There are now more World of Warcraft subscribers than there are people living in Ireland, New Zealand, and Jamaica combined. More specifically, the most successful MMORPG of all time now claims over 12 million users, a milestone that Blizzard says was reached in the wake of the mainland Chinese launch of Wow's second expansion.

"The support and enthusiasm that gamers across the world continue to show for World of Warcraft reaffirms our belief that it offers one of the best entertainment values available today," said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. "We are as committed as ever to taking the game to new heights, and we look forward to demonstrating that with Cataclysm in December."

WoW had been holding steady at 11.5 million subscribers for over a year, leading some to assume the franchise had peaked. Apparently not, and once the game's third expansion arrives in early December, we're willing to bet that number will surge even higher.

As far as kid cartoons go, SpongeBob SquarePants easily ranks as one of the better ones, and at times is even a bit hilarious. But would we want to control the bright yellow fry cook in a massively multiplayer online game (MMOG)? Irrelevant, because whether we want to or not, SpongeBob is heading online.

That's the word from MTV Networks Asia and online games company GigaMedia, two entities working together to jointly publish the first SpongeBob MMOG.

"Partnering with GigaMedia on the development of a SpongeBob SquarePants MMOG allows us to bring the residents of Bikini Bottom into a whole new world -- one that is tremendously popular in Asia and presents unlimited creative and business opportunities for the franchise," said Jihee Nam, Vice President of Digital for MTV Networks Asia. "SpongeBob SquarePants is Nickelodeon's best known property within Asia and we're extremely proud to oversee the development of the MMOG with local business partners. We look forward to working hand in hand with GigaMedia on bringing SpongeBob, Patrick, Squidward, Gary and Sandy Cheeks to life in an entirely new and incredibly popular online world."

If aimed at adults, something like this could end up being full of win, but for obvious reasons, kids are going to be the target audience. MTV says the game will follow a free-to-play model with an online store where gamers can spend their allowance on a range of items. The MMOG will also feature a bunch of video and simple Flash-based games, but other than that, MTV doesn't plan to reveal much else until we inch closer to the 2011 launch.