World of Warcraft – Still a Popular MMORPG

World of Warcraft is an online role-playing game, named as Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game or commonly acronymed as MMORPG. It is the fourth released game set of an American video game developer and publisher, the Blizzard Entertainment, in the Warcraft universe. This MMORPG was released on 23rd November 2004 and has now become world's largest MMORPG in terms of monthly subscribers and holds the Guinness World Record for being the most popular MMORPG.

For its ability of supporting thousands of players simultaneously, MMORPG currently holds 62% of the entire MMOG market at 10 million subscribers. At the running year of 2008, the current subscriber has been estimated at approximately 16 million. For the use of advanced technology in graphics and audio and its strong visual appeal and responsiveness with a smooth player controls; World of Warcraft was almost universally praised and won several rewards from critics on its release. For advancing the art form of MMORPG games, World of Warcraft was also honored with the 59th Annual Technology and Entertainment Emmy Award.

Players of this MMORPG from across the globe can leave their real world behind and undertake grand expeditions and hero exploits in a land of fantastic adventure. To get started with this MMORPG, players first have to create a World of Warcraft account, where they are asked to choose a username and password. Now, whenever the user or the registered player enters the World of Warcraft, he is asked to supply the same username and password in full to confirm his user identification. Players absorb themselves as the characters of Warcraft heroes as they explore, adventure, and quest across the vast world. Whether adventuring together or combating against each other in heroic encounter actions, players in turn form friendships, forge association, and compete with enemies for power and splendor.

World of Warcraft has also come under criticism for several cases of game addiction to this most popular video game. Researchers found, students who played the violent games of MMORPG for long time with a sheer addiction; tended to be more aggressive, less forbearing and believed violence to be normal compared to those who played nonviolent games. And also the MMORPG players were reported to be poorer in school and are at a greater risk of obesity.

But, since the interactions between all MMORPG players are real in this virtual environment, the sociologists and psychologists use this MMORPG as a tool for academic research and psychic studies. Researches by some psychologists say, MMORPG appear to sharpen scientific thinking skills like using systems and models for accepting and understanding situations and using math and testing to investigate and face various problems, also the player's mind set up becomes more faster and the players are sooner to make fewer mistakes than the other nonviolent Video Game players.

However, the immense attraction to this enticing virtual world of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game or MMORPG has made it so popular that the Western revenues exceeded US $ 1 billion in 2006 and world wide revenues have exceeded half a billion dollars in 2005.