World of Warcraft, also known as WoW by its rabid fans, is an immense multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). Produced by Blizzard Entertainment, WoW is the highest money producer in the MMORPG genre. In excess of $150,000,000 is spent on monthly dues by WoW subscribers, who pay approximately $15 per month for access to the WoW universe. There are approximately 11.5 million monthly subscribers and WoW is estimated to hold 62% of the MMORPG market.

Although the game does have competitors, such as Lord of the Rings and Age of Conan, these games do not come close to the amount of money WoW garners, even though they are relatively similar in structure. One reason for the tremendous success of WoW is that the game can run on older computers with weaker than normal graphic cards.

World of Warcraft is also very easy to learn and the gameplay is technically sound. This single player game has an addictive quality about it that keeps WoW players coming back for more month after month.

Due to the completely open ended world that WoW allows gamers to immerse themselves in, there has been some issue with players spending countless hours involved in the game. There is a condition where people can become addicted to the continual play of WoW. Referred to as video game addiction, the government of China took this problem seriously, as they had over 1.5 million citizens subscribing to WoW. The Chinese government put a strict 3 hour limit on WoW play.

Despite the occasional case of a player becoming too involved in the game, WoW has continued to be the vanguard of the MMORPG video game genre.