!

http://www.blizzard.com/us/press/081028.html

"Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. announced today that the subscribership for World of Warcraft^®, its award-winning massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), now exceeds 11 million players worldwide. This milestone was reached as the beta test for Wrath of the Lich King^®, World of Warcraft's second expansion, nears completion. Wrath of the Lich King will launch in several regions around the world starting on November 13.

"It's been very rewarding to see gamers around the world continue to show such strong support for World of Warcraft," said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment^®. “We remain fully committed to responding to that enthusiasm with a high-quality, constantly evolving game experience.

Since debuting in North America on November 23, 2004, World of Warcraft has become the most popular MMORPG around the world. It was the bestselling PC game of 2005 and 2006 worldwide, and finished behind only World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade^®, the first expansion pack for the game, in 2007.^* In addition to being the bestselling PC game of 2007 in both North America and Europe, The Burning Crusade holds the record for fastest-selling PC game of all time, with nearly 2.4 million copies sold in its first 24 hours of availability and approximately 3.5 million in its first month."

11 Million subscribers * $14.99/month * 12 months = $1.98 billion per year in subscription fees

WoW wont be slowing down anytime soon.

Go Blizzard!

Not really.

They subcontract in China and it's a huge part of Wow customer base.

My understanding is worldwide the average subscription cost is actually around 10$...

Aw hell, more carebears joining my already full server, but good to hear more people are enjoying the game. I also agree that WOTLK will have the most massive sales out of any game this holiday season.

Sweet. I'm one of those 11 million.

And by the way, I'd like to bring up one very important issue, the 11 million isn't actually game sales, that number is probably closer to 20 million or even past it. The 11 million is active accounts, so accounts that still have money on them. WoW is an even much more successful game that some people are willing to admit, still growing after 4 years even with there being a large number of people with no longer active accounts. I'm sure a lot of growth with the release of the expansion will actually be people reactivating accounts rather than people actually buying the game for the first time.

played it for a year, came back for TBC but didn't feel the magic... not even login in on my last month.
Wow is nice but drained my MMO grinding capacity.

Have fun with the Hero classes :p

Poor Blizzard only get $1,320,000,000 revenue (not including sales of the actual games and expansion packs which would add a lot ontop of that) per year :( Sucks to be them!

I plan to have a blast!  I wasn't that excited about the Hero class, until I read up on it a bit more, and checked out the starting quest walkthru...WOW...no pun intended...I'm SO there.  WRT to the monthly sub fees, I usually get it at 6-month pops, and so does my brother for the 2 accounts he has for him and my nephews.  WoW can be draining, and I'm somewhat keeping a hands off approach now, because  I anticipate ALOT of dedicated hours of WoW in the coming months.  I've got a new top-of-the-line gateway, so I can WoW at the airport on travel...WoW at any hotspots at coffee shops...I can WoW where ever there is a connection.