Game Theory: The Legality of Unlockable Content

[gnosis301]

Required Reading Assignment:
www.gamestooge.com/2007/04/04/editorial-unlocking-content/


In this editorial featured on Game Stooge, the writer rants about unlockables within games, specifically the songs within Guitar Hero 2. The author's main premise is that requiring achievement on the part of the player to access the full content of the game (namely, requiring a minimum performance level on songs to unlock more) is illegal (the author's own words) when unlockable songs are advertised as being part of the game. This brings up an interesting dilemma. Should developers offer the entirety of a game straight out of the box, or can they offer content unlockable through in-game achievement?

One could even go so far as to question even the nature of unlockable content. In the case of Super Mario Brothers, is World 2 considered unlockable content, considering that (under normal circumstances) you would have to complete World 1? What about character levels? Are you unlocking game content by gaining experience points to have your characters progress in levels and thus unlocking new abilities? What say you?

[Inochi 命]

I haven't played GH2, but from what is explained in the article about it, I don't think that the creators were lying or whatever about the songs in the game even though you have to unlock most of them. Saying "these songs are in the game" when most of them have to be unlocked doesn't make what they've said about the content of the game wrong. The songs are all in there, they just need to be unlocked. It's that catch that can piss off most consumers buying the game, which are casual gamers, who generally hate unforgiving games. The problem with a game like GH is that it's trying to appeal strongly to two types of gamers: the casual and the hardcore. Tough challenges for unlockables are put in for the hardcore, who want the ability to take their game further and then get rewarded for it. Casuals don't have a copious amount of time to spend on a even a single game, in most cases, so if they find something too difficult to unlock, they just won't bother with it (in some cases, this happens with many hardcore gamers too... F-zero GX, for example). The negative thing about GH2's unlockables would be that the unlockables are music tracks. A consumer who doesn't plan on playing the game a lot, but buys it because his favorite song is in it, only to find it's one of the hardest things to unlock, is gonna be very disappointed. He will probably quickly give up trying to unlock it and move on to other things, remaining disappointed with the game.

Unlockables in games are generally a good thing. They're one of the rewards that a person plays a game for, besides others like story (getting an ending) and competition. I personally love unlockables, especially if the reward is awesome enough. I don't think it's right to give gamers an empty mode and have the player unlock every single aspect of the game, but I'm generally disappointed, even in a story-focused game, if I don't unveil a secret or something extra that will cause me to lengthen the game's life once I've "finished" it. I think there should be a balance, and that rewards shouldn't hide massive amount of contents of the game but give player something extra and satisfying for taking those extra steps. I dislike how, for example, in certain fighting games, you have to do something as simple as beat arcade mode once on any difficulty with any character to unlock another character. That's like unlocking a fork in a road in an adventure game simply because you walked past a tree. It'd make players new to gaming pretty happy because they might find some challenge in it and feel rewarded, but hardcore gamers can take it as a time consuming, irritating, and repetitive process. Like I said, unlockables should be EXTRA content that takes some amount of difficulty to unlock but is something on the side for the player to strive for as an option, lengthening the game's longevity and replay value if the player wishes it.

So after explaining that, no... I wouldn't say World 2 is an unlockable in SMB. It's a continuation of the game. If you were given the choice of being able to go to world 2 at any time (or go back and replay any level you wanted at any time) instead of being forced to go there, then I'd say it's an unlockable. World 2 is part of the main mode of the game, it doesn't add to the game.

Character levels are not unlockable content as you essentially aren't really unlocking anything by upping your stats... but if you could unlock certain things about your character that couldn't be done before, like certain attacks, that'd be unlockable content I guess (although it wouldn't be very good, like in the fighting game example). Reaching lvl 10 allows you to unlock the ability to use fire attacks for that character, would be an example. An example of a better way to use that idea would be that reaching lvl 100 would allow you to use the strongest (but not coolest or most fun) attack in the game, making it easy to plow through most enemies, rewarding you for your hardships in striving for and reaching such a level.

EDIT: it seems a developer of the game responded about this too. he says the same thing I did, the unlockables are for gamers wanting a challenge with good rewards. He says that for people that find it too hard, there are codes as an alternative method to unlock them. This works for casual gamers, but now they've gone and ruined it for a gamer like me. I'll have gone through all that hard work getting those unlockables while my friend just entered some letters on the screen, the competition is gone and using codes instead of working for it makes me think "why am I wasting my time?". I hate codes that make you unlock things you would otherwise have to work for. This is why they shouldn't have made content like music an unlockable in the first place... how about making the unlockables more aesthetic instead, next time? That'd be a good decision for a game that appeals to the casual market as much as GH does.