The popularity of World of Warcraft has led some artists to satirise and/or acknowledge its mark in popular culture. One example is the Emmy Award winning South Park episode "Make Love, Not Warcraft."  In the Louisville World Series of Video Games competition, World of Warcraft was a featured game. World of Warcraft itself also contains references to pop culture within the game. The game has also been used to advertise unrelated products, such as Toyota trucks. In late 2007, a series of television commercials for the game began airing featuring pop culture celebrities such as Mr. T, William Shatner, and Verne Troyer discussing the virtues of the character classes they play in the game.

 

World of Warcraft has inspired a board game produced by Fantasy Flight Games, as well as a trading card game produced by Upper Deck Entertainment.

 

In November 2007, DC Comics published the first issue of the ongoing World of Warcraft comic under their Wildstorm imprint.

 

 

In May 2006, production company Legendary Pictures acquired film rights to adapt Warcraft for the big screen with the game's publisher, Blizzard Entertainment. Blizzard had originally considered hiring a scribe for the film adaptation before teaming up with Legendary Pictures. The companies plan to create a film that would not follow one specific Warcraft game's storyline, but would still take place in the fantasy universe. According to Blizzard's Chief Operating Officer Paul Sams, the film's budget would be over $100 million.

 

In June 2007, Legendary Pictures chairman Thomas Tull said that the studio was working closely with Blizzard's designers and writers to adapt World of Warcraft. Tull explained the desire to have a good story for the film adaptation, "I think some of the stuff that makes a game translate well... if there's a lore, if there's a road and story and a world that's been created, and characters that are interesting in a way that's more than just point and shoot." World of Warcraft's lead designer Rob Pardo expressed interest in being able to adapt the intellectual property of World of Warcraft to the appropriate medium of the film. He also added that the designers were collaborating with Legendary Pictures on story and script development.

 

In August 2007, at BlizzCon, it was unveiled that the film will aim for a projected 2009 release. It was also revealed that the movie will take place from an Alliance perspective and will be geared towards a PG-13 audience, with a storyline set one year before the beginning of the World of Warcraft storyline. As of this time no director or cast are yet associated with its development. Thomas Tull stated that, "It¡¯s not so much a quest movie. It¡¯s more of a war movie."