World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade down after delay announcement

World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade (PC) shares were down 20.06 DKP (-3.92%) this afternoon following Blizzard's announcement that the expansion to its blockbuster MMORPG is indeed delayed. Rumors had emerged on various websites around the world in the past few days. Although for most games, missing the critical holiday sales period is devastating, many argue that those who would buy the expansion are going to purchase the update regardless of the delay. However, this holiday season is special in that many competing attractions may draw gamers away from their WoW addiction.

Gamers may pause their WoW accounts for the new Nintendo Wii or Sony PlayStation 3 (if they can get one). Additionally, the Xbox 360 is expected to make a much larger impact this holiday than last year in drawing gamers to new content. If these diversions are sufficiently addicting, WoW players may move on from WoW come January 2007.

It is always important to ensure that a new shrink-wrapped product is well polished before hitting shelves. According to today's press release by Blizzard, Mike Morhaime, president and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment said, “We feel confident that the extra time spent polishing the game will result in the high-quality experience that our players expect and deserve." This is a must level of quality for every new game and may encourage many WoW fans to wait. However, games like WoW continue to be popular because they are renewed quite often with new content to challenge players and expand their experience.

The WoW: BC expansion is different from most games in that it is an expansion of content and WoW players have become accustomed to new content additions and the bugs that may come with them. A recent patch that cross-linked the game's PVP Battlegrounds had its share of bugs but were resolved in the weeks following the release. It may make sense to release content in a more consistent and timely matter to keep players interested while working out all the potential problems discovered in large scale adoption in the conversion period.