As it celebrates its 20th birthday, the online video game World of Warcraft (WoW) has demonstrated rare longevity thanks to its loyal following and constant evolutions.

"It is inspiring to be able to work on this rare game that has touched so many lives, and to also feel the burden of carrying that forward," Ion Hazzikostas, the current director of the game, told AFP at the Gamescom trade show in Germany in August.

As an early fan of WoW he joined California-based Blizzard, the American developer of the title, in 2008 before climbing the ranks.

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Although it was not the first massively multiplayer online role-playing game (a genre known as MMORPG) when it was released in 2004, World of Warcraft was an instant success, quickly attracting several million players worldwide.

It benefited from the popularity of the Warcraft brand, a saga of real-time strategy games launched ten years earlier by Blizzard, which was bought by Microsoft in 2023.

In the game, two factions face off in a fantasy universe populated by orcs and elves where thousands of players can connect and cooperate simultaneously, in exchange for a monthly subscription of $15 a month.

It was the social aspect of the experience, still in its infancy at the time, that appealed to players.

"It was a precursor," said Olivier Servais, a specialist in online communities. "Blizzard focused on guilds and communities on a human scale, bringing together between 30 and 200 players."

In these groups, "people flirt, they confide about their daily lives," weddings and funerals are organized, and the game becomes "a pretext to socialize," he said.

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WoW was born the same year as Facebook, and comprised key elements such as online interactions and communities that would help create today's globalized social networks.

"It was many people's first real exposure and connection to people in a digital virtual environment. And that was part of the magic, and that's a hard thing to replicate," Hazzikostas said.

Since then, other popular games such as Fortnite or League of Legends have adopted similar styles of gameplay.

At its peak in the 2010s, World of Warcraft claimed more than 10 million active accounts, though the number could be higher because many people often share one account, particularly in Asia.

Blizzard no longer reveals the number of accounts, but WoW remains popular across the world.

"We are not resting on our laurels, or coasting gently off into the sunset," Hazzikostas said.

Its 10th extension The War Within was released in August with new domains to explore and other changes.

"Twenty years later, it remains a monument but in a gaming market that has completely changed," Servais said.

Hazzikostas said Blizzard is "trying new ambitious things to shake up what we've done and keep that vibrant."

"I don't see an endpoint to World of Warcraft on the horizon today," he said, drawing parallels with franchises such as Marvel or Star Wars.