Officials from developer Blizzard Entertainment have announced that massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) World of WarCraft has surpassed two million paying subscribers worldwide. Already the largest MMORPG in both North America and Europe, the company expects to see even greater growth with the game's commercial launch in China last week. One of the largest markets in the world for online games, recent open beta tests in the country topped half a million players – almost equal to the game’s peak concurrency for the entire world.

The most popular current MMORPGs in Asia are generally developed locally, but if World of WarCraft proves popular in China, as well as other soon to be launched territories such as Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau, it could quickly become the most globally popular online game in history.