World of Warcraft fans fool AI website into writing about “Glorbo” hoax

World of Warcraft fans faked a fervor over a fictional game feature called “Glorbo,” and the stunt went viral when AI-assisted websites credulously reported on the made-up feature. It’s a joke that is ridiculous on the surface, but reveals a deeper anxiety among World of Warcraft fans.

“I’m so excited they finally introduced Glorbo!!!” is the title of the viral Reddit post by user kaefer_kriegerin. Here’s the opening of the post itself:

I am so excited about this feature! It would be great if some of the major news sites that are operated by bots published an article on this.

Since they first hinted at Glorbo in Hearthstone, in 1994, I knew that it would eventually be added to World of Warcraft.

It doesn’t take a keen expert to realize that Glorbo isn’t real, as a new feature or otherwise. It’s a silly-sounding word, padded with enough made-up copy like “I feel like Dragonflight has been win after win so far, like when they brought back Chen Stormstout as the end boss of the new Karazhan? Absolutely amazing!” to hopefully fool an AI. The ploy was successful: The Portal, a publication of the Z League esports platform, published the article. It has now been removed from The Portal, however, an archived copy is available, as was a community website called Wowhead. Polygon has contacted Z League to ask about Glorbo and how articles are written. We will provide an update once the company replies.

Isolated, it’s just a dumb mistake. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Blizzard add a Glorbo NPC to the game in a later patch. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time a community in-joke or funny meme was enshrined in the MMO. But there’s a reason this trap was relatively easy to set — Blizzard regularly updates World of WarcraftThen, they follow up with patches that build on the premise of each expansion. Players are quick to discuss these patches, pointing out data-mined spoilers or giving feedback on the new customisation options.

Glorbo and other incidents can be disruptive, causing a great deal of confusion. The Portal appears to use AI tools that scrape the social web for any vaguely intriguing story hook. World of Warcraft may be a pulpy fantasy game, but it still regularly gets content updates that require feedback and discussion — and it would be a shame to see those conversations drowned out in a sea of Glorbo-esque articles scraped off of forums with no further thought.