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Robin Williams to be memorialised as World of Warcraft character, Blizzard Games confirms
As well as being one of the most loved comedians and successful actors of a generation, Robin Williams was known to be a huge video game fan – he even named his first daughter Zelda after the popular Nintendo character and son Cody after a character in the game “Final Fight”.
The video game community is therefore mourning the loss of one of their own – and have banded together to create the perfect memorial to the comic great.
Blizzard Games, the production company behind the “World of Warcraft” phenomenon, looks set to insert Williams as a character into the game after tweeting this message last night:
https://twitter.com/Warcraft/statuses/499373912291938307
The company was acting in response to an online petition set up by fan Jacob Holgate which had asked Blizzard to create a non-player character (NPC), a character that can’t be controlled by gamers, within the game to memorialise the Academy Award winner.
The petition stated:
He often joked about his WoW addiction but also about the reactions he'd get from other gamers when he admits he plays the game.Because of his presence within our community, we the players of World of Warcraft are asking Blizzard to kindly create an NPC within the game that memorializes the actor/comedian.
The petition had reached 10,975 signatures when Blizzard announced it would be responding to the calls. The first inkling that Holgate and the "World of Warcraft" community would reach their goal came when Chad Nervig, technical game designer on "World of Warcraft", responded to a tweet with a link to the petition with the message “we’re working on it”.
@Dakirokos @mumper @CM_Lore @DaveKosak @davhave Yes. We're taking care of it.
— Celestalon (@Celestalon) August 12, 2014
Robin Williams talked about his love of video games with the Australian Daily Telegraph in 2011:
It’s like cyber-cocaine, especially if you’re online playing against other people, it’s totally addictive, you get lost in the world.I remember sometimes playing so late I’d be like ‘what time is it? three o’clock in the morning? I gotta stop!’
In 2011, Williams and his daughter Zelda featured in a Nintendo advert for "The Ocarina of Time 3D" game.