"Make Love, Not Warcraft" is the eighth episode in the tenth season of the American animated television series South Park.^[1] The 147th episode overall, it first aired on Comedy Central in the United States on October 4, 2006. In the episode, named in a play on words after the 1960s counterculture slogan "Make love, not war", Cartman, Kyle, Stan, and Kenny enjoy playing the popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft. When a high-level player goes around killing other players in the game, they start playing the game every day to try to stop him. The episode was written and directed by series co-creator Trey Parker. In 2015, he and co-creator Matt Stone listed it as their third-favorite episode of the series.

Despite worries from Trey Parker near the end of production, the episode went on to receive critical acclaim, with critics praising its lampooning of nerd culture and use of machinima, and is considered by many fans and critics as one of the best episodes of the series. The episode additionally went on to win a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program (for programming less than one hour), becoming the first machinima work to win an Emmy.^[2]

A griefer repeatedly kills Cartman, Kyle, Stan, and Kenny's characters in the online game World of Warcraft. Stan's father, Randy, becomes interested in the game, but does not survive long before being killed by the griefer, a high-ranking player character who kills other player characters at will; the griefer in reality is a middle-aged obese man named Leroy Jenkins who represents the stereotypical comic book, PC gamer nerd. The boys phone their annoyance to Blizzard, but the company executives find they cannot remove the griefer from the game because his ridiculously high level blocks any attempts to do so.

Cartman gathers all the kids of South Park and convinces them all to log in at the same time in order to execute a retaliatory attack on the griefer, even outcast Butters because he is the same character. However, once the battle begins, the griefer summons giant scorpions and easily dispatches the kids' characters. This causes everyone to lose hope and stop playing except for Cartman, who, after calculating exactly how much time it would take for him, Stan, Kyle, and Kenny to gain as many experience points as the griefer, convinces them to keep playing as well. For the next two months, the boys play the game for 21 hours a day, killing low-level boars in the game's forests to gain experience points. In the process, the boys become lazy, long-haired, obese (morbidly in Cartman's case), and acne-ridden. The boys' characters earn experience points so quickly that the Blizzard executives, who have also been monitoring the griefer, take notice and believe they might have a chance.

Determined to help the boys slay the griefer, the executives decide to give the boys the Sword of a Thousand Truths, a weapon so powerful that it was removed from the game and stored on a 1 GB USB flash drive. A man in accounting had actually foretold a prophecy of a group of characters who would show themselves worthy of wielding it. Unaware of the executives' plan however, the boys have already initiated what becomes a seventeen-hour battle against the griefer. The executives arrive at Stan's house with the flash drive, unaware that the boys are actually at Cartman's house. Randy tells the executives that he can log in with the sword and give it to the boys' characters online. Eventually logging onto a demo of the game at a Best Buy, Randy gives Stan the weapon, but Randy's character is mortally wounded by the griefer in the process. Enraged, Stan attacks the griefer with the sword, draining his shields and mana spells, allowing Kyle and Kenny to attack with effect. Cartman approaches him and proceeds to smash the griefer's head with a hammer (much to the man's shock), pwning him in the process. Numerous World of Warcraft players celebrate the griefer's demise, praising the boys as heroes. As Stan contemplates what they do now, Cartman says, "What do you mean? Now we can finally play the game." With Cartman making suggestions to boost their characters, the boys begin playing the game as they originally intended.

The episode uses machinima in many of its scenes to create a better emulation of the game. It was originally scheduled to air as the 145th episode, but it was delayed because of difficulties in creating the machinima.^[3]

"Make Love, Not Warcraft" received critical acclaim. IGN gave it an overall rating of 9.3, labeling it as "one of the funniest episodes ever produced".^[15] The original television airing of the episode drew 3.4 million viewers, most between the ages of 18 and 49. This popularity made the episode Comedy Central's highest-rated midseason premiere since the year 2000.^[16] However, the highest ratings for the tenth season belong to the season's premiere, "The Return of Chef", which drew more than 3.5 million viewers.^[17] In 2007, this episode won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program (for Programming Less Than One Hour).^[18] Fans voted the episode into 1st place in a major 2011 South Park voting held under the "Year of the Fan" iTunes promotion.^[19]

"Make Love, Not Warcraft", along with the thirteen other episodes from South Park's tenth season, was released on a three-disc DVD set in the United States on August 21, 2007. The set includes brief audio commentaries by series co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone for each episode.^[20]

• South Park (Park County, Colorado)
• South Park City