Irvine, Calif. - Vivendi's video game publishing unit Blizzard Entertainment announced on Thursday that its "World of Warcraft" massively multiplayer online roleplaying game -- the most popular title of its type ever created -- has now surpassed 8 million paying subscribers worldwide.

The game now claims more than 2 million players in North America, over 3.5 million in China, and more than 1.5 million players in Europe.

"We're ecstatic that the World of Warcraft community has continued to grow steadily since we launched the game," said Blizzard president and co-founder Mike Morhaime.

Since launching in November 2004, the game has been made available in seven different languages and is now played in North America, Europe, mainland China, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau.

Blizzard plans to launch the first expansion pack for the game, "World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade," next week in North America, Europe, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Thailand, with versions for mainland China and surrounding locales coming at a later unspecified date. Midnight release events for the expansion have been scheduled in the U.S., U.K., France, Germany and Sweden.

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http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/burningcrusade