The interest in World of Warcraft is currently low. But what exactly is the reason for this? A popular YouTuber takes a closer look.
Those who currently visit the subreddit of World of Warcraft or the official forums find, alongside the usual memes and fan videos, primarily a lot of loud criticism. For several months, many players have been dissatisfied with WoW, claiming that the game is (once again) dying.
Blizzard has not published official player numbers for World of Warcraft for several years now. Instead, other data must be used to analyze the current interest of players in WoW. YouTuber Bellular, known for his opinion videos and cool theories about Warcraft, has analyzed many different aspects. His statements can be summarized as follows.
Battle for Azeroth had a strong launch: Major community sites and databases for WoW, such as wowhead or icyveins, saw a large influx at the launch of Battle for Azeroth. This was sometimes even greater than at the launch of its predecessor, Legion. YouTubers also benefited from this, gaining many new subscribers in the weeks following the start of BfA. The same was seen in the WoW subreddit, where subscriber numbers rose to nearly a million.
The launch hype quickly dissipated: However, Battle for Azeroth could not maintain this high feeling. Just a few weeks later, the hype disappeared. Community sites have since received steadily fewer views, with short spikes around patches or a raid release. Currently, the values on most platforms are at a low point, which was not even reached during Legion.
On Reddit, WoW is at least popular in terms of view counts, although there are many critical posts and discussions. Some of the most popular keywords in recent months include “unsubbed”, “gating”, and “unrewarding”. There are thus many discussions about why players have stopped playing World of Warcraft or are dissatisfied with gameplay mechanics.
Lack of a reward feeling demotivates players: Especially noticeable is the keyword “Unrewarding”, which can be roughly translated to “Not rewarding enough”. This can be found repeatedly in various criticisms. Many players feel that the various content of WoW does not provide appealing rewards.
Here, the island expeditions and war fronts are particularly criticized, as many find them simply “boring”. If you’re not a fan of transmog armor, you won’t warm up to these highly advertised game elements.
The second aspect of “unrewarding” is that achievements no longer feel particularly special. Due to random upgrades like “titanforged” or “warforged”, one can obtain very strong equipment even in simpler game content. Defeating a boss on the highest difficulty loses its value and prestige within the player community. However, Blizzard wants to stick to “warforged”.
The passion is there, but the fun is not: However, Bellular also notes that World of Warcraft is far from being “dead”. While many players are unhappy with the current state of the game, the passion of players remains largely unbroken. Discussions on Reddit, in the forums, or under his videos are being vigorously conducted. This suggests that the interest of players is still high, and they are simply waiting for World of Warcraft to improve again in their favor.
Bellular sees a great opportunity here in the upcoming Patch 8.2 Rise of Azshara, with which Blizzard wants to fix many mistakes and regain the lost trust of fans. After all, the heart of Azeroth is supposed to become more exciting and gain unique abilities. The farming of artifact power to unlock Azerite traits will be completely removed.
Patch 8.2 is likely to be the most important update in 2019 for World of Warcraft and will determine the success or failure of Battle for Azeroth overall.
What is your opinion on the current state of World of Warcraft? Are you still actively playing? Or are you just following the game and hoping for improvement? Or are you no longer interested in WoW at all?
