This is due to the failure of pc/console gaming..but also refelctive in that gaming ahs transitioned from just a thing for young people, because the young people when it started in the late 80s/90s are all now adults who also stil play those games.
Their parents never had gaming as children, so associate gaming with childhood, but now, it has a fully fledged adult market for those who were children old enough to play video games in the mid 80s to 90s, which is basically everyone up to about 50 years old today. These are grown ass men, and not one consider gaming childish, all that's chagned is the amount of time they put aside for gaming, , especially once they discover sex, need to actualyg et a job, and off course marry and start having children of their own, some of their children are in their 20s even early 30s, themselves adults and some alreayd having children of their own able to play videogames, i.e. under 10. Yes, you could quite easily be a 50 year old grandpa - especially if you were a ttenage dad, and your kid also started early.
Video games don't need to appeal to younger people peprsay, but younger people are a larger market slice because of a growing population.. except the west has an increasing aging population, and more young people are dying/being killed than older and many of us, now in between 20 and 40 aren't having as many children, there are more singles , unmarried and childless now than ever before both factoring population growth, and ratios.
What appeals to a 30 year old man is bound to be differnt to what appeals to a 14 year old boy. But adults always made video games.. always, those who started making thegames we play are now in their 60s - 80s. It appealed to us becasue they understood what was fun, and exciting, and that is ageless. They had balls, were bold and gutsy, and there are inform boy-men around to understand what fun is and know how to reproduce it.
They really have no excuse. Not appealing to younger generations is all about their market drive, and how they invest in popularising the game. Allthe points you bring up are valid
Game system wise, the game is as fun as it has been, this should be appealingto new people as much as old people who have done it for years get bored, or at least take very long breaks.
The fact that it isn't is because they aren't reaching. As old and establisehd as worcraft is, it should have had a much larger media presence in films and TV series, which are priceless adverts, especially animation. Can you imaigne if Warcraft did a Dragon Prince-esque series and a n Arcane 3D -esque type of series... it would totally draw people to the franchise and ultimately the game.
it has the youtube folloiwng, the reddit following.. there are a lot of 20-30 year old that still paly it, and younger still...
They also fail to produce single player games which are amore affordable gaming medium than MMORPGs for younger gamers, ..
Basically, htey don't do enough i world of warcraft and don't do enough for warcraft.
Warcraft should be releasing single games - Dragonage/Mass Effect/KOTOR level
THe MMO should run alongside it ast he world deep dive to the stroy driven single player games
THey should have TVV series (several), a main arc film series and lots of support small appa gmes.
They could have done so much more with the app game support for wow, and added games from apps, based in warcraft that connect to and support your ingame character..
THe misison table could have actually been agme in itself, where in the MMO, i'ts just senidng groups on quests you don't do anything, but on the app game, you can actually do sometihing
They could hae had a building game and a sims like game too, that tied into the MMO, by developing your city, your character having a family, which actually yileded in game resources, buffs and boosts for your character as well as improved your capital zone, but however, all of this could be done from a sims like app game, or sim city type app game thath connected to your client and updated it with your progress.
you could play the app game without the amin game, but for the fullest experience you could see the tiny 2-D versions on your phone in incredible visual experiences in game with effects tthat effect your character, so much so you could log in game and spend your time decorating your home and living in your city, if you wanted too, just seeing the effects in a 3-D environment, that you saw on your app, although the main focus of the mmo is going out and doing adventures and raids.
All this builds appreciation, focus, it also appelas to mainy aspects that draw and excite people
in the above i have
1. A building game [think Civilization, Minecraft adaptation] that ties into actually in game zones of the various races you can build up
2. An adventure game [single player Mass Effect/Dragon Age-esque type games]
3. An arcade like activity game [Siege combat, vehicle combat/racing - all part of mobile gaming but also ties into wow via things like mission table - also old style turn rpg taht uses the mission table quests a lot more
4. A sims like game
5. A movie franchise
6. A tv franchise
ALl of these are incredible income sources in and of themselves, connected, and combined and feeding into the MMO as the central platfor, fuels and ensures your grass roots... add to that the same level of development you get for expansions...
Trust me, you would dominate across several boards
7. Why haven't they developed a full arena game already? MK/SF style or a new style, LoL style even that doesn't require you to have wow itself, however both feeds into wow and your wow characters can feed into it. This can bring people who don't buy wow, into buying wow, they can buy the arena game, and play without subscription, but the more appealing the benefits of having wow are, the more they would want to actually do an adventure game or mmo game with their characters from the Arena game, and may actually subscribe and enjoy a different format type of play.
I mean, they've done what no one else could do in their popularity, this is how they should have expanded it.. but all of these are my ideas.. so don't share it with them. I suspect they're just greedy for money now, no passion in developing the game, just milking people, and thus the project is doomed to die...becuas eyou need passion and ambition for the game, to produce more... you will get money from all of these, but if money was your main focus, you'd never do anything.. you'd just milk the cow.. a money man would care about a gaming need or desire, but a gamer who wants to amke money with his work, well that's a different thing.