World of Lovecraft?

If an effort were made to trace H.P. Lovecraft's steadily rising influence into pop culture, two contemporary means of his burgeoning popularity come to mind: the internet and video games. In video games, the Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) has arguably neared the top of the industry's pyramid in terms of gaming expansiveness, popularity, and lucrative profits for entertainment developers. Examples of this genre include video games like Everquest, Second Life, and World of Warcraft. It's the latter game by the company Blizzard which has incorporated some notable Lovecraftian features.

The H.P. Lovecraft references noted thus far in this game have been referenced by this blog post on "Tanking for Dummies" and this post on "Warcraft and Other Hooha." What these articles make clear is an interesting trend: the Lovecraftian content embedded in World of Warcraft appears to be generated by both users and software engineers within Blizzard. While it seems somewhat natural that fans of science fiction and fantasy would have a substantial number of individuals in their ranks who know about and appreciate Lovecraft's work, it's another matter to see Lovecraftian symbols creep up regularly in such a popular past time.

Moreover, it's likely the names, creatures, and places borrowed from Lovecraft will only spawn further interest about the Providence writer among the game's predominantly young demographic. The looming explosion of Lovecraft in the digital age is rapidly driving us toward the day when he will no longer be seen as an obscure figure in a niche genre of literature, but as a colonizer of strangeness, perhaps one day infusing inspiration into as many types of media as Poe is renowned for doing.

-Grim Blogger