I've been thinking about the World of Warcraft MMORPG and looking at what it did and when it came about.

It's been a very popular game for over a decade now (2004 launch). It came in at the right time where players were getting easier access to broadband Internet connections. It was heavily based off of another MMORPG called EverQuest (possibly the most popular MMORPG at the time) and tweaked that game to be more user friendly. It had a rocky launch, but recovered well and gathered players in record (for a North American game) numbers.

Now, that is the game itself, of which we may never see the like again, thanks to the timing of so many technology improvements hitting closely together. But what else did WoW touch?

YouTube, for one. A lot of players made lots of videos about WoW and became very popular YouTube personalities. And YouTube was another technology that hit about that time. I've been watching a lot of twitch.com shows the past year and I see that many of the personalities made famous with WoW now have live gaming streams. TotalBiscuit (The Cynical Brit), PressHeartToContinue (Dodger), Jesse Cox, PewDiePie(?), Sharm, and many more have all made a name for themselves in the gaming world, thanks to World of Warcraft. I would almost say that these players helped make YouTube what it is today, with the help of WoW.

Since about 2006, many Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG) have tried to duplicate World of Warcraft's success, to no avail. The cards have just not fallen so precipitously since 2004.

Have others played World of Warcraft? I did off and on for about 4 or 5 years. What else do you think WoW has touched in the gaming industry?

PS: All of the above are my own observations and should not be taken as "fact"