After just five issues, the official World of Warcraft Magazine is calling it quits. Future US has posted a notice on the website, and subscribers can either get a refund for the issues they didn't receive, or a voucher for six in-game World of Warcraft pets. Future recommends subscribers who want to keep up with the game in a dead tree format can subscribe to its PC Gamer publication, and it's possible Blizzard may try to publish something itself, though there are apparently no plans for that yet.

It's kind of a shame -- the WoW Magazine did offer a lot of solid coverage about the game (and some good looks inside the workings of Blizzard's Irvine, CA campus), but the publication was also torn between its status as an official outlet and a separate press entity. Dan Amrich, the magazine's first editor-in-chief (who left even before the first issue was published, and is now working as an official Activision blogger) recently wrote about some of the troubles he had dealing with Blizzard's licensing department and their control over the magazine.

When you combine that with the fact that MMO fans tend to prefer digital over analog, then apparently the whole venture just wasn't worth it. Like we said, shame.