Just when you think World of Warcraft has reached its peak, Blizzard comes out and surprises everyone. The company has announced that the game now has over 10 million subscribers. In addition, they also gave word of how the population is split in the international scene.

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With World of Warcraft as a trophy, it wouldn't have been long before recognitions soon followed Vivendi's online multiplayer division, Blizzard Entertainment. And now that the MMORPG is the hottest game over PC, kudos goes to the man who pioneered it: Blizzard's head honcho, Mike Morhaime. In that respect, the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences (AIAS) hopes to honor this achievement with a special treat.

More speakers have been added to the 2008 D.I.C.E. Summit's speaker roster. Joining the roster for next year's event are PaRappa the Rapper creator Masaya Matsuura, who is currently working on a new music title for the Nintendo Wii, and newly-appointed Entertainment Software Association president Michael D. Gallagher. More new speakers at the full article.

Blizzard Entertainment just announced that a Russian version for their smash hit MMORPG, World of Warcraft, will be available by 2008. This marks the fifth official language version after English, French, German, and Spanish. Read more for full details and a remark from Blizzard president and co-founder Mike Morhaime.

The first keynote speech at the currently unfolding Austin Game Developers Conference (Austin GDC) came from no other than Blizzard Game Producer Mike Morhaime for World of Warcraft. The said event, taking place at the Austin Convention Center in Texas, began yesterday and will run until tomorrow.

Anyway, the producer's speech was focused on how WoW will continue to rule the gaming world. According to him, there are exactly 10 steps that Blizzard has implemented for World of Warcraft and following them is one of the key factors why the game has been very successful all these years. The steps are as follows with a few explanations from the producer:

1. Put Gameplay First
2. Make Your Games Easy To Learn, Difficult To Master (cited Guitar Hero as a good example of this principle)
3. Resist Pressure To Ship Early ("Nobody looks back on Diablo and thinks 'How much better it would have been if they had released it three weeks earlier'", Morhaime said.)
4. Resist Pressure To Do Everything At Once
5. Estimate Demand (Finding out how many people have the technology and Internet infrastructure available to play your game.)
6. Human Resources Is Important (The success of WoW led to a massive scaling up of the Blizzard.)
7. Running An MMORPG Is Not Just Games Development (24/7 IT, customer service, and community management are essential elements of a successful online game.)
8. Communicate Or People Will Make Stuff Up (Make sure your company has teams dedicated to keeping the community and internal company figures informed of bugs, fixes, and other games issues).
9. Avoid Financial Incentives (Minimize financial rewards from gaming sweatshops, credit card fraud, and account stealing.)
10. Test (Blizzard's testing process involves three steps - everyone at Blizzard plays the game, a public beta is launched, a test site with dedicated test server is set up.)

Blizzard has sent 'round an official press release announcing the BlizzCon 2007 gaming festival. The two-day convention will kick off this Friday, August 3 at the Anaheim Convention Center.

"We received an overwhelming response to our first BlizzCon in 2005, and we’ve looked forward to being able to come back and spend another weekend with our players ever since," said Mike Morhaime, president and co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment.

"Our employees and our partners have worked hard to make this a memorable experience for the attendees, and we’re hoping everyone truly enjoys the show."

This year's event will feature two days of gaming, contests, developer Q&A panels, and tournaments, as well as the first-ever chance for the gaming public to play StarCraft II. The show will conclude with performances by comedian Jay Mohr, Video Games Live, and World of Warcraft-themed rock band Level 70 Elite Tauren Chieftain. Blizzard's global staffing team will also be on hand to accept materials and discuss any job-related questions.

Blizzard just keeps unveiling more and more surprises for their Blizzcon 2007. The latest announcement is that comedian and actor Jay Mohr will be performing as well as hosting the closing ceremonies of the event. In addition to this, he will also be serving as master of ceremonies for a series of live contests during the first night of the convention.

If the name doesn't ring a bell, you should know that Mohr has acted in box office hits such as Jerry Maguire and Pay It Forward, and is credited for creating, producing, and hosting the television show Last Comic Standing.

The president and co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment Mike Morhaime was very happy at acquiring his services for the event, stating that "we're [Blizzard] very pleased to have Jay Mohr on board for BlizzCon," and that "he's a great performer, and he'll really help us make this year's show memorable for our players."

This year's Blizzcon 2007 offers quite a lot for gamers such as hands-on game time with StarCraft II, contests, tournaments, new content for World of Warcraft players, developer discussion panels, and now live entertainment for attendees to enjoy. From what's been announced, it looks like this Blizzcon might be the biggest one to date.

Blizzard is happy to announce that its heavily-acclaimed MMO video game World of Warcraft has reached a new milestone as the total number of subscribers worldwide had already surpassed the nine million mark. Blizzard clarified that the tally includes existing subscribers only and not those who were banned or who have stopped playing entirely.

Blizzard Entertainment President and Co-founder Mike Morhaime had this message, "We're thrilled that gamers around the world have continued to embrace World of Warcraft so enthusiastically. We've worked hard to provide a compelling experience for our players, and we plan to continue updating the game with exciting new content for them to enjoy for many years to come".

When the first expansion - The Burning Crusade - was released, the number of sales totalled an unprecedented 3.5 million around the world. One has to take note that 2.4 million of those were sold during the first 24 hours. Currently, Blizzard is planning to launch the expansion in mainland China with the help of The9.

Everyone has to admit that despite the issues and problems being confronted by WoW today, it changed and revolutionized the face of MMORPG gaming. Kudos to Blizzard in its success and we hope that they continue looking out for their user base.

Hiromichi Tanaka, lead developer for Final Fantasy XI, is set to be the international keynote speaker in this year's Austin Game Developer's Conference (GDC), joining speakers such as Blizzard president Mike Morhaime, and Habbo Hotel's lead designer Sulka Haro. In his keynote address, Tanaka will talk about the challenges and triumphs of designing a massively multiplayer online game across platforms.

Scheduled for September 5-7 at the Austin Convention Center in Texas, the Austin GDC will focus on advancing game development with lectures, panels, and round table discussions on the latest issues facing the industry, such as online programming, future trends, the most up-to-date production techniques, and how-to's in creating new games. Jane Pinckard, content manager for the event, states that "Tanaka's presence at our conference is indicative of the event's global appeal."

The Austin GDC will host discussion tracks on online gaming, game audio, creative writing for games, and will introduce a new People's Choice Track, where community members can vote on what topics will be discussed in the conference. Stay with us as we keep you updated on further developments.

In a recent article on Wandering Goblin (WG), they discussed 25 things that you didn't know about WoW. It was a pretty good read, but I felt that some of the points they raised may seem like old news to some readers. That said, they did bring up a few interesting facts that World of Warcraft fans or Blizzard junkies might be interested in.

First up, we have the president of Blizzard Mike Morhaime announcing Starcraft II and a new WoW expansion in the World Wide Invitational in Korea. Why is this groundbreaking? Well, it may have been a slip-up since there has been no official announcement regarding the expansion for WoW. Why the secrecy if they announced it? Well, the guys at WG talked it over with a Blizzard rep and got quite a few details on it.

They clarified that it's not a secret; Blizzard just didn't announce it officially. The expansion is in the works, and we can expect it to have a shorter development time than the two years it took for Burning Crusade to come out.

Another thing that gamers would probably want to know is the fact that Blizzard is focusing on the PC right now and the near future. Morhaime gave word that developing console games was not in the company's immediate plans.

While the they have the almighty trinity of IPs (Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo), they are also looking into new ones at the moment. The problem that Blizzard is currently facing is their current ability to work on a limited number of projects at a time. While I'd like to think is that this is because they want to stick with their high standards, feel free to make your own conclusions.

It looks like Blizzard is still going strong and their plans for the future are pretty solid. If you'd like to read more about this, feel free to click on our read link. Be sure to keep checking back here for more news and information.