Why is World of Warcraft still successful after 16 years?

16 years and World of Warcraft still exists – but why? Why does WoW still survive after all this time?

The world of gaming is often short-lived, and this week’s trend can be completely faded by the next week. Real guarantors with long-term stability are rare. League of Legends, Minecraft or World of Warcraft come to mind.

But why does World of Warcraft still manage to remain relevant after 16 years, even though there are so much more modern MMORPGs? The graphics are no longer brand new, the gameplay is out of date in many respects and the subscription model looks antiquated. For those new to gaming, it’s often difficult to understand why World of Warcraft still exists and why it is still played – let’s name a few of the reasons.

More content than any other game

Even if World of Warcraft has had to endure a lot of criticism in recent months and years – in some cases quite justified – the game can fall back on a wealth of content that no other MMORPG on the market offers. No other game world is as spacious and as full of quests, collectibles and achievements as the World of Warcraft.

Sure, the content is not perfectly coordinated and in many cases completely irrelevant for the endgame area, but it does exist. If you only play World of Warcraft occasionally, sometimes for a few hours on the weekend, you will still find something new even after 16 years.

It is clear that a revision is needed to modernize all the old content again in some relevant form – but WoW has this content and many a player likes it.

World of Warcraft is a game that appeals to the masses. And the broad masses usually do not consist of the hardcore gamers who spend 5 to 6 hours in the game every day and examine every change with a magnifying glass.

The broad masses are “casuals” in the friendliest sense of the word. Players who just paddle around a little, comfortably complete levels and quests and don’t care about the best rating in M ​​+ or the fastest kill in the latest raid.

Hard-core gamers tend to lose sight of that, but the World of Warcraft community is extremely diverse.

The business model: money is guaranteed

World of Warcraft has the rather luxurious status of not only charging monthly fees in the form of a subscription, but also selling a new expansion every 2 years, which – depending on the version – brings in another € 40 to € 90.

The Shadowlands expansion was briefly the fastest-selling PC game ever. And that’s exactly where the crux of the matter lies.

Even if it turns out after a few weeks that the expansion is not going so well, Blizzard has already cashed in here. Millions of sold addons and some completed subscriptions make a WoW expansion a financial success very quickly – even if the players then quickly lose interest.

This loss of interest is of course detrimental in the long term, and the community and reputation suffer as a result. But from a financial point of view alone, World of Warcraft should still be quite profitable – not to mention that there are also shop items and special character services that are used by some.

There are players who only play WoW

One last point is often forgotten:

• There are people who don’t play video games.
• There are people who like to play video games.
• And then there are people who don’t play video games but play World of Warcraft.

What sounds like a contradiction at first doesn’t have to be. For many WoW fans, World of Warcraft is practically the only game that has ever really been played in detail. Often it has become more than a game, namely a part of everyday life, just like for others watching a certain series in the evening or going to the cinema on the weekend.

This group of people who only play WoW as a game may not be that large, but they are comparatively loyal. There are many reasons for this, but it is mainly due to the fact that they can be enthusiastic about different content and also have fun simply farming something for an hour, pursuing pet battles or completing a few old transmog collections.

This group is not really bothered when a certain endgame feature – such as PvP battlefields, dungeons or raids – is currently not optimal. Because the game has so much more to enjoy.

And: It has become part of the habit, a quasi-fixed part of the leisure time.

At the moment, however, it should also be clear that World of Warcraft has been in a much better position. If you look at developments in recent years, the tone of voice in the communities, such as the WoW subreddit, some forums or guild chats, is getting rougher. Dissatisfaction is growing and Shadowlands has not given many players what they had hoped for.

But that World of Warcraft has survived not only one “bad” expansion (Battle for Azeroth), but also the second unpopular one (Shadowlands), simply shows that World of Warcraft is stable. On the one hand, that’s nice because it ensures that the game will be looked after for a long time. On the other hand, this is of course a shame because it becomes so obvious that the desired innovations do not have to be brought in so urgently – because the players are there anyway.

What is your opinion?