Blizzard have hinted at the success of the World of Warcraft Annual Pass deal that they launched at Blizzcon last year. In last night's Activision Blizzard earnings call, transcribed by Seeking Alpha , Blizzard CEO Mark Morhaime revealed that "to date, we have signed up more than 1 million players in the West."
The deal offers subscribers a free copy of Diablo 3 along with 12 months of WoW game time, which could be paid for monthly. At £8.99 a month, the Annual Pass essentially costs £107.88 per player, which means the scheme has made at least £107,880,000.
A portion of those buyers would have subscribed to WoW for the next year anyway, of course, and the figure has to be offset against all of those free copies of Diablo 3 that were given away with the offer, but it's a big sum nonetheless. It'll also help to stabilise WoW's long term prospects after a subscriber dip last year.
It seems that WoW is holding its own against Star Wars: The Old Republic, too. Morhaime says that pre-Christmas WoW updates have "contributed to retaining our players in the wake of competitive launches." Did you sign up for the annual pass? Do you still reckon it was a good deal?
WoW next big patch, Undermine(d), gets a release date, starting the countdown clock until my gaming time is entirely consumed with doing donuts in my new ride
Bobby Kotick says he'd never have raised World of Warcraft's subscription by even a dollar because 'it's a prickly audience, you don't wanna do too much to agitate them'
