Ever since Blizzard launched World of Warcraft in 2004 and the game propelled itself to top dog worldwide, every schmuck and his sister have been throwing in their ideas as to what will “kill” the behemoth, or at least usurp its player base. Over the years, we’ve seen countless titles riding in on a white horse, proclaiming themselves to be sent by God to destroy World of Warcraft, and then we quickly find out that the horse is cardboard and the armor is actually painted Styrofoam. On the other side of the spectrum, people like myself realized early on that the only entity capable of destroying World of Warcraft, was Blizzard themselves.
In a conference call just a couple days ago, Blizzard revealed that the population for WoW has dropped to 11.4 million, down from the peak of 12 million. Blizzard attributed this figure to the normal departure of players that occurs after the release of an expansion, when the more hardcore players complete all the content early on and lapse back into the state of “I’ve done everything and now I am bored.” In order to combat this in the future, Blizzard also announced plans to expedite expansion pack releases. Currently, the World of Warcraft expansion rate is approximately two years, so we’ll see how far Blizzard plans on shortening development time. One year in between releases?
I suppose the question of the day is, will this have the direct opposite effect? And this relies on how Blizzard delivers the expansions. For example, if the expansion packs wind up being buggy, unpolished content rushed out for thirty bucks just to say “hey, we’ve got something. Stick with us and we’ll fix it over the next few months,” then you’ll see players getting sick of the system fairly quickly. The same holds true if Blizzard were to turn around and say, “listen guys, our normal free content has to go because we’re too busy working on content for expansions. We’ll still release patches and fix bugs for free, but if you want new raids/dungeons, you’ll have to wait for the expac.”
And yes, I write this article from the perspective of one of those Everquest nerds that bought into the expansion every six months program, but you do have to remember that these are two entirely separate communities with different expectations. If more than six months goes by without an Everquest expansion announced, I start getting the shakes that Sony Online Entertainment is going to announce bankruptcy. Furthermore, the Everquest expansions have been great in the sense that there are so many opportunities to get them on sale somewhere that if you can wait a couple months, you can get that forty dollar expansion for about ten bucks.
As my own two cents, what Blizzard should consider is alternating between one paid and one free expansion each year. This way they lure in past players with free content, while at the same time buttering them up to be more willing to buy a paid expansion. It’s the same way Blizzard gets people to buy mounts for $25, it is the “sure you can have that mount for free (in-game gold notwithstanding) but what about that mount. That mount is, like, a million times sexier than your mount.
Of course, that’s just my opinion, I could be wrong.
MMO Fallout 
It’s not just one factor killing WoW, it’s many. The game is really showing it’s age. There are things that need to be done, but can’t, because it would require too much work. Cataclysm focused too much on the easy leveling content and not enough on the end game content. The entire game design feels tired and old. People get tired of the same thing over and over again. They do wait too long between major content updates. There are just so many factors killing WoW. It just takes time for empires to fall, but it is falling. Just very, very slowly.
Blizzard is running out of ideas on what to do with WoW. Proof of this is their upcoming expansion Mists of Pandaria. If you look at some of the key features it seems like their trying to get more kids to play it. Which, in turn will cause players who have already become somewhat bored with the game to possibly leave. Their idea for a vanity pet battle system sounds like they’re trying to incorporate Pokemon into WoW plus small children are going to play the pandaren. I understand that the Warcraft universe only has X amounts of races but the Pandaren are just ridiculous. I wouldn’t be amazed if here soon WoW price of the monthly fees declines, goes F2P with purchasable content, or blizzard keep releasing ridiculous expansions in hopes of gaining a larger player base.