WoWer

From WoW +‎ -er.

WoWer (plural WoWers)

1. A player of the massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft.
   • 2006 July, Ian Jackson, “Inbox”, in Edge, number 164, page 127:

     The inability to affect the game world in any significant way is of course, unavoidable, if [Darkmaster] Gandling could be truly destroyed, then it would have already been done so by one of the professional WOWers that spend more time in Azeroth than in the real world.

   • 2006 August 3, Gazette staff and wire reports, “Gizmos”, in The Gazette, volume 124, number 206, page 1D:

     Dating Web site created to help WOWers connect […] Enter World of Datecraft, a Web site meant to facilitate real-life meetings between players of the world’s most popular online fantasy, also called WOWers.

   • 2007 January 28, John Faherty, quoting Luoluo Hong, “Dean of students accomplishes objectives, forms friendships … and then there’s her job”, in The Arizona Republic, 117th year, number 255, page B2:

     Well, I have to say I was a reluctant WoWer, but I have been into gaming since I was young, before college.

   • 2007 March 3, Angela Bunt, “World of Warcraft: A very real battle”, in The Voice: The Student Press of Westfield State College, volume XII, number XIV, page 3:

     I ask [Lauren] Davenport to give some advice to up and coming WoWers in an effort to send them on the right path.

   • 2007 September 12, Evan Morris, “The Word Detective”, in Green Bay Press-Gazette, page E-6:

     Personally, I have my doubts about basing public health policy on the reactions of people whose diet consists of Mountain Dew and pot-noodles. But there are nine million WoW[-]ers, so I may be wrong.

   • 2008, Julie Cameron; Tony Flowers; Margaret Hart; Mark Peace; Neil Renton; Duncan Watts; Michael Wright, AQA Sociology A2, Nelson Thornes, →ISBN, page 143:

     Dr Maressa Orzack, a clinical psychologist who studies games addiction, argues that up to 40 per cent of the 6 million US WOWers are addicted to the game, but she presents little evidence to support this claim. The Chinese government is bringing in legislation to prevent the 20 million Chinese ‘WOWers’ from playing the game for too long because of the ‘social and economic damage’ caused by such addiction.

   • 2008 March 29, Omar L. Gallaga, “Masters of their domains: Gathering spot for gamers has ‘WoW’ factor: Online community Datecraft caters to fans of fantasy game”, in Austin American-Statesman, page F1:

     Numbers, to a certain degree, aren’t that big of a deal (although it helps to prove points) because when one comes to think about it, how many “real” friends does one have? Millions? Or just a few? Acquaintances, certainly. So, are “WoW”ers socializing? Absolutely. Simply in another medium.

   • 2008 July 31, Adam Wratten, “Resident Gamer: The WoW Beta is in full swing”, in The Monitor, volume 100, number 18, page 1D:

     For those of us WoWers not in the beta, keep up hope. There are apparently going to be more invites sent out in the future.

   • 2008 December 9, Max Snelling, “Addicts Anonymous”, in Mouth of the River, page 19:

     Even one of the esteemed teachers of Oyster River High School has become a WOWer. Trevor Garman, a second year English teacher at ORHS plays WOW about 1-2 hours a day. "My favorite part is going through the instances with my buddies," Garman says. He also claims to have been a WOWer for four years, and even says he has fallen into minor moments of 'addiction' with the game in his long tenor as a WOWer.

   • 2009 February, “Meet the team”, in PC Zone, number 203, page 6:

     Our MMO expert Ed [Zitron] has angered loyal WOWers as he didn’t think Wrath of the Lich King was ‘all that’, as they say in the States.

   • 2011, Andy Kessler, Eat People: And Other Unapologetic Rules for Game-Changing Entrepreneurs, Portfolio / Penguin, →ISBN, page 206:

     Yup, World of Warcraft has been an amazing success: a massively multiplayer game that is easy to learn, addictive, and requires months of overuse to master to reach the highest levels to then join guilds to cruise around in packs with other like-minded WoWers.

   • 2013, Eric Smith, The Geek’s Guide to Dating, Philadelphia, Pa.: Quirk Books, →ISBN, page 0041:

     It goes without saying that starting to date is a lot like leading a raid in Upper Blackrock Spire in World of Warcraft. Okay, if you’re not a WOWer, I suppose it goes with saying.

   • 2014 August 18, Phil Savage, “World of Warcraft to get a (slight) subscription hike in the UK”, in PC Gamer‎, archived from the original on 12 November 2020:

     UK WoWers: time to schedule an appointment with your bank manager. When Warlords of Draenor releases this November , the game's £9 per month subscription will be sky-rocketing for those not already nestled in its auto-renewing charge.

   • 2016 June 1, Brogan Morris, “Warcraft”, in Paste‎, archived from the original on 13 August 2020:

     [Duncan] Jones probably really is the WOWer he claims to be, but the material [Warcraft] just doesn’t seem like a good fit for him as a filmmaker.

   • 2016 June 10, “Is the 'Warcraft' movie any good? A player and a non-player quest to find out”, in CNET‎, archived from the original on 24 December 2022:

     So to find out how well the film [Warcraft] serves players and non-players, we dispatched devoted WoWer Luke "For the Horde!" Westaway and Warcraft virgin Rich "Why are everyone's shoulders so big?!" Trenholm on a quest...to the movies.

   • 2017, “Warcraft”, in Robert Mejia, Jaime Banks, and Aubrie Adams, editors, 100 Greatest Video Game Franchises, Rowman & Littlefield, →ISBN, page 197:

     WoW players were caricaturized in South Park’s episode “Make Love, Not Warcraft,” and characters in the TV series The Big Bang Theory are depicted as avid WoWers.

   • 2017, Anthony R. Palumbi, “The Storytellers”, in Blood Plagues and Endless Raids: A Hundred Million Lives in the World of Warcraft, Chicago Review Press, →ISBN:

     Though a small chunk of chapter 6 lays out the important distinctions between PvE and PvP environments, veteran WoWers will have noticed I have barely touched upon another major category of realm server.

   • 2018 October 9, Stassi Reid, “Strange Things About Sarah Michelle Gellar And Freddie Prinze Jr.'s Relationship”, in Nicki Swift‎, Static Media, archived from the original on 28 February 2021:

     Now, here's the good news: it doesn't appear that Freddy Prinze Jr. is as much of a WoWer as he was before. The bad news: he launched a YouTube channel called GEGGHEAD where he films himself playing other games, such as Call of Duty WW2.

   • 2019 June 3, Laurie Chen, “Chinese gamers threaten keyboard maker Cherry with boycott after storm over giveaway aimed at ‘men only’”, in South China Morning Post‎, archived from the original on 19 August 2022:

     “I was a WOWer [World of Warcraft player] and use a Cherry keyboard, but if Cherry China will not say sorry to us, I will find another keyboard for my new MacBook Pro,” a Chinese Twitter user named Ziying wrote.

   • 2020, Marcella Szablewicz, “Carving Out a Spiritual Homeland”, in Mapping Digital Game Culture in China: From Internet Addicts to Esports Athletes (East Asian Popular Culture), Palgrave Macmillan, →ISBN, page 121:

     These guilds and friendships form across age, class, and gender divides, and yet, in the context of the game, all share a collective identity as WoWers.

• Warcrafter
• World of Warcrafter