The Real Reason

Community General Discussion
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The reason World of Warcraft (WoW) is declining can be attributed to two key factors. When WoW was first launched, particularly during the Burning Crusade expansion, there were more players than in the current expansion. This was because all the content, especially the 25-player raids, was challenging yet attainable. In other words, all the gear on everyone’s wishlist was accessible.

As WoW continued to release expansions, they progressively made content more difficult, introducing heroic versions of raids, then mythic, and so on. This shift in design is the primary reason why WoW has experienced a decline. It may seem straightforward, but this is precisely why many players left. If players were happier with obtaining new gear, even if they had to pay for a subscription, there would likely be more players.

The second reason WoW is struggling is closely related to the first. As content became more challenging, a significant portion of the player base left the game. This exodus has resulted in fewer PvP (Player versus Player) enthusiasts since the overall player population has dwindled.

This is a good game. With that being said, we have to look at the player base. The whole WoW system is about obtaining gear; that’s what made people subscribe to keep playing. If you can achieve getting your Best in Slot (BiS) items on a character, you feel happier. But now, no one is getting the best gear, and that’s the whole reason players left. Due to heroic and mythic versions of a game, you have to keep in mind that people work or go to school, so the time they are playing, they want to progress but not be overly committed to a super-difficult boss wiping all night. They just want to play when they’ve got time but at the same time make progress on their character.

The entire game is designed around raids and PvP. However, when you switch the difficulty of raids to heroic and mythic, people no longer have the opportunity to obtain gear in the limited time they have due to school and work commitments. It’s essential to emphasize that WoW’s core concept revolves around acquiring gear. Every reset, players log in to obtain gear, and the entire game is centered on gear and upgrades. With the introduction of heroic and mythic difficulties, obtaining gear has become challenging, thus leading to a decline in player subscriptions.

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hard modes would like to say hi

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The real reason WoW is declining is because the community is made of people who need attention so badly that they make their own post replying to a separate thread rather than just commenting in the thread.

It gets even more sad when you think about the average age of the playerbase and how old these people must be.

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Or, after nearly 20 years the original player base got older, busier and moved on while every other company decided to get in on the MMO genre pie, further splitting the available player base. Players are a finite supply.

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Hard disagree on your first point. Naxx and Sunwell gear was well out of reach of most players. It’s much, much easier now for the average player to acquire gear

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The game is also just no longer ahead of its time anymore. Back in the day WoW had an edge as being unique and ahead of every other mmo out there in design and visually.

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I think people are just overthinking the reasons and the real reason is because the game is 20 years old and people are tired of playing it.

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was just replying to op that say they progressively made content more difficult, introducing heroic versions of raids, then mythic
i was saying we had that before the heroic and mythic with hard modes

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Nah that’s completely false. League of Legends is 14 years old and has millions upon millions playing it.

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My b, meant to reply to op, not you

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hahaha its all good

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Game declining cuz of dwindling player numbers, what a concept.

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This is a good game. With that being said, we have to look at the player base. The whole WoW system is about obtaining gear; that’s what made people subscribe to keep playing. If you can achieve getting your Best in Slot (BiS) items on a character, you feel happier. But now, no one is getting the best gear, and that’s the whole reason players left. Due to heroic and mythic versions of a game, you have to keep in mind that people work or go to school, so the time they are playing, they want to progress but not be overly committed to a super-difficult boss wiping all night. They just want to play when they’ve got time but at the same time make progress on their character.

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Why do people need to come up with weird theories why a twenty year old video game has fewer players than when it launched?

I bet the biggest reason is that it’s a twenty year old game. It’s certainly the most obvious.

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It’s true, but crossing genres gets difficult to make comparisons.

LoL being a free to play lobby PvP game is a very different style.

Free Mobile games like candy crush also bring in insane numbers of players.

Also I have no idea if LOL is as popular as it was.

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I didn’t read all that but all of this is just supposition. The real reason why it’s been declining is because it’s almost 20 years old my man.

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Hide and seek was invented millions of years ago but pretty much everyone played it as a kid. Clearly wow < hide and seek.

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Just make your own BIS list. Say, when my ilvl gets to X, I’m done. When my characters are 440 or whatever, I consider them done.

Just pretend that the 450+ mythic raid gear doesn’t exist, if you aren’t getting it, there’s no point thinking about it. Finish the gearing game whenever you get to what’s realistic for you.

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It’s not just that it’s a 20-year-old game; the original people who worked on WoW all left Blizzard. All the new designers and developers are from different MMOs, and the original creators had a different vision. Once money and time became significant factors, we witnessed a huge shift in how WoW was played, incorporating different elements from the new era of employees. However, the most important key factor I’m trying to convey is that if all the content is accessible every reset on Tuesday, just as it was in Burning Crusade, people logged in to get gear and progress with upgrades. You need upgrades, and you need to progress your character; if that is out of the window, then you lose subscribers. This idea is the whole reason why people kept subscribing; it’s the core thought behind WoW’s success. But then, people left and stopped subscribing because the whole game shifted towards higher heroic and mythic difficulties. This led to the disappearance of the entire core concept behind WoW, which originally made it a hit.

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There’s no big brain answer. The game is old. People moved on. Diminishing returns are real

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