In a recent press release, Blizzard announced that there are now 7.5 million World of Warcraft players.
That’s almost 19 times the total population of EverQuest at its peak when I was playing it, and even *that* felt like a huge community at the time. You’d occasionally discover that a coworker here or an acquaintance there was an EQ player, but with WoW it’s almost a given that you’ll know a good number of people who are either players or at least know of it.
It’s surreal to think about how much it’s exploded ever since it was primarily the domain of the dorkiest and nerdiest. :)
Speaking of WoW, I just told my Ops manager today about Onyxia. He kind of shuffled off, a strange look of wonder and weirdness on his face…