Star Wars: The Old Republic hits one million subscribers in three days

Star Wars: The Old Republic, the story-driven massively multiplayer online (MMO) role playing game from industry veteran BioWare, has managed to amass one million subscribers in just three days on the market. The game has been in beta for a few years now--first as a private beta and more recently as a semi-public beta--but it officially launched on December 20 after a one-week Early Access Program for those who pre-ordered the game.

World of Warcraft (WoW), by comparison, currently has more than 10 million subscribers. The Old Republic’s launch membership is quite small by comparison, but it is excellent for a brand-new MMO. In fact, BioWare had the “largest one-day subscription account registration process in MMO history” on Thursday. Other statistics include more than 28 million in-game hours, an average of five hours of gameplay per day, and 3.8 million characters created so far.

Most impressively, the game’s servers have continued to function normally throughout all of this. Some of the more popular servers are experiencing 5-10 minute wait times during peak hours of the day, but it isn’t usually a problem. BioWare appears to have a hit on its hands. Between the fantastic Star Wars setting, BioWare’s trademark storytelling, and engaging gameplay, The Old Republic should have no problem competing in the MMO space.

[Star Wars: The Old Republic]