Rift has almost 1 million folks playing it, according to Trion Worlds

Trion Worlds' SVP of publishing David Reid has said that Rift's sell-through to consumers hit almost 1 million units during the game's first three months live.

Speaking in an interview with Gamasutra, Reid said the firm was on the verge of selling it's 1 millionth unit, and that it's an actual real figure - not shipped, but sold.

"These [numbers are] real people who have bought the client, installed it, paid for it and played the game," he said, adding that the lucky person to be the millionth subscriber will receive something "special" from Trion along with their referrer should they have one.

"We're really pleased with what we're seeing, " he continued, "and beyond that, it was a pleasure to see in the latest Activision Blizzard earnings call that Rift was inquired about when Blizzard announced their subscriber numbers went from 12 million to 11.4 million.

"You can do some math... we know very well where those 600,000 people are. I think that there is a pattern or history that you can see across other [MMOs]. We have seen that when new games launch, people go and play them, then people go back to World of Warcraft. That has been historically true.

"I think it would be a mistake to look at past history as an indicator of future performance in this case. We know we have a very stick game, we know we are getting a lot of success right now. ... If in fact the 600,000 players [Blizzard] lost came to Rift, I don't think they'll be getting those 600,000 people back as quick as they did from Aion, Conan, Warhammer and the like."

The investment total in Rift is at 50 million, but Trion has raised over $100 million in venture capital over the years, and the firm is working on bringing Rift to Asia and Russia in the future, but admits there's "an awful lot of localization that needs to be done," for the Asian markets; plus the competition from titles such as
Guild Wars 2, Tera and SWTOR primed for the areas. However, with a lot of MMOs going free-to-play, Reid is still of the opinion that th sub-market is still a valid way to keep income for an MMO coming in, plus, people are will to pay as long as th content keeps coming.

The investment total in Rift is at 50 million, but Trion has raised over $100 million in venture capital over the years,