Where is the line where If you don't like something, WoW is not for you?

I think it's reasonable to claim that Blizzard has tried to make their game appeal to a wide audience, and their massive number of subscribers attests to their success in that department. One of the things that I would argue made Wrath of the Lich King a successful expansion pack was that it opened raiding to a wider swath of WoW's playerbase, and though that did have potentially negative repercussions for the solo content, considering that WoW's primary focus is on raiding, I'd say that it was a good change in the grand scheme of things. Of course, WoW cannot be everything for everyone, so a line must be drawn somewhere between trying to increase the game's appeal and simply saying, "If you don't like X, then WoW is not for you."

But where is that line to be drawn? I ask because four days ago on WoW.com's Q&A column The Queue, Alex Ziebart answered a commenter's question about the complex and bombastic nature of the design of high end gear by saying this: "The Warcraft aesthetic is all about those huge shoulders, the random spikes, the intricate little decorations on each pauldron. In Azeroth, bigger is better. Bigger is much better. Having that massive gear is prestigious. The stripped-down gear is for nameless schmucks that haven't fought a proper battle in their lives. If you're looking for a simpler aesthetic, you're really better off looking at a different game. I don't mean that in a rude or smug way in the slightest. It just isn't Blizzard's style. It definitely isn't Warcraft's style."

While I agree with Alex's claim that WoW's style is one where bigger is better, something about the answer just doesn't sit right with me. Is WoW really the kind of game where something like the look of gear can be a game breaker? Where if someone doesn't like something as simple as aesthetics, that means they shouldn't play the game? I won't spend much time considering the spiky-ness of gear as I look at this issue, for I am the kind of person who never paid much attention to aesthetic considerations like that (though I suppose it helped that the old Night Elf Cat Form model had a certain timeless beauty to its design). I'll just say that this issue could perhaps be solved by Blizzard adding armor skins to the online store, if only to change the way your armor looks to you, while not changing the way it looks to everyone else.

With that issue out of the way, we must look at two conflicting facts and how they affect the issue of where the line should be drawn where if you don't like a part of WoW, then WoW isn't for you. One, video game design is an art-form. Two, Blizzard is a for-profit company. As I said in my post on whether Blizzard should be more loyal to their fan-base or the lore, video games are a form of art, and thus they have all of the responsibilities of an art-form: they should "challenge our perceptions, our beliefs, and make us ask questions about ourselves." While I was referring to the storyline when I first made that statement, the same rule applies once we stop reading the lore and pick up the keyboard. Unfortunately, games like WoW are only possible because they are big business, and it's the profits WoW generates that allow it to continue to exist. It's because money makes the world go round (sadly) that most contemporary art (at least, most successful contemporary art) sacrifices artistic merit for popular appeal.

Why do I bring up these issues? I bring them up because widening the game's appeal is a good move commercially and increases WoW's popular appeal, but may not be a good move artistically. After all, widening the game's appeal is usually done by loosening the standards that players need to fit before they can see certain content, and that means less challenge for the players. Now, if the lore of WoW is supposed to challenge our perceptions, then the gameplay must, by reasonable extension, challenge us. However, most of the things that Blizzard has done to widen WoW's appeal has taken some of the challenge out of the game: shrinking raid sizes, reducing the number of consumables by removing sharpening stones and oils, allowing the use of heroics to gear up so plays can skip entire tiers of raiding, etc.

Of course, what some would call taking challenge out of the game, others would call removing needless barriers. Though my experience with raiding is pretty scant, what I do know is that raiding is still a challenge; that has not changed since the days of Molten Core. What has changed is that the challenge is now mostly in movement and strategy, not in the logistics of organizing and buffing forty people. When you think about it that way, you could say that WoW has struck a balance between the two aforementioned issues (art vs. profit). Blizzard has managed to increase WoW's commercial appeal without sacrificing the things that make it a truly great game. They have increased its allure without sacrificing its character. It might not be a very impressive conclusion to come to, but I think we can conclude that any change that increases WoW's appeal without alienating those who already play by sacrificing the game's merit is a good change.