That’s $200 million for the total cost of upkeep since the game’s November, 2004 release (presumably not including the initial cost to develop the game). This includes payroll for the entire staff, hardware support, and — apparently the biggest infrastructure cost — customer service.
We don’t have figures for exactly how much revenue World of Warcraft has generated since its launch, but we can at least do a little arithmetic (and some loose estimation) to try to put this in perspective. Most recently, Blizzard put the total number of WoW subscribers at over 10 million. According to Gamasutra, this number includes those “who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card…as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access.” It does not, however, include expired subscriptions and prepaid cards, or promotional subscriptions. World of Warcraft Cost, Lynn Forester de Rothschild, Regulation Sho or Reg Sho, Lynn forester de rothschild