Like the Energizer bunny, World of Warcraft just keeps going… and going… and going. Blizzard Entertainment announced this week that their online game World of Warcraft has reached 5 million players worldwide. The announcement is a testament to both mainstream popularity and the incredible staying power of the game.

While World of Warcraft isn’t the first massively multiplayer role playing game (MMORPG) to hit the market, but it is unquestionably the largest of its kind. Even Everquest, with its long-time loyal cult-like following, hasn’t gained the mainstream popularity enjoyed by WOW. And as Blizzard continues to push the game into new regions, the WOW player population continues to grow.

The game was first launched in November 2004 in North America, Australia, and New Zealand. Over the past 13 months, WOW has branched out and slowly spread across the globe into new regions such as Europe and Asia. Most recently, WOW was introduced to Taiwan, Macau, and Hong Kong in November 2004. Blizzard was heralded back in August, when it was announced that the number of active World of Warcraft gamers had swelled to 4 million. Now, just four months later, the player population has already expanded by another million gamers.

The recent Taiwan, Macau, and Hong Kong launch represents one of the last regions of the globe that Blizzard has targeted as a potential site for expansion. But this fact doesn’t appear to bother top executives. Developers already have future content patches in the works that will further expand the game’s virtual world and challenge players, including the next highly-anticipated version 1.9 that is due out any day. In addition, Blizzard is actively developing the first World of Warcraft expansion pack, the Burning Crusade, due out in store sometime in 2006. Recent previews of the expansion pack were shown at the company’s annual conference, BlizzCon, a few months ago and have generated considerable excitement.

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