Epic Win: A Rundown of "World of Warcraft's" Pop Culture Impact

Image via Complex Original

Date: 2014

We've seen all manner of weddings, but never have we seen a wedding so awesome, so nerdy, and so full of win as this one. Jen and Nick courted one another on WoW, and when they tied the knot, they wanted their special day to be truly special. So, they created WoW weapons for their group photos, they named their tables after raid bosses, and they had a loot table instead of a sweethearts table. Instead of bride and groom sides, they had Horde and Alliance sides. Too cool.

Date: 2009

Indiana resident Alfred Hightower was a Level 80 Tauren Shaman by the name of Rastlynn, but in his spare time, he was also a marijuana dealer. At first, he managed to avoid prosecution by hightailing it to Canada. Eventually, however, police caught up with him by collaborating with Blizzard. They got his billing address, his IP address, and his preferred server, and they arrested him a short time afterwards. Poor bastard. Gamers with "side interests," beware.

Date​: 2007

In 2007, The New York Times ran an incredible story about gold farming in China. First-world players in Europe and America outsource their grinding—for experience levels and gold—to people working for 30 cents an hour on the other side of the world. These "gold farms" are set up as factories with rows and rows of computers, and workers must meet daily quotas in order to stay employed. There are real life parallels at work here, such as the outsourcing of cheap labor, the class distinctions between players who can afford a gold farmer and those who cannot, and the bullying of Chinese gold farmers in-game. 

Date: 2007

Back in early B.C. (Before Craigslist), we only had eBay, the online auction house where you could bid on anything—even virtual goods. If you were too lazy to do the work yourself, you could buy a fully upgraded character and extremely rare weapons online for hundreds or thousands of real dollars. It still exists, but Blizzard has gone to great lengths to discourage the practice. In 2007, eBay banned the selling of "virtual goods" on their site citing the ambiguity of the law.

Date: 2007

In 2007, 12-year-old Hans Jørgen Olsen was attacked by a moose near his home in Norway. But rather than panicking and pissing himself like the average preteen might do, Hans dropped to the ground, and the moose lost interest in killing him. Hans was "feigning death," a technique he learned from WoW; "Hunters" learn the technique at Level 32 to trick their enemies. Whatever it takes to save a life, we're certainly not complaining.

Date: 2006

Written and directed by Trey Parker, "Make Love, Not Warcraft" was not only an incredible WoW parody, it's one of the best South Park episodes of all time, and won an Emmy the year it was released. Plus, Blizzard Entertainment were incredibly good sports. They collaborated with South Park to create the computer graphics seen in the episode, and even helped to design the characters and animations. You know that you've arrived as a cultural phenomenon when comedy writers decide to lampoon you.

Date: 2006

We don't expect classy behavior from a group of online video producers who call themselves Women Shouldn't Vote Productions, but even so, this is pretty tasteless stuff. For context: A player died in real life from a massive stroke. Her friends decided to hold a funeral/memorial service, in-game, next to Frostfire Hot Springs, and one by one, her friends lined up to pay respects to her avatar. That's around the time that the Serenity Now guild decided to crash the funeral, and killed everyone in attendance.

It sparked a huge online debate beyond WoW—at what point do online actions have real world consequences? When is a game more than "just a game"? WoW was doing a great job of blurring that line. 

Date: 2005

During a Jeopardy College Tournament in 2005, Alex Trebek gave the following clue: "This role-playing game out in 2004 returns to the 'world' of Azeroth, where heroes like Leeroy Jenkins do battle." Shockingly, none of the eggheads on stage knew the answer, but we were shouting it at our television sets. You can't get more mainstream than that.

Date: 2005

In 2005, Corrupted Blood virtual plague spread through Azeroth, killing off hundreds and hundreds of players. People in-game reacted in interesting ways. Some of them deliberately spread the disease, infecting as many other people as they could. Many healers offered their abilities, providing medical triage for the plague. Urban areas, with large population densities, were abandoned in favor of the countryside.

Corrupted Blood was never intended as a pandemic; it was a game glitch that caused the plague to spread far and wide. But it turned out for the best—epidemiologists and counter-terrorist groups studied the incident, and it provided insight into how human beings would react to a real life catastrophe.

Date: 2005

The hilarious, undisputed, No. 1 WoW crossover moment has to be this. It starts with the PALS FOR LIFE guild meticulously planning a raid, and it ends with everyone dead. The hero of this clip, of course, is Leeroy. He's probably sick of his teammates' overwrought, self-serious calculations, and so he just decides to YOLO it. He may not be winning, but he's probably having fun—which is, of course, the point of playing a video game.

This clip went viral back in 2005, and it's been referenced everywhere, from Community to The Daily Show to How I Met Your Mother. Its mainstream appeal in 2005 showed us that WoW was more than just a niche interest. Today, Azeroth is still going strong.