There are also those of us who think Chuck Norris jokes are still funny (remember, Walker is still in regular rotation on TV and Norris will be starring in The Expendables 2, so he’s not washed up at all).
Not on Elune. It still crops up in the trade channel sometimes, along with Anal (link item here) and Murlock jokes. Saw the Chuck Norris thing just a few nights ago, in fact.
Even Mike Huckabee was more on trend. 
It’s interesting that he seems to be one of the few people featured in an internet meme that have actually been able to spin a few quid out of it. I recall a few years ago someone wanted to publish a book of Chuck Norris facts and it was blocked, but looking at his site it seems he put together a similar book himself.
I’m over 40, have played warcraft for several years and think the ad is quite funny. I and most of the guild I belong to turn off the global chat channels simply to ignore the stupid, lame and annoying crap that Snowboarder Bo and drastic_quench seem to be referring to. I’ve never even seen a Chuck Norris joke on WoW.
FWIW, my guess is they chose him to tie-in with the next planned expansion that will introduce a martial-artist monk class.
My wife is in one of the elite raiding guilds on her server. She lives in WoW. She thought the commercial was fine.
I don’t know why the bother airing that ad, when we know they have a much berter ad with the cute, nerdy, chick.
I mean…the message is silly (play WoW and abandon your personal life?) but hey, she’s she is nice to look at!
I considered that, too, but it’s probably close to a year before Mists comes out. That’s way too far off to try to tie in Norris to the expansion. I’d guess that it’s mostly in connection with the jokes that took over chat for a while, and it’s NOW because they began this “I’m blank and I’m a blank” celebrity campaign recently.
Well, I’ll accept your word that Chuck Norris jokes were a fad among WoW users a few years back, and that there are now criticisms of a Norris commercial, but the claim that Blizzard has “lost touch with its fanbase” is still unsupported, as far as I can tell. Heck, it’s conceivable to me that the guys at Blizzard didn’t even ask for a Norris ad, let alone ask for one specifically in reference to the fad among its users a few years back. Barring some evidence to the contrary, the more likely path is that the Norris ad (along with other celebrity-centered ads) was pitched by whatever advertising agency is handling Blizzard’s account, and Norris satisfied whatever matrix of standards were in force - a mix of affordability, availability, recognition, the ability of Warcraft programmers to prepare game-style animation using a character based roughly on him, etc… I made a few cursory searches to find out which agency this was, but no joy.
So, no, I don’t accept your “explanation”, such as it is.
Oh, I never expressed an opinion on the quality of the ad (it’s not encouraging me to start playing Warcraft, so I guess it’s a failure as far as I’m concerned), but a few hundred or even a few thousand critics among Warcraft players represents the smallest fraction of the userbase overall, even if we limit ourselves to just the Americans, i.e. those most likely to have some idea who Chuck Norris is. Heck, one could assume the majority of this message board hates the Republican Party, if one focuses on political threads and ignores all the users (i.e. the significant majority) who don’t post in these threads.
Personally, I liked those jokes better when they were Bill Brasky Facts.
Well, who else were they going to get? [Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker]?
What bugs me is that they left the punchline off the joke:
Does Chuck Norris hung?
No. Hunting implies the possibility of failure. Chuck Norris does not hunt. Chuck Norris kills.
It’s not a “claim”, it’s my opinion and the opinion of many people that I play the game with.
My first thought when i saw the commercial was “Isn’t that 3 years too late?”
I think some of the reason for the disconnect in the discussion above is that some of us that play WoW think that the Chuck Norris meme became so huge almost BECAUSE of WoW. I kind of remember Chuck Norris jokes really hitting the mainstream a few months after it had already been played out on WoW.
Pardon the bluntness, but Blizzard isn’t trying to get your business. People who are already playing WoW don’t require commercials to keep playing–WoW isn’t a TV show. They’re trying to entice different demographics into the game. I play with a couple grandparents in my casual guild. Not as many since that demographic isn’t as tech-savvy as youth, but it’s a great cheap source of entertainment for the retired set. Like, if my grandma was still alive, I bet she’d try a WoW trial based entirely on that commercial. She was TOTALLY into Walker, Texas Ranger for YEARS. She freaking loved Chuck Norris. And before she died, she played Word Whomp on Pogo and really enjoyed email and facebook. The concept of a meme wouldn’t mean anything to her–it certainly wouldn’t detract from her desire to play the game.
As far as younger folks go, though, I thought the commercial was very funny. So did my guildmates. And I’ve been playing WoW since 2005. But then, I’m probably a rube because I still enjoy Barrens chat on my alts. :rolleyes:
My main thought was that they should’ve gone with a funnier Chuck Norris joke. Of all the thousands that are out there, they could’ve found one that a) was funnier and b) had a better visual they could show on TV.
The commercial doesn’t really make sense unless you already know about the Chuck Norris genre of jokes and are aware that they are (or were) popular in WoW chat. Your grandma aside, I don’t think many Walker Texas Ranger fans are going to be attracted or understand that commercial, and those who do are going to be pretty disappointed if they sign up for WoW thinking it has anything to do with Texas bounty hunters.
People who have played WoW before will see the commercial, remember the jokes and feel like they’re part of a particular social clique since they’re “in” on the reference. Ideally some fraction of them will then remember the good times they had playing WoW, and re-subscribe.
Its aimed at people who get the reference and have good associations with it. That its dated is part of the point.
What does William Shatner have to do with WoW? There’s no in-joke about him, but nobody’s bitching about those commercials.
That’s insane. First of all, Chuck Norris-mania was started by Conan O’Brien’s “Walker, Texas Ranger Lever,” which dates to 2004.
Second of all, why would someone who already plays WoW need a commercial with Chuck Norris to convince them to keep playing WoW? I doubt the reason behind the spots was because of the Chuck Norris jokes in chat. Because then you have to connect Mr. T, Verne Troyer, William Shatner, and Gary Coleman to WoW in-jokes too. Did they have their own WoW in-jokes prior to their commercials?
Oh, I doubt that knowledge of the jokes (let alone of the tenuously significant fact that some WoW players were obsessed with them a few years ago) is necessary. If all one knows about Norris is that he’s played a deadpan movie and TV tough guy, I daresay someone would “get” a Norris joke immediately. It’s not like one has to actually be from Yorkshire or to have ever visited Yorkshire or to know anything about Yorkshire to appreciate the “Four Yorkshiremen” sketch. Norris is a tough guy, and here’s a joke about how tough: he’s on Warcraft [supposedly], and if other people are also on Warcraft, it’s because he allows it because that’s how tough he is. Rimshot, curtain. I’m not sure how much background is needed - it’s not exactly a layered piece of satire.
If knowledge of Chuck Norris jokes is necessary to get Chuck Norris jokes, how did anyone get the first Chuck Norris joke?
Chuck Norris told it.
And thus Chuck Norris and God are the only First Causes, and God was just copying Chuck Norris.
nobody believes that chuck norris made that ad because he really does play WoW and wants to support it?