Blizzard releases free World of Warcraft documentary

As part of its BlizzCon 2014 event last week, Blizzard has released its hour-long documentary Looking For Group, which chronicles the achievements of its record-breaking massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft, for free.

World of Warcraft has been a massive money-spinner for Blizzard, after the company opted to take the Warcraft franchise in a new direction after its origins as a fantasy setting for real-time strategy games. At its peak, the game had double-digit millions of subscribers each paying a monthly fee to escape into the world of Azeroth - but, in recent years, those figures have dwindled. Blizzard responded by introducing a free-to-play mechanic, allowing gamers to play up to a certain character level before being charged, a move which has seen the number of subscribers stabilise at around 7.4 million as of the latest official figures from last month - half its peak, but still healthy for a game which is now in its tenth year.

To celebrate a decade of play, Blizzard announced at BlizzCon last week that its hour-long documentary Looking for Group would be provided free of charge. True to its word, the company has now uploaded the entire film to YouTube where fans can explore the history of the game and its development as well as some of its most famous players and fans, and Blizzard's opinion on why the game proved so popular as to see off numerous competitors over its decade-long run.

The full-length film is embedded below, but we'd recommend setting it to play in full-screen mode if you don't want to hurt your eyes squinting at the small box for its entire 62-minute run-time.