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I think there are too many competing factors for them to make a "sweet spot". The original grind appealed to people because it was hard and there wasn't anythi

I think there are too many competing factors for them to make a "sweet spot". The original grind appealed to people because it was hard and there wasn't anything you could do about it. It felt like an accomplishment. The business side of the house wants a wide net so appealing to those people alone isn't enough, except that those are their core people who have paid their salaries. The faltering I believe is in part due to trying to continually grow and appease shareholders. CoD seems to be doing fine so big business AAA games will still live on. Blizzard might pivot to doing something like this. I just believe big business is completely incompatible with the cult-like attraction of Blizzard's original IP.

Retric 8y ago
From the estimates I have seen WoW subscriber count was higher at the end of vanilla than it is today. Various forms of micro transactions make up for much of the revenue difference, but I don’t think the current version has wider appeal. It’s hard to say when peak appeal occurred as WOTLK had peak subscriptions, but slow growth. If anything Vanilla, BC, or WOTLK was the peak appeal and it’s just been down hill after that. Though their are plenty of ways to slice and dice the numbers.