More than 11 million people play World of Warcraft, a staggering figure when you consider that the whole online gaming universe is seen as some kind of underground culture because it’s not part of the mainstream, everyday consciousness. You don’t really hear much about it on the news, don’t see much of it in the newspapers. It’s taken a long time but the mainstream media does devote more space and airtime to the activity, but not as much as online gaming probably warrants.

World of Warcraft may be the most popular online game, but there are thousands of others, the vast majority with large followings. Even the 10th place game will likely have upwards of 2 million subscribers. Which all means it’s huge business. Put it together with offline gaming and, as most people know by now, the gaming industry is bigger than the film industry. So why not more coverage in the mainstream?

There is one group that benefits from the lack of pervasive coverage of games in the mainstream media, and that is the games media – all those magazines and websites dedicated to covering games and gaming culture in all its rich and chaotic culture. Into that media mix a new product is about to be launched.

It’s being marketed as a “coffee table magazine” and it’s being published by Future Publishing, which already publishes many famous titles, including what is believed to be the world’s first gaming magazine, Computer and Video Games, although nowadays it’s published as a website and not a printed magazine.

Future’s experience with Computer and Video Games, and many other gaming titles, will enable it to produce a sought-after magazine of high quality about its chosen subject of World of Warcraft, which the term “coffee-table magazine” seems to imply. With so many followers of the game, the market is already established for the magazine.

“It is halfway between a coffee-table book and a magazine,” said the FuturePlus international director, John Gower. “It’s all about exclusivity – we feel that we don’t want to dilute the game for the magazine.”

World of Warcraft: The Magazine will cost £29.95 for four issues in Britain, €34.95 in Europe and $39.95 in the US and the rest of the world. The magazine will publish simultaneously in English for the US and UK markets and also in French, German and Spanish. The first issue will be delivered to subscribers in about two months.

The FuturePlus editorial director, Julian Rignall, said World of Warcraft’s online world was suited to a print magazine. “We believe that people still intrinsically like the look and feel of magazines,” he added.

He said subscribers would get great benefit from the magazine despite the plethora of information about the game on websites. “You can have that in your lap while you are playing the game,” he added. “It’s hard to look that up on a website when you are trying to fight some dragon with 25 other people.”

Meanwhile, the owners of the game, Blizzard Entertainment, are promising that a new expansion pack called Cataclysm will shake up the venerable World of Warcraft world. “I’m confident it will be nothing less than earth-shattering,” Chris Metzen, Blizzard’s vice president of development, said as he unveiled the Cataclysm trailer Friday at BlizzCon, the company’s annual fan convention held at the Anaheim Convention Center. “It will very literally change the world of Azeroth as you know it.”

Based on Warcraft lore, the new expansion shows the game world transformed by a geological rift and strife between the game’s factions. “There can be no peace when the world itself is devoured by rage,” the trailer proclaimed. “The world will never be the same.”

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