WORLD OF WARCRAFT

“There are 10 million people in the World Of Warcraft, because Chuck Norris allows them to live.” So goes the iconic advert that came alongside the success of World Of Warcraft, and Chuck Norris wasn’t the only famous face giving the game their stamp of approval. Ozzy Osbourne, Mr T, Aubrey Plaza, Verne Troyer and William Shatner are just some of the celebrities that put their names – and likenesses – to Blizzard’s MMO, and those are just the ones that featured in the ads. Vin Diesel, Ronda Rousey, Mila Kunis, Robin Williams and Jamie Lee Curtis have all vouched for the time they’ve lost in Azeroth. Matt Stone and Trey Parker loved it so much they made an episode of South Park devoted to it. There’s no muted way to put it: World Of Warcraft is a phenomenon. It has the broad appeal that only a handful of games have been able to achieve, and the cultural significance within and without the games industry that arguably no game has had before or since. But what’s more, though the game launched 15 years ago, WOW is still an active and incredibly popular game, even now. It’s one of those increasingly rare classics that permeates society so deeply that even non-gamers will know what you mean when you say, ‘I play World Of Warcraft.’ But there was a time, as hard as it may be to remember, when the concept wasn’t so recognisable.

Towards the end of the second millennium and coming off the back of Warcraft, StarCraft and Diablo, Blizzard had a luxury that not many developers of the era