I have lived many lives in video games and saved countless worlds. Of the hundreds of characters I have become, none has felt closer to my heart than Ptolemy, the gnome mage I played for years in World of Warcraft, the game that transformed my unhappy teenage years into an epic voyage of magic, empowerment and friendship. Though today’s games are more compelling and artful, no other game has consumed me so completely since I left the land of Azeroth 12 years ago.

World of Warcraft (WoW) was a landmark in the genre given the unwieldy name of “massively multiplayer online role-playing games” or, only marginally less of a mouthful, MMORPGs. These are persistent online worlds in which players assume the role of a single character, developing their skills and experience by co-operating and competing with other players occupying the same virtual realm.

Communities and societies bloomed overnight. For the first time, game worlds felt truly alive

It’s hard to over-emphasise how revolutionary it felt at first. I was used to adventuring alone in fantasy worlds that disappeared when I turned off my console, but WoW’s virtual world was always on, always changing, and it heaved with other humans. Communities and societies bloomed overnight, some of them role-playing complex characters. For the first time, game worlds felt truly alive.