Columbus Freepress - November 7th 2013 Nov 7 2013 | Page 24

A lament for World of
Warcraft
By J. J. Ulm

On November 8th

“NOW MORE THAN EVER”

and 9th, video game
goliath Activision
Blizzard is hosting
BlizzCon 2013, a
not-quite-annual
gathering dedicated to Blizzard’s
wildly popular Warcraft, Starcraft
and Diablo series. The event brings
together gamers from all over the world
to compete in World of Warcraft raids,
massive Starcraft PvP tournaments
(which are so dominated by South
Korean players that even on Californian
soil anyone competing from anywhere
else is considered a “foreigner”),
and...whatever it is Diablo players do
competitively. Gold farming?
But let me wax personal for a bit,
because, for me, BlizzCon evokes a
certain nostalgia for a time long past
for myself and many others. A time
when we actually cared about World of
Warcraft.
I was an addict. No, seriously. At one
time, I spent more time playing WoW
in a week than I did at my full-time
office job. I got cranky if I was kept
away for too long. I logged on when I
came home from work and didn’t log
off until I went to bed – and for much
longer on weekends. I would pick on
younger friends who logged off for
family dinners, telling them they should
eat at the computer “like an adult.” And
what’s worse, I was a role player, using
the game as a sort of virtual LARP. I
wrote thousands upon thousands of
words about my characters and spent
many of those hours not playing the
game at all but socializing in character
in some in-game tavern.
24 Since the event is used as a stage to

announce new expansions for WoW,
BlizzCon was a time to gather with
friends around the computer to watch
live-streamed events that would tell
the futures of us and our characters.
Where were we headed next? The
broken wastes of Outland? The frozen
mountains of Northrend? What new
things would we learn about the world
we played in, what villain would we
gather together to fight next?
And then lots of people, literally
millions of people worldwide, lost
interest. It may not be a coincidence
that the biggest drop in the game’s
popularity came with Cataclysm, the
first expansion made after Blizzard
Entertainment was absorbed into
gaming megacorp Activision. It may
have been that, after 6 years, many of
the game’s players had experienced
and accomplished everything they
wanted to and Activision was unwilling
to let Blizzard be innovative enough
to create new content that would hold
their interest. For me, that feeling of
stagnation certainly played a part. Too
many good characters in the setting
had been killed without being replaced
by anyone nearly as compelling. The
fights I wanted to be a part of had been
fought, and I didn’t care enough to pay
$15 a month (the game’s subscription
fee, which has remained unchanged
despite the growing