When Does Unlockable Equal Evil, In Gaming?

April 7, 2007 8:17 PM | Simon Carless

My esteemed co-worker and Austin GDC content manager Jane Pinckard has been posting quite a bit to her Game Girl Advance blog recently, and in addition to Jane's posts about heels and Guitar Hero II for X360 (yay!) and an interesting post on gender-balanced work environments.

In addition to her posts, GameGirlAdvance co-conspirator Steve Bowler just put up something interesting about unlockable content which I think is well worth discussing.

Bowler notes: "My buddy Jerry over at Penny-Arcade today discusses what I'm sure a lot of folks (myself included) get frustrated about: unlockable content. His concern is a real and valid one, and it's a tough road to hoe as a game developer. On one hand, the consumer deserves the whole product. They paid for it, they should get to play it. But on the other hand, if the player gets all the content up front, in many cases, this makes the game experience dull and unrewarding."

His conclusion? "Really, we play unlockable content every day, in every game. It's the nature of gaming. You can't fight the boss without first making it through the waves of grunts; you can't level up without first acquiring the experience points to do so; you can't just jump to the end of the game without playing the levels in order; you can't play the encore without first rocking the crowd. When unlocking content is done right, we love it, and hardly even notice it. But when it's done wrong...hooo boy. Hell hath no fury like a gamer's scorn." Thoughts?

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9 Comments

as i see it, there are two solutions to the matter:

1. find cheat codes to unlock things, or use a cheat device if none exist. GHII has codes to unlock all that stuff if you suck or forgot your memory card or whatever lame excuse you have to fuel the argument.

2. shut the hell up and just play the game as intended. you're just wasting your time if there's no progression in challenge or story involved. besides, it's not like you couldn't use the practice in Guitar Hero anyway.

i'm sick of the overblown sense of entitlement that nerds seem to have. it's not worth spending $15 on a book just so you can read the last chapter, and it's certainly not worth spending $50 to just play the last level.

mercatfat | April 7, 2007 9:05 PM

Since when is unlocking stuff a problem? It's just part of the game. If you good at the game you'll unlock stuff in no time if not, you'll need to play a bit more on a low level till you get better at it. It's there to give a sense of progress.

The only thing that I've a problem with are those hard modes that get unlocked after beating the game once, I want that option when I start the game the first time. I might not want to go through the entire game for a second time.

Cruds | April 7, 2007 10:05 PM

The argument that all games have unlockable content, because you have to beat earlier levels to get to later ones, is a false one. The point of the final levels in, say, an older arcade game isn't that they're locked, is that they come after playing all the levels before. You play through levels 1-1 to 8-3 in Super Mario to prepare for level 8-4. The point of many games is that must be played sequentially, as a progressive experience where the outcome of earlier level affects later ones.

I think a lot of the problem is spawned by the very word "unlockable." When they assigned that name to the practice, informally during the development process, and especially once the word "lock" started being used in the game interface itself ("FEATURE UNLOCKED!"), it signaled that developers were starting to view hiding content from the player as a good thing.

The purpose of hiding content is to surprise the player with a nice extra he wouldn't ordinarily expect, not to prevent him from accessing content.

Right now, I'm thinking that no game with locked non-sequential content beyond things like Achievements should be without a (FREE)secret code, released maybe a few months later, that makes available all the things the player would otherwise have to work to open up. Anyone care to argue against this?

John H. | April 8, 2007 2:27 AM

As a fighting game fan I definitely feel the pain of unlocking. But there it comes from the fact that the single player game loses its luster quickly but is still required to fully access the multiplayer game.

That requirement tospend time outside of a gamer's preferred play mode in order to use the play mode they enjoy's features is where things can get bad. It defintely is much more of a problem in games with a strong multiplayer component.

Beylita | April 8, 2007 3:08 AM

If only symphonies communicated the depth and breadth of their meaning in five seconds rather than an hour. Novels should only be five pages long too, after all we're all so hideously busy these days. Games should lead the way by ripping their innards out to leave a hollow shell of tedium.

When we start removing the heart out of any medium, due to lazy convenience, we've failed the gift of sentience.

Ollie Barder | April 8, 2007 5:19 AM

John:

That is the opposite of what I would want. There's nothing worse than spending a few months unlocking new content, only to see the late adopters get it for free, just for being late adopters.

As for pay-to-unlock, I guess I'm okay with it, at least I can tell myself I've saved money with my skillzZ.

Jared | April 8, 2007 12:43 PM

I would argue that unlockable content is often poorly implemented. As well, one may be able to argue that it is implemented for the wrong reasons.

How often is multiplayer content hidden inside a single-player mode? How often is it a large chunk of material and/or something that takes anywhere from 40 to 100+ hours of single-player mode play to unlock?

How often do games bother to have multiple unlock conditions? Fighters do it sometimes, with a fast unlock of meeting some kind of challenge and a slower time-release or "matches played" count. But how often is it done elsewhere?

How often does content seem like something that was locked away solely for the sake of the game box being able to say it had unlockable content?

Unlockable content isn't even really a bonus anymore. It is expected on both the player and developer side. That is itself a problem. People complain if content isn't there, not even desiring to play a game beyond the minimal effort.

Baines | April 8, 2007 6:56 PM

Unlocks come in all shapes and sizes, makes and models. There are "buyable" unlocks(GHII), "earned" unlocks (Grimm ripper), Useful Unlocks (Setlists) and eye pleasing unlocks (the grand daddy of GHII the log.) Okay so it's obvious, I'm playing Guitar Hero II. As for what I like in unlocks, I like unlocks that are similar to finding the next weapon in shooters. I'd much rather strive to get something that while isn't mandatory to finishing the game is extra aid formy game. As mentioned before some content in games is simply a badge to say you've put in X (More like XYZ:XY:XY) hours to get this meaningless combination of pixals. Where as I was the one slogging my way happily through hundreds of races and aggrivating hours of feeding and breeding chocobo's to earn the infamous Knights of the Round, or cutting my way through hordes of the undead looking for that one sword in Oblivion. I have played games without unlocks and found them just as fun as those with, sometimes the unlocks do make the game a bit better, but I think that unlocks should be content that was theorized for the game but never found it's place. But I don't believe in slogging through hours upon hours of game play in a game I've 50 hours since lost interest in to unlock a couple pictures or a new skin. Yet people still do it and don't complain. Though i leave my last point for well last cause it pisses me off the most. I recently played a game and you earned points and when you had certain amounts something new unlocked, but they didn't tell you what it is you me working so hard for, so 70 points come around I've unlocked two art packages and a model package. My fouth unlock was finally open after a good 20 hours of extra work ontop of the fun part of the game. It was a level flip in which all that happens is the screen is flipped on it's horizantal axis. What a rip off. I just took time away from enjoying other games to find out I was unlocking a flip level option. This was a shooter where are the chicken launching guns and secret levels? Not to mention had I known I wouldn't have put the effort into getting that I'd have invited a bud over and played some serious Mplayer. Oh'well g'night.

Jeff | May 5, 2007 10:36 PM