The eyes of the massively multiplayer online role-playing game world are no doubt trained on Blizzard Entertainment’s BlizzCon this weekend, but the World of Warcraft publisher is not the only MMO company making headlines these days. Turbine CEO James Crowley delivered a keynote address yesterday at the 2008 Tokyo Game Show, and today EA Mythic revealed some early stats for its recently released Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning.

After racking up 500,000 subscribers in its first week on shelves in mid-September, Warhammer Online has padded out its stats in the intervening weeks. EA Mythic now puts its registered player total for the fantasy MMO title at 750,000.

While the first-week numbers were enough for EA Mythic to dub Warhammer Online "the fastest-selling new MMO of all-time," the trick for any new game in the genre is to hold on to those subscribers. For comparison, Funcom’s fantasy MMO game Age of Conan tallied 400,000 subscribers in its first week on shelves. Three months after launch, it had sold more than 800,000 copies, but boasted only 415,000 subscribers.

Despite the strong start, Warhammer has a long way to go to catch WOW. The planet’s top MMORPG now boasts roughly 11 million subscribers, a number which will likely jump when its second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, arrives on November 13.

By Brendan Sinclair