World of Warcraft celebrates its 20th anniversary
World of Warcraft: 20 Years of Influence
Blizzard Entertainment launched *World of Warcraft* (WoW) in November 2004. To commemorate the milestone, *The New York Times* highlighted the many ways this massively multiplayer online role-playing game has left a lasting impact over the past two decades.
For starters, while multiplayer games and early social networks like MySpace were already around, WoW offered a glimpse into a future where people connected with friends and strangers online in immersive ways. Additionally, its business model—combining monthly subscriptions with in-game purchases for items like pets and rideable mounts—generated billions of dollars, making it a lucrative venture for Blizzard and a blueprint for future online business strategies.
The game also gave rise to enduring memes, gained a following among celebrity fans, and inspired epidemiologists to analyze a fictional outbreak of disease within the game to draw parallels with real-world epidemics.
And for the record, I didn’t think the movie was all that bad.
