Future Publishing (LSE: FUTR) is adding orcs, trolls and blood elves to its list of licensed magazine franchises. The Bath, England-based publisher is partnering with Blizzard Entertainment for World Of Warcraft: The Magazine, a quarterly available in English, French, German, and Spanish. Most interestingly, the 148-page title will be available via subscription only, either one year ($39.95, €34.95 or £29.95) or two years ($69.95, €61.25 or £52.50). That’s an ideal mechanism for players of WoW, the world’s most subscribed massively multiplayer online role-playing game, which - aside from being last year’s #1 PC game in North America and Europe - also grew its subscriber base from 10 million to 11.5 million, each paying at least £8.99/€12.99 a month. In other worlds, WoW is highly sticky, with a large, growing and loyal following that’s happy to dip its hand in its pocket for some gold. Activision (NSDQ: ATVI) Blizzard’s Q1 revenue tripled to €731 million from last year on strong WoW, Call Of Duty and Guitar Hero sales and, last month, Blizzard inked a three-year Chinese license for WoW with NetEase.com. The magazine launch is timed to coincide with this weekend’s upcoming BlizzCon at Anaheim, California, where early subscribers will be rewarded with an “exclusive plush green murloc stuffed animal”, whatever that is.

Source