World of Warcraft

"WoW" redirects here. For other uses, see Wow.

World of Warcraft
Developer(s)Blizzard Entertainment
Publisher(s)Blizzard Entertainment[2]
Director(s)
Producer(s)
  • Shane Dabiri
  • Carlos Guerrero
Designer(s)
Programmer(s)John Cash
Artist(s)
  • William Petras
  • Kevin Beardslee
  • Justin Thavirat
Composer(s)Jason Hayes[a]
SeriesWarcraft
Platform(s)Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X
Release
  • AU/NA: November 23, 2004
  • EU: February 11, 2005[1]
Genre(s)Massively multiplayer online role-playing
Mode(s)Multiplayer

World of Warcraft (WoW) is a 2004 massively multiplayer online role-playing (MMORPG) video game produced by Blizzard Entertainment. Set in the Warcraft fantasy universe, World of Warcraft takes place within the world of Azeroth, approximately four years after the events of the previous game in the series, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne.[3] The game was announced in 2001, and was released for the 10th anniversary of the Warcraft franchise on November 23, 2004. Since launch, World of Warcraft has had ten major expansion packs: The Burning Crusade (2007), Wrath of the Lich King (2008), Cataclysm (2010), Mists of Pandaria (2012), Warlords of Draenor (2014), Legion (2016), Battle for Azeroth (2018), Shadowlands (2020), Dragonflight (2022), and The War Within (2024). Two further expansions, Midnight and The Last Titan, were announced in 2023.

World of Warcraft was inspired by other MMORPG's, particularly EverQuest, with Blizzard setting out to make their own MMORPG and improving on the features of EverQuest. The game allows players to create a character avatar and explore an open game world in third- or first-person view, exploring the landscape, fighting various monsters, completing quests, and interacting with non-player characters (NPCs) or other players. The game encourages players to work together to complete quests, enter dungeons and engage in player versus player (PvP) combat, however, the game can also be played solo without interacting with others. The game primarily focuses on character progression, in which players earn experience points to level up their character to make them more powerful and buy and sell items using in-game currency to acquire better equipment, among other game systems.

World of Warcraft was a major critical and commercial success upon its original release in 2004 and quickly became the most popular MMORPG of all time, reaching a peak of 12 million subscribers in 2010.[4] The game had over one hundred million registered accounts by 2014[5] and by 2017, had grossed over $9.23 billion in revenue, making it one of the highest-grossing video game franchises of all time. The game has been cited by gaming journalists as the greatest MMORPG of all time and one of the greatest video games of all time and has also been noted for its long lifespan, continuing to receive developer support and expansion packs over 15 years since its initial release.[6][7][8] In 2019, a vanilla version of the game titled World of Warcraft Classic was launched, allowing players to experience the base game before any of its expansions launched.[9][10] Versions of Classic for some expansions were released later,[11][12] with minor changes.[13] In 2022, Blizzard and NetEase cancelled an unannounced World of Warcraft mobile spin-off game.[14] In July 2024, 500 artists, designers, engineers, producers, and quality assurance testers voted to unionize with CWA.[15]

  1. ^ "Blizzard Entertainment announces World of Warcraft European street date – February 11, 2005". Blizzard Entertainment. February 2, 2005. Archived from the original on February 7, 2005. Retrieved February 9, 2007.
  2. ^ "The Activision/Blizzard Merger: Five Key Points". Industry News. gamasutra.com. December 3, 2007. Archived from the original on December 21, 2008. Retrieved February 24, 2009. One of the intriguing things about the old Vivendi structure was that, even when Martin Tremblay joined to run Vivendi's publishing, it was specified: "World Of Warcraft creator Blizzard Entertainment has been designated a stand-alone division reporting to VU Games' CEO, and is not part of Tremblay's product development mandate.
  3. ^ "FICTION TIMELINE". Blizzard Entertainment. March 9, 2009. Archived from the original on December 4, 2010.
  4. ^ Reilly, Jim (May 5, 2012). "World of Warcraft Reaches 12 Million Subscribers". IGN. Archived from the original on February 4, 2021. Retrieved January 19, 2021.
  5. ^ "Blizzard reaches 100M lifetime World of Warcraft accounts". Polygon.com. January 28, 2014. Archived from the original on February 1, 2014.
  6. ^ Sawyer, Logan (May 13, 2020). "Ranking The 15 Best MMORPGs Of All Time". TheGamer. Archived from the original on July 12, 2024. Retrieved January 19, 2021.
  7. ^ Bradley, Alan; Avard, Alex; Gerblick, Jordan (August 11, 2020). "The best MMORPG games to live out your best fantasy life". GamesRadar. Archived from the original on February 4, 2021. Retrieved January 19, 2021.
  8. ^ Lykins, Damien (September 2, 2019). "The Top 10 Best MMORPGs Of All Time (According to Metacritic)". GamesRant. Archived from the original on July 12, 2024. Retrieved January 19, 2021.
  9. ^ "Mark Your Calendars: WoW Classic Launch and Testing Schedule - WoW". World of Warcraft. Archived from the original on May 19, 2019. Retrieved August 27, 2019.
  10. ^ "World of Warcraft goes back to basics". August 26, 2019. Archived from the original on August 28, 2019. Retrieved August 27, 2019.
  11. ^ "Burning Crusade Classic: The Dark Portal is Open!". World of Warcraft. June 1, 2022. Archived from the original on September 28, 2022. Retrieved September 27, 2022.
  12. ^ "Shatter the Ice: Wrath of the Lich King Classic™ Now Live!". World of Warcraft. September 27, 2022. Archived from the original on September 28, 2022. Retrieved September 27, 2022.
  13. ^ Miceli, Max (June 22, 2022). "Blizzard details #SomeChanges approach to WoW Classic Wrath of the Lich King". Dot Esports. Retrieved September 27, 2022.
  14. ^ Huang, Zheping; Schreier, Jason (August 3, 2022). "Blizzard, NetEase Scrap Warcraft Mobile Game After Financing Dispute". Bloomberg News. Bloomberg L.P. Archived from the original on August 4, 2022. Retrieved August 3, 2022.
  15. ^ Eidelson, Josh (July 24, 2024). "Microsoft's 'World of Warcraft' Gaming Staff Votes to Unionize". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved July 24, 2024.


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