We see the Wrath of the Lich King having 12 million subscribers. So the question is, was the poor content structure of expansion packs to blame?īelow is a graph showing the number of subscribers based on which expansion pack was the newest at the time. With the sixth expansion, Blizzard raised the price for the new expansion, $39.99 to $49.99, when this expansion included the least amount of content than past expansions. If we know anything about video games, we know that we need new content to keep us playing in this day and age. In the Warlords of Draenor expansion pack, Blizzard did not create any new PVP or Battlegrounds arenas for PVP players to challenge each other in. “Competitive PVP officially doesn’t exist anymore in this expansion.” The author explains that during the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, he played PVP in WoW all the time. One article from an Editor-in-chief at AIPT! explains his reasons why he isn’t an avid World of Warcraft player since the expansion. Player reviews and blogs online hit the Warlords of Draenor expansion pretty hard with criticism. Warlords of Draenor only had two new content patches, leaving committed players displeased. Past expansions would release three or four content patches, including new dungeons, raids, zones or even races or classes. The sixth installment, Warlords of Draenor (2014), received criticism for not having enough new content. Many of the first expansion packs were well-received. With each expansion pack, Blizzard would release new content with the pack to keep faithful subscribers entertained. Other sources lead us to assume that expansion packs are the reason to blame.
One article on VentureBeat claims that games such as the card game Hearthstone and multi-player shooter Overwatch (also Blizzard games) have been very popular since their releases.