“It was a precursor,” stated Olivier Servais, a specialist in on-line communities. “Blizzard targeted on guilds and communities on a human scale, bringing collectively between 30 and 200 gamers.”
In these teams, “folks flirt, they confide about their every day lives”, weddings and funerals are organised, and the sport turns into “a pretext to socialize”, he stated.
WoW was born the identical 12 months as Fb, and comprised key components equivalent to on-line interactions and communities that may assist create immediately’s globalised social networks.
“It was many individuals’s first actual publicity and connection to folks in a digital digital atmosphere. And that was a part of the magic, and that is a tough factor to duplicate,” Hazzikostas stated.
Since then, different fashionable video games equivalent to Fortnite or League of Legends have adopted related codes.
‘MONUMENT’
At its peak within the 2010s, World of Warcraft claimed greater than 10 million lively accounts, although the quantity could possibly be larger as a result of many individuals typically share one account, in Asia, particularly.
Blizzard not reveals the variety of accounts, however WoW stays fashionable internationally.
“We aren’t resting on our laurels, or coasting gently off into the sundown,” Hazzikostas stated.
Its tenth extension, The Conflict Inside, was launched in August with new domains to discover and different modifications.
“Twenty years later, it stays a monument however in a gaming market that has fully modified,” Servais stated.
Hazzikostas stated Blizzard is “attempting new bold issues to shake up what we have achieved and hold that vibrant”.
“I do not see an finish level to World of Warcraft on the horizon immediately,” he stated, drawing parallels with franchises equivalent to Marvel or Star Wars.
