Blizzard is confident that World of Warcraft has not peaked yet. Frank Pearce, Blizzard product development executive VP, still thinks that subscribers will break past the 11.5 million-mark set in 2008.
"I don't think [it has peaked] at all," Pearce told VG247. "In China, for example, we haven't even launched Wrath of the Lich King yet, and that expansion is already 18-plus months old. They're still playing The Burning Crusade there, because we're waiting for approval for Wrath from the appropriate agencies. And once we get that approval and launch Wrath in China then I think we will see growth." Gaining Chinese approval has been something of an endeavor for Blizzard, but they are rather confident that the game will not only boost subscribers, but will keep gamers busy for a long while.
With Cataclysm on the way, Pearce is sure that WoW will blow past 11.5 million subscribers. "Whenever we launch an expansion we usually see some win-back from players who have set WoW aside temporarily," he said. "Hopefully we will get some people back from Cataclysm as well. I don't think 11.5 million is a peak, necessarily, but there are certain things that we need to do and need to do well in order to see it go further."
This is a big number to swallow, and gamers can be sure that it takes a lot of power to help run this game, but if World of Warcraft hasn’t peaked yet, world governments just might have to brace for even more cases of video game addiction, turmoil, power consumption and of course, rising economic might in Washington state.
Cataclysm does not yet have a solid release date, but speculation remains at around summer-to-Fall 2010.
