Mainstreaming WoW

As much as we all know that World of Warcraft has hit the mainstream gaming audience with a veneance given their record subscription numbers, over this holiday season (when I had a chance to watch way more television than a healthy adult should) I was a little taken aback (perhaps pleasantly, I am not sure) to see William Shatner and Mr. T. plug gameplay in WoW. The commercials are show Shatner talk about his shaman-ness and throwing lightning bolts; Mr. T. ‘s avatar sporting the same, signature mohawk…Heck, while looking for those two links, I noticed even Jean Claude Van Damme has a commercial for WoW in French promoting www.warcraft.fr.

Now, besides the wow factor (grr, I hate that WoW has infringed on the use of the word wow…), I was interested in the fact that the three actors in these commercials would appeal to a particular demographic. My daughters don’t even know who Shatner is beyond his commercial spots for All Bran … while I believe my mother would play World of Warcraft if Van Damme does (or urged her to). Each actor also [one could argue] represents a particular (potential) player type, letting us know that all types of people play this game and not just ‘gamers’. But what does that do to the culture of the game?

As someone who has been interested in player and game culture by way of my colleagues, I am always happy for a game’s success but fear some sort of ‘high culture / mass culture’ kind of dilution of game culture, as much as I hate to admit it. I keep thinking of the (proverbial) great indy band that kicked butt, played hard and struggled to ‘make it’. Only to find out that once they’ve ‘made it’, they had to alter their sound to something more pallateable to the larger mainstream audience. More often then not, it is usually the downfall of something that, in its niche, was great. As entertained as I am when watching the WoW commercials, I get an increasing sense of loss – a sense of cheapening of a rich experience for so many people who enjoy the game through the participation of its culture. I feel like I have been listening to that cool indy band no one ever heard of before they got famous and now everyone and their dog thinks they’ve just discovered them… childish, I know.. but I fear what it will do to future mmorpg’s and who they will cater to in their design. Not a new question or concern for many, but one that pops its head up when commercials like these get heavy airplay.