This was because your opponents were all real players, and the distribution of real players was that the gold, silver, and bronze divisions had the most players.
If the ranking competition mode was not activated, these players might feel good about themselves and still find some fun in the game.
However, once the ranking competition mode was activated, these low-ranking players quickly realized that they were just ordinary people in the game, and their only motivation was to climb up the points.
If they couldn't climb up, they would soon lose interest in the game because they had lost their goal.
Of course, this wasn't the case for Warcraft and League of Legends. Many gold and silver players were still playing because these games had rich content and depth, allowing players to learn and grow.