World of Warcraft adds another half million subscribers

by Peter Cohen, Macworld.com

Blizzard Entertainment has announced that World of Warcraft’s subscriber base has reached 11.5 million players worldwide, continuing its reign as the world’s most popular multiplayer online role-playing game.

The Wrath of the Lich King, Blizzard’s recently-released expansion pack for the game, has sold more than 4 million copies since its release on November 13, 2008. 2.8 million of those were sold in the first 24 hours of availability, according to Blizzard.

World of Warcraft has been available for the Mac and PC since 2004, and has spawned two expansion packs. The game—played entirely online—requires players to pay a monthly subscription fee in order to play. In October, Blizzard announced that it had hit the 11 million subscriber mark.

The last time Macworld reported on World of Warcraft subscriber statistics, forum commenters voiced some questions about how that number is tabulated. So without revision, here is Blizzard’s definition:

“World of Warcraft subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access. Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days are also counted as subscribers. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards. Subscribers in licensees’ territories are defined along the same rules.”

Ministry of Finance allows NWF to invest half its portfolio in domestic funds.

Until the end of October, Russia's National Wealth Fund was invested solely in high-grade foreign government debt instruments. On Oct. 21, the Ministry of Finance released new guidelines on how the $76.4 billion fund should be invested, and allowed the NWF to invest up to half of its portfolio in domestic shares and investment funds.

New management. The changes signify a fundamental shift in the fund's investment strategy and underscore the priority the Kremlin places on bolstering domestic share prices, which have fallen by over 75% since May. While it is still unclear what the exact portfolio allocation of the NWF will be, investments into Russian securities have already begun:

-At the end of October, the NWF invested some $730 million into Russian equities.

--A further $180 million were invested in Russian corporate debt securities.

--The investments were made via state-controlled Vneshekombank (VEB), which currently acts as the NWF's agent in its domestic investments.

--It has not yet been revealed which companies the NWF invested in.

VEB representatives have also announced that the NWF has a further $5.5 billion on hand to invest in Russian shares. This corresponds to some 5% of the total market capitalization of the Russian equity market, meaning the NWF is in a position to significantly affect Russian share prices.