World of Warcraft (WoW), the most popular multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) has reached a mark of 10 million subscribers, with around 5.5 million in Asia alone.

Blizzard Entertainment has announced that the subscribership for WoW, its award-winning MMORPG has passed 10 million subscribers worldwide, since its launch on November 23, 2004.

This subscriber count includes individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play WoW, those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access as well as Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days.

Though the game was launched in North America, its market there accounts to only 2.5 million subscriber. Major part of the WoW subscribers are in Asia accounting to approximately 5.5 million, while the remaining 2 million subscribers are in Europe.

Mike Morhaime, CEO and co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment, said "It's very gratifying to see gamers around the world continuing to show such enthusiasm and support for WoW. We are always pleased to welcome new players to the game, and we are looking forward to sharing the next major content update with the entire community in the months ahead."

WoW was the bestselling PC game of 2005 and 2006 worldwide. Its first expansion pack 'WoW: The Burning Crusade' launched in 2007 holds the record of being the fastest-selling PC game of all time, in addition to being the the best selling PC game in North America and Europe in 2007.

Blizzard claims to have sold with nearly 2.4 million copies in the first 24 hours of availability of the first expansion pack and approximately 3.5 million in its first month.

Meanwhile, the company is working on the second expansion pack titled "WoW: Wrath of the Lich King", which was unveiled at the company's BlizzCon gaming festival in August 2007.

WoW is currently available in seven languages, with a Russian version in development and scheduled for release later this year. In addition to North America and Europe, the game is played in mainland China, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau.