That's 11,500,000. The last count was 11 million, which was already pretty impressive. What, they couldn't wait until they hit 12 million before shooting out a release?
The release of the MMO's second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, is credited as fueling this rise in subscribers, and the company issued some sales numbers on that, as well. In addition to moving 2.8 million copies in its first 24 hours on sale, the expansion has gone on to move 4 million copies in its first month. Here is my expert commentary on these figures: Man, that's a lot.
In case you're questioning the numbers, Blizzard is also continuing to be pretty transparent about what it considers a "subscriber" with this handy definition:
World of Warcraft subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access. Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days are also counted as subscribers. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards. Subscribers in licensees’ territories are defined along the same rules.
That left me wondering what the heck the "Internet Game Room" is, but I haven't been able to figure out what that means. Searching for the term turns up the last several Blizzard press releases that use this exact paragraph to define subscribers. I currently have both Crash Commando and TrackMania United Forever running over here... are they talking about my bedroom? IS BLIZZARD SPYING ON MY BEDROOM!?!?!!?
I should probably put on some pants.