Their golden cash cow, World of Warcraft, the most successful MMO of all time. It has devoured the free time, and in cases, the lives of many people. It was a great time killer for myself, and it was a great value for the time of amusement I got out of it when compared to the monthly subscription fees. But things have been for the better, but for more impact, getting far worse. As we know from their investor reports and such, the game has an incredible surplus of income over it's "operating costs", yet many people have been upset with what they have been getting in return. Slower than ever content patches (adjusted expectations due to current time frames, and financial ability), delays of content due to features no one asked for and in which have little impact to the experience, and the dreaded "recycled" content and assets.
Remember when Blizzard stated, "Tier armor is something everyone should strive for, not only is it very powerful with stats and bonuses, but it's what makes your class stand out, and gives you individuality". As it has been going on now for a few years, what has happened is that Blizzard has been recycling their Tier armor models as "non-set" pieces of loot that drop from various bosses or perhaps obtainable by vendors. So now you TOO can look like the class you want even though you didn't put in the work of said class! Basically, what Blizzard does is re-uses the art from said set and recolors it (most of the time) to save themselves time and money, cutting corners here to just get out some filler.
"I'm here for the stats, don't care about looks yo", that's fine and dandy, but what this conflicts is with the masses of people who have been in various ways begging to Blizzard to allow them to "customize" their characters, make them individuals, unique, stand out from the pack. While anyone can obtain this on the respected class, at least it belongs to said class. "Recolors" is another dirty word, and it applies not only to armor, but the majority of weapons to be found in the game.
Players have been asking for more customizable options, like those found in the vast majority of other MMOs. Dyes would allow you to customize the color of your armors, new-more in depth character physical design capabilities would allow you to change your height, weight, stature.
Blizzard knows that people want this, thus their half-hearted barber shops to change your hairstyle, to one of those already in game on another race, and very limited in selection at that. "New Dances" was a bullet-point to their advertising of the Wrath expansion, and it didn't materialize. "It wasn't to their standards, and we didn't think people really cared" was their write off. In reality, they'd have to do new animations for each race, and that costs money.
So where is this pile of money that WoW makes in which Scrooge McDuck would be happy to swim through? To other projects. It has been confirmed by Blizzard themselves that their prior "A-team", those who made WoW great for players, have been pulled and placed full time on project "Titan", their new MMO due out in 2025. What we're left with are people who have been there for a limited time, and it shows in their current art and content quality. Art is subjective of course, but when you release a patch that has recycled content from Vanilla and TBC era WoW, and it takes months longer than expected to launch, it better be bug free. Unfortunately, that was not the case, and patch day and following days frustrated players with various game-breaking bugs that ruined what "hype" was generated.
So what has Blizzard been working on? How about "Mobile Guild Chat"? Which is conveniently packaged into a premium-pay-to-use package, which includes the mobile auction house, which not many people wanted. How about pay-real-money for mounts and pets?
So why the Stockholm Syndrome reference? This is the easiest, and shortest explanation to be had here: Blizzard over the top fans defend every little thing they do. They literally attack posts and comments against Blizzard. Worst of all, the defending of Blizzard is due in large part to why the game is in the state it currently sits. They have to see these opinions and issues are real, they just have to, yet they ignore them, and say "Nice try Blizzard, maybe next time you'll get them, and make them happy", "give them a break, it's a lot of work", and "Thank you sir, may I have another"? Captives who allowed themselves to be brainwashed, and defend their captors.
TLDR? Well let me sum it up in these next two paragraphs. The quality of WoW has dropped. Blizzard has been more focused on making money than the people who fill the coffers. Players have been asking for many features to make their experiences fully, yet Blizzard denies them, and gives them what they believe is best for them, and seemingly their own bank-books. The best part is reading Dev QAs. Blizzard filters out the hard questions all the time, writing them off as "trolls", or will give a vague answer to a weak question. Why even have these then? This article can go on much more in depth explaining even more problems and concerns, but this article is too long as it sits.
Bottom Line: I have to say those upset with the state of WoW, that they feel shortchanged, are right. Sure, they can just walk away like many have, but why not express opinion and hope it's heard so that your favorite game becomes better, or perhaps, back up to par?
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