I haven't played WoW in almost 3 years. I'm guessing Cataclysm didn't do for the game what they were hoping?
From what I can gather, their subscription numbers have pretty much levelled out at about 12 million.
They accomplished a lot of cool things with Cataclysm, but most of it was just improving on what they already had - putting on a fresh coat of paint, knocking out a wall to build one big sitting room, cleaning the dead ferrets out of the insulation - and there wasn't any big "draw" for new and old players alike.
Telling new players "Our game now sucks less!" isn't a very effective business strategy. And providing new content with little interconnecting story to veteran players just feels eclectic, especially when that content (while impressive from a technical POV) is kinda half-assed.
The game has never been better, honestly, but players such as I usually expect "new and improved" rather than just "improved" when we drop cash on an expansion.
Though they did just release their first major old-school content patch, and Blizzcon is coming in October which should get the hype rolling again.
Subscription numbers went up for the launch but they're allegedly below where they were last year at the time. Cat got a lot of criticism for being rather short.
I wish I could express my thoughts succinctly. Heh. This was exactly what I was trying to say.
Only five new high-level zones and five new levels didn't cut it, I'm sad to say. I blew through them way too quickly, and there was nothing to cap it off like Storm Peaks and Icecrown in WotLK. Twilight Highlands was lame (Alliance-side, I heard Horde got some pretty epic quests though), and Uldum was just pathetic. I didn't think it was possible to drag out a pop-culture reference for half a zone - it felt like one of the "Movie" Movies. And the Worgen storyline just fucking stops after level 20.
So much wasted potential with Cataclysm.