10 years of World of Warcraft

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, I think about the 10th anniversary of World of Warcraft. The game unites million of players since its release ten years ago.

It’s hard to believe, but the Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game „World of Warcraft“ (WoW) is currently celebrating its 10th anniversairy. During the last decade, the game has received five major expansion packs to keep the players interested in the game. The latest expansion pack „Warlords of Draenor“ (WoD) was just released on November 13th.

Blackwing Lair 40-men raid

Apart from being played for 10 years, WoW is a very successful game which attracts millions of players who are keeping the virtual world alive. Currently, the game has a subscriber count of 10 million and 3.3 million copies of the just released WoD were sold so far[1].

This success is especially so interesting, because the core mechanics of the game have not changed since the release ten years ago. Although new tasks and new environments were added to the game, the players are mostly interacting the same way with the world as they did ten years ago[2][3]. However, the players have developed a very strong emotional attachement to their own avatars over time. The own avatar became the virtual representation of the player in this virtual world[4]. Moreover, the players were required to form groups in order to achieve certain goals in the environment and over time, friendships evolved among the members of a group[5][6].
As a conclusion, the players of WoW started to live a second life in Azeroth and/or were attracted by the simple reward mechanisms of WoW which are constantly providing an immediate feedback about the own progression.

Firelands 10-men raid

The success story of WoW is unique and it is the first game which reached this huge dimension. WoW has influenced the development of many other games and has revolutionized the online multiplayer games. It even has become a social platform.

As a computer game researcher, I am excited to see how the playerbase will evolve during the next years. Some of the frequent players have grown up with this game and it became a part of their life. It is a very interesting to observe how living virtual worlds like WoW are connecting the players from all over the world and how the game is influencing our own life. The next years can give us some more insights into the dynamics of virtual worlds and how we could use them in order to connect and educate people in an engaging way.