Want an example of a successful membership site? How about Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft. The hugely popular massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) now has more than 11 million subscribers.

“Subscribers” are defined as 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.

The 11 million subscriber mark reflects a growth rate of 10 percent in the last 10 months. Impressive, but the growth rate seems to be slowing, given that the game debuted in November 2004 and took only six months to go from 9 million in July 2007 to 10 million subscribers in January 2008.

In other words, it took Blizzard much longer to add this last million subscribers to its user base than in the past (the company announced it reached the 10 million mark in January 2008, up from 9 million in July, 2007).

Nevertheless, World of Warcraft had an impressive 62 percent of the MMORPG market back in April and will be launching a second expansion of the game on November 13, “Wrath of the Lich King.” This may spur further growth or help the game maintain its lead position in the market.

Source: Robin Wauters, “World Of Warcraft Hits 11 Million Subscribers Mark, Shows Signs Of Slowing”, TechCrunch, October 29, 2008

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