Warcraft Nation

I thought I'd have another crack at the Blog Azeroth Shared Topic. This week it's all about politics. What would World of Warcraft Players be able to achieve if they were as organised and motivated as the US Gun Lobby.

It is difficult to get a good estimate of the number of actual active players that Warcraft has. No matter how evangelical a member of the NRA might be they cannot buy another account and triple box their fund-raisers.

Even so the numbers are big. 6 million seems to be a middle estimate.

I grew up in New Zealand. It's a democracy. It has 4 million people and, famously, 60 million sheep. This tells us two things: A) most New Zealanders are Mages and B) if we can get past their crowd control we can declare it the Independent Republic of Wow and co-opt the entire country.

The real question is “then what?”
One of the biggest problems with any political organisation is keeping it focused. Cannon fodder doesn't have to march in a straight line but it is difficult to stop them fighting amongst themselves. A nation entirely composed of WoW players would be no more united in purpose than any other.
Free broadband? Compassionate raiding leave? We could probably all get behind an anti-discrimination bill so that normal people had to stop calling us names but a canny opposition could probably add an amendment excluding Death Knights without too much trouble.

Let's try a different approach.

Let's say each member of the World of Warcraft Liberation Front was willing to pay an average of US$1 every month to the cause. I need to Google payment rates for Union Dues. BRB.

Okay call it 50% That gives us a $US36m yearly income. On the back of Ventrillo payment rates. You could run a pretty sizeable full time staff off that.

Doing what you might ask? Here we must use our most powerful weapon; The game itself.

The work of lobbyists is dark and arcane. Much of it involves making friends, doing favours, exerting pressure. Getting close to people. Wining and dining them. Giving them things. Try this... you'll like it.

We have one of the most addictive products legally available. The political class are natural game players anyway. Highly focused and acquisitive. Convince them that they need to 'reach our demographic' and you can get them online. Help them get started. Get them hooked.

Do favours. We'll have them in our pockets in no time. And we get triple-experience while we're doing it.

Siblings, we have the means to rule the other World. All we have to do is step into the Portal that will take us there from Azeroth. Who's with me?

(Actually I need to level my leatherworking but, you know, tomorrow. For sure)