The players who left World of Warcraft for the greener pastures of Age of Conan or Warhammer Online are already streaming back in droves, The Blizzard CEO announced.

Age of Conan launched towards the end of the June quarter and Warhammer launched in mid-September. The launch of the two most likely candidates for "WoW-killer" appeared to have little lasting impact on the game's momentum. However, despite its age, despite the much-ballyhooed launch of competing MMOGs Age of Conan and Warhammer Online, despite a worldwide economic meltdown of epic proportions, Blizzard's venerable MMOG keeps marching along. And After the launch of World of Warcraft’s second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, Blizzard announced at the end of October that the game had reached 11 million subscribers.

Even though the quarter was book-ended by competitors in the MMO space, the World of Warcraft subscriber base continued to grow. To date, 68% of the players who listed Age of Conan as their reason for cancellation and 46% of the players who listed Warhammer as their reason for cancellation have reactivated their subscriptions to World of Warcraft. Meanwhile World of Warcraft also managed to grow its subscribership, despite the Olympics and the summer vacation period. World of Warcraft had 1.5 million more subscribers than during the same time last year.