Great article in Wired

[Gnimpsh]

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2009/1...t-anniversary/

[Jono]

Very nice read.

[Darnit696]

Thanks for the link, good find.

[Flatty]

I think I'll start playing again when they release Cataclysm...

[Thumponius]

Just when it was getting quiet...

[Gnimpsh]

Just when it was getting quiet...

Thought it was time to spice things up a little.

[Vortex]

11.5 Million players, $15 per month = $172,500,000.00 per month..

[Jono]

$172,500,000.00

Theres too many numbers. I cant count them all because my fingers stop at ten and im wearing shoes.

[Gnimpsh]

11.5 Million players, $15 per month = $172,500,000.00 per month..

Actually - that is not very much at all. I wonder if they any other source of income, because I am not sure that is enough to do what they do. Think about it, roughly 4000 people globally work on WOW, so that is a lot of salaries.

Then they also have the massive overhead of running a cloud centre (or three) just to get people to log and play the game. Plus they basically release patches once a month, that's a lot of development and deployment, what about the expansions.

I would be terribly surprised if they rely on that income alone.

[senorblinky]

Well, i can't recall seeing any advertising anywhere.
Aren't they listed? i mean, where can we find their books - if they're listed their financial records should be open for public review, shouldn't it?
Or do you have to be a shareholder?

Would be interesting.

But Candice is right, we only think about the Dollar Bill income and not about the costs. Blizzard has more sophisticated computery than NASA for crying out loud. (I read that somewhere, damned if i can find it again, so rather don't quote me on that)