Various gaming news sites have already started stating that RIFT has hit 1 million subscribers. I'm sure you'll see more news articles about this over the next few days too.

But just like Blizzard, the truth is in the details. =]

Here is Trion's official announcement:

RIFT™ HEAD START KICKS-OFF TODAY AS TRION ECLIPSES
ONE MILLION REGISTERED ACCOUNTS

Names of Rift public servers revealed on the game’s official forums

Trion Worlds announced today that more than one million accounts have been created to date, signaling a high level of interest for the company’s first massively multiplayer online game, Rift™, which is scheduled to launch March 1st in North America, March 3rd in pan-European countries, and March 4th in the UK. The news hits just as the game’s Head Start period begins, giving pre-order customers advance playtime before servers officially open on launch day.

Launching with 33 Head Start servers, Rift will feature dedicated realms for PvP, PvE, and role-playing players. Servers are live today, coinciding with the game’s Head Start period, which lasts until the game launches next week. Find the official server list on Rift’s official forums at: http://forums.riftgame.com/showthrea...48#post1198848

One million accounts have been created to date. That includes the hundreds of thousands of open/closed beta testers over the past several months. It might even include players who created new accounts on their forums, as anyone is able to create a new account to post on their forums even if they can't play the game (for now anyways.) Here are the beta key numbers that I am aware of: MMORPG.COM passed out 175,000 beta keys (7000 VIPs), WarCry gave out 2,000 keys, MMOHUT gave out 5,000 keys, GameZone.com gave out 25,000 (1000 VIPs), Gamestar.de gave out 125,000 (5000 VIPs), and ZAM "burned through" 125,000 beta keys (5000 VIPs).

You know.. it's funny because I'm saying "it's just like what Blizzard does" but as a negative connotation. Usually that doesn't happen.. users often claim that games will copy good ideas from Blizzard ("oh, just another WoW clone", "same spell name"), but when have you ever heard someone claim that they copied something _bad_ from Blizzard? (e.g. "I can't believe they're doing the same thing as Blizzard, it's going to be a mess.. an even bigger screw up.") I don't think it happens very often.