While the publishing industry agonises over whether consumers will pay for its online content, the games biz has no such worries. Activision (NSDQ: ATVI) Blizzard’s all-conquering, bandwidth-hogging MMO game World of Warcraft has 11 million paid-up subscribers, making it $1.34 billion (£874 million) last year. Now futuristic MMO game Eve Online, from Icelandic publisher CCP Games, has taken the second-place MMO spot behind WOW with 300,000 subscribers paying $15 (£9.79) a month, as Telegraph.co.uk reports.

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According to one estimate,  video game sales in the UK alone rose to more than £4.6 billion last year despite the downturn, and CPP are certainly grabbing a slice of that pie: last year the company’s revenues jumped by a quarter to $46.5 million (£30.35 million) last year, and it expects growth to continue this year and make $55 million (£35.9 million) in 2009. It’s even hiring an extra 100 staff to its current workforce of 400 in the US and Europe. More after the jump…