The launch of World of Warcraft Classic was bigger than developer and publisher Blizzard had anticipated.

Speaking to PCGamer, the game's director Ion Hazzikostas said that it had planned for a certain level of users - and had the infrastructure to handle them - but it was trying to limit the number of servers at launch so that the game didn't feel empty. That would be why there were massive lines of users queuing up to play the MMO.

"It definitely exceeded our expectations," Hazzikostas said.

"We had the infrastructure planned to accommodate the number of people that showed up, but it was certainly not something that we were expecting."

He continued: "From the start we wanted to be conservative in our projections because we didn't want to open a huge number of servers only to find some of them underpopulated and unable to support healthy communities in the long term. But it also meant that we had to react very quickly opening dozens of servers on a daily basis during that first week."

According to research firm SuperData, World of Warcraft subscription revenue rose 223 per cent month-on-month in August due to the launch of Classic. The title's Twitch viewership also more-than-doubled in the three months between July and September.

Blizzard has come under fire recently for banning a Hearthstone esports player for making a pro-Hong Kong statement during a tournament livestream. This caused a massive backlash against the Overwatch giant, who released a statement explaining the situation and saying that the player being penalised had nothing to do with its Chinese ties.