Alright, alright: earning a million dollars monthly with a video game is not, as of today, something novel nor is it going to be groundbreaking for anyone. But let’s go back to November 2004, when World Of Warcraft hit the shelves proposing a monthly fee to enjoy the online game. Back then, its biggest rival was EverQuest, and no one could imagine how far Blizzard would go in expanding Azeroth.
A Quintillion Dollars!
According to Bo Bell, who worked on the development of World Of Warcraft, at first they didn’t even dream of reaching the level of EverQuest, which was earning $500,000 in subscriptions each month. “We would say things like we could see ourselves beating it, reaching 800,000. Or how about a million? We laughed a lot at that, but we all thought it might actually happen”.
World of Warcraft not only gained a million almost from the first day, but just a few months after its launch, at the beginning of 2005, it was earning 15 million each month with more than a million registered users. Now, on its twentieth anniversary, they are more than consolidated as the leaders of the MMORPG and with no intention of stepping down from the throne, with more than 7 million subscribers. Quite something.
At first, at Blizzard they aimed high: 10,000 users. Nothing anticipated this leap. However, what happened with EverQuest? Of course, it remains open (despite the problems they had, precisely caused by the launch of World Of Warcraft) and will release its thirty-first expansion tomorrow. It may never reach the levels of the behemoth that is WoW, but it does have more than 80,000 active players per month. Many games born with the intention of revolutionizing the world of online games would love to reach this level!
