Blizzard Entertainment has announced that World of Warcraft now has over one million paying customers in North America, making it the largest massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) in the world. World of Warcraft has over four million paying customers worldwide.
World of Warcraft was launched in North America in November 2004 and reached Australia, New Zealand, Korea and Europe earlier this year, with China going live on June 7 and Singapore receiving the game shortly after that. Blizzard will launch World of Warcraft in Taiwan later this year.
Blizzard defines a paying customer as someone who has paid a subscription fee or prepaid card, as well as anyone who has purchased the game, which comes with a month of free access. Any Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game during the past seven days are also counted.