There’s a general sense among many MMO/virtual world observers that the size of the market has been woefully underestimated -- almost all of us were surprised by how quickly World of Warcraft leapt to over a million subscribers for example, and I don’t believe anyone would have predicted a year ago that the game would have over five million subscribers by now.

At the same time, there remains a sense of disbelief in some quarters (notably old-school game companies and many VC-types) that the market for MMOs/VWs is as big as its made out to be.

So the question is, how many people really play these games, and what do the various numbers mean?
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