Investing.com - Shares of Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ:ATVI) rose on Tuesday after the gaming company launched a classic version of its World of Warcraft to celebrate its 15-year anniversary.
Activision gained 2.7% in afternoon trading.
The relaunched game was on the top channels on Twitch and is a recreation of its pre-expanded mode. It went live on Monday and racked in more than 1.1 million viewers on Twitch, according to TwitchTracker. That is well above the average of around 34,000 concurrent viewers in a given week.
With World of Warcraft players on the decline, Activision has returned to the basics in hopes of attracting both new and old blood to the franchise, betting that a return to classic version of the game, known as the "Drums of War" update released in August 2006, will be too good an opportunity to pass up.
In 2015, when Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ:ATVI) last reported on World of Warcraft subscriptions, the game had 5.5 million global subscribers, according to data collector Statista. It is projected that the numbers will be gradually decreasing to reach 4.46 million in 2023.
But the move to win the hearts and minds of gamers by dangling an escape to a classic version of the game appears to have been a masterstoke, with a surge in viewers watching the live streams of World of Warcraft Classic gamers in action.