There are plenty of great video game cakes out there, but this one “takes the cake” when it comes to epicness. Just look at how devilishly detailed this World of Warcraft Deathwing looks.

Link Via Craftzine

(YouTube Link)

Do not attempt to adjust your computer screens, Katy Perry did not recently become a huge World Of Warcraft nerd and convert her song E.T. into an homage to the rocky race known as the Draenei.

Rather, this video was created by YouTube user taintedlore to show some love to WoW and Katy Perry at the same time! MMO nerds-here’s a new track to add to your gaming playlist!

–via The Mary Sue

If you missed the 2011 Blizzcon, but are a huge fan of WOW and other Blizzard games, you won’t want to miss Geeks Are Sexy’s wonderful collection of the greatest costumes from the event. Some of the outfits are seriously impressive.

Link

Do you or someone you know have an addiction to Warcrack? Are you spending so much time farming and battling monsters that your life is passing you by? Well, at least you haven’t sold your kids to pay for your MMO habits! One couple in China, however, have sold three of their children just to pay for their online gaming obsession, and they see nothing wrong with what they have done. They are so honest, in fact, that they admit to not wanting to raise the children, and that their intention from day one was to have children in order to sell them for cold hard cash. Thankfully the two are now in custody, and here’s hoping that the kids don’t follow in their parents footsteps and end up in a gold farming camp!

Link Image via Image*After

If you love MMORPGs, particularly WOW and Starcraft, then you’d most certainly have a great time at China’s counterfeit theme park based around the epic Blizzard videogames. You can see all kinds of pictures of the park over at Shanghaist.

Link Via Consumerist

Whoever said video games have no real-world applications has obviously never heard about the little boy who saved his sister from a rampaging moose thanks to the skills he learned playing World of Warcraft:

When the beast went on the offensive, Hans knew the first thing he had to do was taunt it so that it would leave his sister alone and she could run to safety. “Taunting” is a move one uses in World of Warcraft to get monsters off of the less-well-armored team members.

Once he was a target, Hans remember another skill he’d picked up at level 30 in ‘World of Warcraft’ — he feigned death. The moose lost interest in the inanimate Hans and wandered off into the woods.

Oddee has two great lists each with ten video game incidents you won’t believe.

Link #1 and Link #2

"Prison bosses made more money forcing inmates to play games than they do forcing people to do manual labour," Liu told the Guardian. "There were 300 prisoners forced to play games. We worked 12-hour shifts in the camp. I heard them say they could earn 5,000-6,000rmb [£470-570] a day. We didn’t see any of the money. The computers were never turned off." [...]

"If I couldn’t complete my work quota, they would punish me physically. They would make me stand with my hands raised in the air and after I returned to my dormitory they would beat me with plastic pipes. We kept playing until we could barely see things," he said.

Link

Is this image real or fake? I have no idea. Is it correct? I have even less of a clue on that. But Alex has a double Ph.D, so maybe he can tell us. The point is: World of Warcraft online customer service appears to be exceptionally helpful.

Link via Geekologie

The awesomeness of this World of Warcraft graffiti only slightly mitigates the criminality of it. But I suppose that as the Alliance vs. Horde conflict rages, it is only natural that overly-enthusiastic Horde patriots attack Alliance propaganda.

Link via Geekosystem | Photo: Mallem

World of Warcraft player Ragnaorc modified the bathroom in his home to reflect a Horde ambiance. It’s quite detailed, including lighting fixtures with bones and a toilet plunger holder shaped a skull.

Link via DVICE

World of Filkcraft created this song about the WoW lifestyle to the tune of “Part of Your World” from the Disney movie The Little Mermaid. It’s called “Part of Your Guild.”

via Nerd Bastards | World of Filkcraft

Lest you think that was the highlight of the suit, just wait until you hear the witnesses he is calling on his behalf: Winona Ryder and Martin Lee Gore, the founder of Depeche Mode. He thinks Winona’s interest in Catcher In The Rye makes her qualified to discuss alienation and that Gore’s songs make him an expert in alienation because he is “sad, lonely and alienated, as can be seen in the songs he writes.”

Link

To reach the milestone the Taiwanese power-player killed 390,895 creatures, accumulated 7,255,538,878 points of damage, completed 5,906 quests (that’s 14.62 quests per day, apparently), raided 405 dungeons and hugged 11 players.

Here’s the sad part: once you achieve something like this, what is there left to accomplish in life?

Link via Wandering Goblin | Image: Blizzard Entertainment

Gamers at MIT have built a self-contained life pod in which to play World of Warcraft. It features a built-in toilet, three days worth of food rations, fresh water, and a small cookstove. Thanks to these Prometheuses among us, it is no longer necessary to go outside or interact with people face-to-face. Truly, we live in an age of marvels.

Link via Geekologie

This 1996 2006 WoW project by Aram Bartholl let people "play" as their World of Warcraft avatars in real life.

If your name is Leeroy Jenkins, you’d have to use big fonts

The WoW project takes this mode of publicizing players’ names that’s typical of online 3D worlds and transfers it into the physical domain of everyday life. Participants of the WoW-workshop will be able to construct their own name out of cardboard and then parade around in public with it hovering above their head. What happens when a person’s customary anonymity in the public sphere is obliterated by the principles operative in virtual worlds online?

Link

(Links open in a new browser window/tab)

	Geophysical Survey of the World of Warcraft James Wallis gave an interesting talk at Interesting Vancouver 2008 (see what I did there?) about doing a geophysical survey of ... Azeroth, the virtual world in the insanely popular World of Warcraft. It turns out that WoW is really, really small: Link
	Human Slip & Slide This is probably this middle-aged, balding Japanese man's lifelong dream: to ... um, slide over a row of oiled-up women in bikinis! (It doesn't end there, folks, there's also an underwear stuffing contest!) Where do I sign up? Link
	Double Fail at the Motorcycle Race Track What happens when you hold a motorcycle race after it rains? Here's a "double" fail at the track - I don't know which one hurts more! Link
	Shark Does a Spinning Jump Behind a Surfer Check out this video clip of a spinner shark doing a spinning jump (shoryuken?) behind a surfer. Link (about time mark 0:10)
	History of the Internet Here's a really neat animated infographic clip by Melih Bilgil about how the Interweb came to be. Link (If you like this, check out Neatorama's 10 Things You Should Know About the Internet and Wonderful World of Early Computing, Take a Stroll Down Computing Memory Lane)

For more the web's most interesting videos, check out: VideoSift.