Reflecting on this, The New York Times has published a look into the many ways World of Warcraft has impacted our lives and culture over the past two decades, which we’ve recapped with a little bit of extra context from a few of our own articles from over the years.
20 Years of Orcs, Guilds and Memes in World of Warcraft
- A ‘South Park’ episode about WoW won an Emmy, and continues to be one of the highest ranked episodes in the show’s history!
- WoW provided a case study on epidemics, with the Corrupted Blood incident marking the first online instance of uncontrolled plague to affect millions of real people.
- Steve Bannon participated in WoW’s fringe economy, eventually using Chinese gold farmers as a conceptual framework to help build an audience for Breitbart news.
- Players opened their wallets for WoW. Whether supporting charity pets or getting their own extravagant mount, players purchase them in record numbers, despite the sales being one of the game’s most hotly debated controversies.
- WoW jargon spread to the alt-right, attempting to co-opt “kek,” though the the Horde translation of “lol” may be seen less often these days as players can much more easily communicate with each other now.
- ‘I’m a Night Elf Mohawk’ was another wildly successful celebrity campaign in a time where video games were just starting to reach the wider television audience. More recently, the 20th Anniversary celebrated the return of the infamous Mohawk Grenade to engage a whole new generation of players!
- Many women found WoW welcoming, which Blizzard has fostered through several events and scholarships.
- WoW harnessed the power of nostalgia, first by bringing back WoW Classic, changing up the game with a fresh spin, and then starting all over again! More than ever before, World of Warcraft has strived to provide something for everyone.
Agree or disagree on these points, it’s clear that World of Warcraft has had a profound effect on both its players and our wider culture over the last two decades.
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