8 Million served...

Just finished reading this today:

Written By Tor Thorsen, GameSpot

Currently, the population of Earth is estimated to be around 6.7 billion people. As of this week, roughly 0.1 percent of the sum of modern humanity plays World of Warcraft. Today, Blizzard Entertainment announced that more than 8 million people subscribe to the massive massively multiplayer online role-playing game, setting a new milestone for the title more than two years after its fall 2004 release.

As it is with the real-world population, Chinese subscribers are the largest demographic in Azeroth, totaling 3.5 million players. Next up is North America, with 2 million players, followed by Europe, with 1.5 million--the remainder of subscribers are in other territories. Subscription rates vary by region, but US players pay $14.95 each month to play WOW after doling out the suggested retail price for the game, which has been lowered to just $19.99.

That just boggles the mind to think that many people play WoW...

So if everyone of them paid $19.99 for each account and paid at least one month, that would be $279,520,000 (Now that's WOW!) And would be making roughly $119,600,000 a month if all 8 Million subscribers were paying. So after a year combined would give Blizzard $14,511,920,000 (Yep $14.5 Billion!) I'm not sure how many of those same people will be buying Burning Crusade (but everyone I've asked has said they will be) but let's take a conservative 25% (2 Million) and that would add another $79,980,000 to the pot for a year total of $14,591,900,000 (just shy of $14.6 Billion)

New Expansion hits tomorrow (can't wait).