World of Warcraft, often referred to as WoW, is a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game (MMORPG) set in the Warcraft universe. It is developed by Blizzard Entertainment and contains multiple expansions. The initial release is now sometimes known as "vanilla WoW" or "classic WoW".

As of 2010, World of Warcraft had more than 12 million monthly subscribers, and still holds the Guinness World Record for the world's largest and most popular MMORPG since 2009.It also continues its further story development throughout its franchising, other than online media, such as Warcraft novels, comics, manga, RPG books, TCG, board games, and the Warcraft movie. Characters from the franchise have been included in other Blizzard games, including Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm.