World of Warcraft still wildly popular

When it comes to MMO’s there’s still one clear leader in the space, and that’s World of Warcraft.  Despite seeing subscriber numbers fall for years on end, the massively multiplayer experience from Blizzard still house 10.2 million subscribers as of the end of March 2012.

Blizzard is set to release a new expansion with the World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria which went into beta in March.  The massive subscriber stats simply dwarf the competition which contains some pretty impressive competitors like Rift, SWTOR, and Tera.

Expansion packs have always been subscriber drivers for the MMO, and it looks like MOP will be no different for Blizzard.  The company has addressed the need to bring more content in closer intervals to keep players engaged with the game.  Mists of Pandaria introduces the Pandaren race as playable characters for the first time in the history of the game.  The content expansion is due out in 2012.