Memorials for Gamers

After Michel Koiter died suddenly at age 19, the video game company he and his twin brother René worked for wanted to pay tribute to him.

Blizzard Entertainment art director Samwise Didier, came to [René] with an innovative proposal: He wanted to erect a monument to Michel in World of Warcraft, most likely the first permanent memorial in gaming history. René agreed, and in late 2004, a stone obelisk engraved with Michel’s initials, MK, appeared in World of Warcraft. Known as the Shrine of the Fallen Warrior, it features the body of an orc—Michel’s chosen avatar in the game. In a recent update, Blizzard added an angelic figure known as a “spirit healer” to watch over the obelisk. “It was an epic gesture,” René said.

Slate's Michael Walters tells this story in a moving essay about digital memorials in the world of gaming.

In the past 10 years, gaming companies and individual players alike have endeavored to preserve the legacies of lost players within the games they loved. Across World of Warcraft, EVE Online, Guild Wars 2, and dozens of other large-world massively multiplayer online role-playing games, hundreds of shrines have popped up honoring deceased players. For close friends and family members of players preserved in video games, those memorials offer a way not only to reflect on their loved ones but also on the community that cared for them. A shrine stretches far beyond the digital plot of land it occupies. It reaches into the homes of hundreds of quasi-strangers, bound together by their love for a friend they likely never met in person.