EDITORIAL: Unlocking Content [UPDATE]
- Scribbled on April 4th, 2007 by Jonah Falcon
- Filed in Editorial Content, Features, Microsoft Xbox 360, Music/Rhythm, Sony PlayStation 2
[UPDATE: Apparently, Joystiq's Justin McElroy completely misunderstood this article, stating I said unlockable content is against the law. I have no idea how he came to that conclusion; maybe he was trying to get hits for that site, but in no way, shape or form did I state unlockable content is against the law. Read the article to see what was actually said.]
Advertised on the box of Guitar Hero II, the game brags you can play various songs, such as “Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight”, “Sweet Child ‘O Mine”, “Carry On My Wayward Son”, “The Beast and the Harlot” and “YYZ”. Ah, but there’s a catch: they’re not freely available. In fact, only 6 songs are available right from the get-go, and playing through the entire Easy chart only nets you 37 of the 70 songs. That’s right, barely more than half. In order to get the others, you must earn them - and some are difficult to get.
Why?
Why must one have to unlock songs? The consumer just paid $90 for your product, and deserves immediate access to the products that are paid for. One should not have to jump through hoops to access what was advertised on your box. You want to make the consumer jump through hoops? That’s what Achievements are for. That’s the entire raison d’etre of Achievements (aside from tracking your progress through a game for all to see.) Getting through Easy gave Achievements, for example. However, getting through Easy doesn’t even unlock songs.
Can you imagine other industries doing this sort of thing?
“Well, Mr. Smith, here’s your cable access. Now, in order to watch HBO and Showtime, we require that you successfully watch NBC, CBS and ABC for a month.”
“Well, I understand your frustration, Mr. Jones, but please understand that your DVD player will not play movies from Universal until you’ve watched 10 films from Fox, 10 films from DreamWorks and 10 films from Miramax.”
“Well, we know you want to have the Car in Monopoly, but you must first win 10 games as the Shoe, then 10 games as the Iron, then 10 Games as the Poochie.”
This practice is tired, quite frankly, and also is quite illegal: it’s called “deceptive advertising”. Had Red Octane been honest, it should have said right on the box: “To access this song, you must do so-and-so before you can play it.” It should have at least allowed every song to be available in practice mode. What’s next - downloadable content is unavailable unless you complete every song at every difficulty with a 5 star rating?
Put another way, if Rock Band features every song available right from the get-go and is reasonably fun, Electronic Arts gets my cash. After all, I’d rather have a product that caters to its audience and doesn’t treat it like bad children who have to prove themselves before they can play.
April 4th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
Dude, this is how you take a game that really has no levels and give it “levels.”
By that logic I should have returned New Super Mario Brothers on my DS because I didn’t have access to world eight until I “unlocked” it by beating worlds 1 through 7?
How about racing games, where you unlock courses, tracks, and such?
It’s not false advertising, the stuff is there. It’s a game - you have to get to it.
April 4th, 2007 at 1:46 pm
It’s a game. Whenever you buy other games, do you demand that every level be accessable from the beginning? No, once you beat level 1 you get to play level 2. That’s what makes games challenging and entertaining.
April 4th, 2007 at 1:48 pm
You missed the part where I said that they were dishonest and implied the song was not immediately available. Had they been honest, they would have said right on the box “Must be unlocked”. etc.
April 4th, 2007 at 2:04 pm
Wait…why exactly is this a problem? Games have been doing this for decades! Racing games will advertise X number of tracks right on the box cover…and is it really that hard to unlock them. The answer is no…if you’re having trouble unlocking the songs on the easiest difficulty setting, maybe you just need to practice a little more, but to accuse this of being illegal is completely false. Games are an active form of media where you get rewarded for your actions…and where would we get that rewarding feeling if everything were just given to us?
Sure, the parallels between Guitar Hero and what you get out of the box from a CD or DVD are easy to establish, but the developers aren’t just going to give you everything right out of the box…that’s why it’s a game, not a passive form of entertainment such as strictly music or movies.
April 4th, 2007 at 2:06 pm
i agree with the article. Not all games need to have levels or be competitive in this way. Some games should be just like toys. Unlocks are for competitive kids, and thats not all gamers.
April 4th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
17 songs are advertised on the box. 10 of them are not available without having to do some difficult unlocking. That’s misleading advertising. People will buy the game JUST to play “Sweet Child O’Mine” or “Tonight I’m Gonna Rock Ya Tonight”.
And it’s been done for decades on consoles, not on PCs. Unlocking in PCs was considered lame. Why? Unlocking is for kiddies.
Consoles can grow up, or they can remain toys. Like I said - you know what my unlock code is? The $90 I paid.
Oh, and the argument “It’s been going on for decades” is not an argument. So what? Ever heard the song “That’s Just The Way It Is”? I can name several institutions which have been going on for decades. Doesn’t mean it’s right.
Anyway, money talks and bullshit walks. If “Rock Band” allows every song (backed by MTV, by the way) available, they’re getting my money, and screw GH3.
If there’s a cheat code to unlock every song in GH2, I’m using it. Why? I want to play the songs *I* want to play.
April 4th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
“but the developers aren’t just going to give you everything right out of the box…”
Why not?
Dance Dance Revolution is a good example - you do unlock songs in it, but when there’s 60 available songs, only 5 or so are locked… and those 5 songs are just remixes of the available songs!
DDR gives you EVERYTHING, basically.
April 4th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
*You missed the part where I said that they were dishonest and implied the song was not immediately available. Had they been honest, they would have said right on the box “Must be unlocked”. etc.*
I still don’t see a difference. My New Super Mario Bros. box says that the game has 8 worlds - but it doesn’t. It has one. Sure, more become ‘unlocked’, but I only have one at the beginning. I bought LostMagic for the DS a couple of days ago which proudly boasts “over 400 spells!” right on the box, but I’ve played for several hours now and only have a whopping 6. Should we accuse Pokemon of deceptive advertising because they advertise that hundreds of creatures are available in their games, but you only start out with one?
April 4th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
To me it sounds like a poor implementation of a design that’s been around for ages and works well in most cases.
I just don’t see the big deal if you progress through the game to unlock songs. I do see a big deal with the good songs being “hard” to unlock (super awesome gameplay, etc). That ruin’s the casual nature of it.
A game, by nature, has a set of goals, objectives and challenges. As a reward you are given new goals with typically more challenge.
The unfortunate part is, what are the “good” songs you get and which are the “sucky” ones - it’s all relative. Maybe they should let you choose the five or ten you get up front (based on your taste) and then unlock others as you go.
Just seems to me that it could have been done “right.” Unless, of course, you’re as upset about unlocking as you are and don’t want to tolerate it ever. I just don’t see that perspective.
April 4th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
That’s not an argument. (laugh) For one, don’t compare levels to songs. They’re completely different. People have different tastes in music - they’ll buy Guitar Hero II for one song alone - can you imagine anyone buying Halo for the Swamp Level alone? Songs are independent entities - all the levels in a game are made by the same devs. You don’t “unlock” levels any more than you “unlock” new Ms. Pac-Man boards. They’re part of a progression.
Dance Dance Revolution is a MUCH more comparable game.
April 4th, 2007 at 2:28 pm
If you want songs… go buy the CDs… nothing locked on there, you can slide it into your player, skip ahead to the track you really want, and you’re all set…
but if you want to play a game… then play the game the way the author/designer designed it, or keep your money…
April 4th, 2007 at 2:31 pm
$90 for one song? I think what we’re forgetting here is that it’s the gameplay we are buying Guitar Hero for, not just because we get to “play” a cover of one our favorite band’s songs.
Games give us a rewarding feeling of progression that is hard to achieve when you get everything handed to you. Ever work hard for some money? Ever just been handed the some money? It’s a completely different feeling, and heightens your sense of enjoyment in the game.
And still, your argument is that this is illegal, right? Harmonix was lying to us? Hardly so, gamers know what they are getting themselves into when purchasing a game and what to expect. And the fact that this shocks you is just as puzzling to me.
One of the first retail games ever to come out: Pong advertised 2 player support, but you don’t get a second player packed in with the game, do you? No, it’s a feature packed into the game just like GH’s tracks are.
I could completely see if they are advertising something that we can never get, but the unlockable songs are anything but hard to achieve. You can unlock each and every song by playing through the easy campaign mode, and you know what? You can then replay them anytime you want, on any difficulty setting.
Sure, it’s not appealing to someone who has never picked up a game before, who shells out $90 for a game just to play “Sweet Child O Mine” over and over again, but that’s not Guitar Hero’s core demographic.
April 4th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
DDR is an arcade game. Unlocks don’t work in arcade games.
April 4th, 2007 at 3:09 pm
I think this is a reasonable argument (and a good topic), but I disagree with Jonah.
I think the level analogy is good. The box will advertise 15 levels on a game, but if you’re not good enough to get past level 1, you’ll never experience 2-15. People have different tastes in levels just as much as music. I would love to skip every water level of Super Mario Bros., but I can’t.
It’s about the advertised content, and if you don’t have on-demand access to all the content up front, then I think Jonah’s argument suggests that it is misleading. What makes music games similar to non-music games is that the developers design the game they way they want to.
In Guitar Hero, they have chosen to make the songs part of a “progression.” If you want to eliminate the unlocking, you change the intent of the developers and the way the game is played. It’s not up to the gamer to decide how to progress through the game. The developers have decided to make you earn certain songs - end of story. If you don’t like it, show them by not supporting it.
However, there is a valid concern over whether it is advertised in a misleading way. Without going too in depth, courts make a decision on the misleading nature of an advertisement usually after hearing from market analysts and other experts who give their opinion whether it is misleading. These opinions are usually based on consumer surveys and research into the specific market the product is targeted to. So, I guess it really depends on whether you think the video game consumers would feel misled by the advertisement.
My opinion is that the advertisements for Guitar Hero would likely not be found misleading because of the nature of video games. You’re not buying 70 individual music tracks. You’re buying A GAME that FEATURES 70 individual music tracks.
But, as I’ve said before, you never know what will happen when you get into court.
April 5th, 2007 at 12:17 am
well ssid
__________
http://www.howtogetfreewiipoints.com
April 5th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
Why is this even an issue today and not something that was brought up in November when the PS2 version came out? I guess some people don’t understand that it’s a game and that some of those songs are a rewards for playing well.
April 5th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
I agree with S Holmes. In addition I’d like to add that through GH and GH2 I’ve found some new bands/songs that I like that I did not know about before.
The progression of the game allows you to get better and learn new things you have to do (chords, 3 button chords, etc). If you just jumped to Sweet Child Of Mine on Easy what is the fun in that, I can play it with the lefty mode nearly perfectly while I play the game using my right hand.
And quite frankly the reward of earning those songs and playing them for the first time is awesome. It took me a week or so to get to Freebird once I got to group 8(on expert, which is where I started from the start). If I just attempted to play Freebird from the start what have I earned?
Complain about the box label sure. But take off the pampers and play the game or do not buy it.
April 5th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
So here’s what I’m curious about. I don’t have my GH2 box here in front of me, so I apologize if I’m way out in left field here, but why should they have to specify you have to earn some of those songs? Just because they are included in the game does not mean that they are available from the word “go”.
Personally, I prefer having to work through the songs. If I could have tackled Free Bird as my first song, I wouldn’t have enjoyed it as much; by the time you get to the end of the game, you really feel you EARNED that song, and when you finally annhialate it, your sense of accomplishment is far greater than if it had just been a gimme.
I can see where someone might not like that the songs aren’t all available from the beginning, but to call it illegal? If it SAID they were available from the beginning and weren’t, then you might have a case for false advertising. As it stands, the box simply says the songs are in the game…which they are. There’s no falsehood to that. yes, you may have to do a little work to access them, but they ARE there. They ARE available.
April 5th, 2007 at 2:18 pm
Jonah, you might be more convincing if your rebuttals didn’t consist of “that’s not an argument.” The “songs” of Guitar Hero ARE the “levels” of Guitar Hero. It’s a perfectly equivalent analogy. But I guess that “isn’t an argument” so it isn’t valid, right? I suppose you also invalidate arguments by sticking your fingers in your ears and yelling, “LA LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU,” too.
And anyone shelling out $90 to play only “Sweet Child of Mine” over and over and over and over again is an idiot. There, I said it.
Guitar Hero works because of the progression in the game play. As your skill increases, you unlock the next level of songs. If you really only want one song, play until you’re good enough to advance to that level.
If this practice is “illegal,” then I await your impending lawsuits against the video game industry.
April 5th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
jonahfalcon, your argument hinges on the idea that Guitar Hero is not a single game, but a series of smaller games, or songs. Your argument may very well apply to some games; Warioware, Mario Party, etc.
However, if you were to step back and look at the larger picture, I’m sure you’d realize that there’s a logical progression of difficulty throughout the game, and Harmonix probably knew what they were doing when they didn’t let you play Freebird as soon as you opened the box.
The fundamentals you learn in Shout at the Devil are directly applicable to the finale in Freebird. The progression in Guitar Hero is not put in place to constrain you, the player, but to facilitate your enjoyment of the game.
April 5th, 2007 at 2:28 pm
I think if you took this argument to court, the judge would laugh at you, as I’m pretty sure even he/she could get through the game on medium. It isn’t that hard…
April 5th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
If the first six songs are too difficult to complete, what makes you think you’ll have any more luck with the rest of the songs?
Also, this argument is kind of a stretch. I think you had nothing to write about and were desperate to generate some discussion.
And also, who would pay $90 for GHII and only play on Easy? You should have bought a nice ironing board or a fancy apron instead.
April 5th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
jonahfalcon, your argument hinges on the idea that guitar hero is not a single game, but a collection of small, 5 minute games or songs. A collection of short stories, rather than a novel, which you should be allowed to read in any order you choose.
A far-from-perfect analogy, because the songs in GH build on one another in a very logical way. The fundamentals you learn in Shout at the Devil are directly applicable to Freebird, and I’m pretty sure Harmonix knew what they were doing when they didn’t let you play Freebird as soon as you opened the box. The progression of the game is not in place to constrain you, the player, but to facilitate your enjoyment of the game.
There are hundreds of examples of games with unnecessary unlockables, but Guitar Hero is not one of them.
April 5th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
Great, just what we need. More disclaimers. This is easily the first I’ve ever heard of anyone feeling hoodwinked at not being able to access every singular aspect of the game right from the start.
In the GH scenario, songs are levels, just as someone else pointed out. I understand your “Swamp Level” theory, but it’s ultimately flawed. Now, would I buy, say for example, a Lamb of God CD? Nope. Can’t stand the song. But do I enjoy playing it in GH? You betcha. GH is an interactive experience after all, not one simply focused on “listening”. I can’t possibly be the only doesn’t mind putting up with a song I might not otherwise listen to in order to enjoy a wonderful game play experience. That’s because it’s about the game, not the music. The songs are simply a MacGuffin for the gameplay. I enjoy the challenge of unlocking new songs or progressing to new levels. By this same token, any game that advertises features that aren’t immediately available upon launch should provide a disclaimer. This is patently ridiculous and a horrible precedent. Where do we draw the line? Do we need a disclaimer in the GTA manual telling us that having sex with hookers may lead to the acquisition of sexually transmitted diseases?
April 5th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
A legal response:
http://lawofthegame.blogspot.com/2007/04/deceptive-advertising-not-quite.html
April 5th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
Haha…oh wow. The amazing stupidity in the very idea of this article is making me giggle. I should thank you for giving me some nice fodder for my own new blog, at the very least.
Funny though, I mentioned you’re probably one of those people that downloads a save to unlock everything in a game -before- I saw you come right out and say you’d use a cheat to unlock content.
Pathetic, really. The whole point of GH is the gameplay, and I envy you if you really have the kind of money you’d blow $90 to play a cover of one song and expect that others would even consider doing the same.
April 5th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
“In order to get the others, you must earn them - and some are difficult to get.
Why?
Why must one have to unlock songs? The consumer just paid $90 for your product, and deserves immediate access to the products that are paid for.”
Sounds like someone isn’t very good at Guitar Hero
April 5th, 2007 at 3:18 pm
I’m really sympathetic to the Guitar Hero 2 thing–I like to play all the songs for fun and my amusement, but I suck. Fortunately for me, my friend played through and unlocked everything.
That said, please don’t make legal statements without a legal background or some kind of IANAL (I am not a lawyer) disclaimer. The argument just comes off as petty and ridiculous.
April 5th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
First of all, if there is indeed someone who purchases Guitar Hero II for a single song, then they are being absolutely foolish. Who would pay $100 to hear (and play) a mediocre cover of one song that they enjoy? If they are willing to throw money around like that, then they are the victims of foolish spending in general, and not some illegal action on the part of Harmonix or Red Octane.
As for your opinion jonahfalcon, perhaps the most appropriate analogy is this.
Mr. Smith, deciding that watching television was no longer for him given its strict limitations, walks into his local music shop to purchase an acoustic guitar. He also signs up for lessons.
Mr. Smith shows up for lessons and is told by his instructor that they are going to begin with theory, instead of actually playing the guitar. It is - after all - important to understand the fundamentals before you dive right in.
“This is ludicrous,” says Mr. Smith, “My favourite song is Purple Haze by Jimi Hendrix. I want to start off playing that.”
“I’m sorry Mr. Smith. With your experience, I doubt you would be able to handle that kind of song,” says the instructor.
“Well, damn. This is so illegal. I bought this guitar and signed up for these lessons under the impression that I would be able to play Jimi Hendrix, and now you’re telling me that I can’t? I will see you in court.”
Now there is a good analogy. The reason you have to “unlock” songs in medium in Guitar Hero II is because the game is teaching you how to play. Free Bird by Lynyrd Skynyrd is extremely difficult compared to Surrender by Cheap Trick. It is a learning curve. And after playing through medium, you are easily able to unlock all of the songs.
It is hardly illegal. It is logical. Welcome to real life.
April 5th, 2007 at 4:14 pm
If anyone is dumb enough to buy GH2, knowing full well that the game might require *some* kind of skill in order to play, and proceeds complain about unlocking songs, doesn’t deserve the game or the $90.
April 5th, 2007 at 4:33 pm
Everyone seems to not know there’s an Unlock All code.
NTSC: BYOROYRYRYRYRYRY
PAL: BYOROYBYBYBYBYBY
April 5th, 2007 at 4:58 pm
I don’t understand your point of view. On the back of the box all it says is “Over 55 rockin tracks, included.” then has a list of some of the songs. I see no deception seeing how every song listed is included in the game. I suppose advertisement is very subjective in nature, After all i have been upset when picking up a bag of chips that are labeled “Now with extreme nacho flavor” and not tasting the extreme flavor with the first bite.
April 5th, 2007 at 5:09 pm
[This is the post I made in response to Dark54555's "Legal Response" above]:
Mark,
Thanks for posting the full version of what I had summarized in the comments to the Game Stooge article. Nobody wants to read something that long in a comments section, but it helps to know exactly what the law is.
That said, though, who is the “reasonable consumer?” Is it an 8 year old? 16 year old? 28 year old? or 50 year old? The argument in the Game Stooge article could very likely be valid for very young and very old (relatively) consumers of video games.
I checked the game box and I didn’t see one reference to unlocking game content. That certainly doesn’t mislead me, but I have no doubt it would mislead many non-gamers who are consumers of the game within the definition of the FTC.
Also, you can’t dispose of the argument by saying simply that even if the box is misleading, it’s not material because all it takes is a few hours of play to unlock it.
1) That assumes everyone has the requisite skill level necessary to unlock the content; 2) You never know what a judge will think (especially one who is not familiar with games) when faced with the fact that the box reads “over 70 jaw dropping tracks” but only 30 or so are playable immediately. Don’t think for a second that there aren’t a thousand judges out there who will look at this no differently than they do the CDs they buy.
My personal opinion is that the arguments in the Game Stooge article would lose in court (and I certainly don’t agree with them from a gamer’s perspective and would be mad as hell if someone actually filed a lawsuit). But I don’t think this is nearly as lop-sided a legal argument as some are making it out to be. Cases like this survive (and win) in court all the time.
April 5th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
I’m often annoyed because I can’t get stuff unlocked, yet I still think this is a really dumb post. It’s a game, you’re not buying a CD. What would be reasonable would be to just say, “don’t list games on the box players can’t access without great difficulty.”
April 5th, 2007 at 5:18 pm
Actually, Dark54555’s ‘Legal Response’ was right on the money. There is reason why this would be illegal. Any ruling to the contrary would be appealed immediately and vehemently.
April 5th, 2007 at 5:19 pm
Actually, Dark54555’s ‘Legal Response’ was right on the money. There is no reason why this would be illegal. Any ruling to the contrary would be appealed immediately and vehemently.
April 5th, 2007 at 5:21 pm
This is sick, is our society so lazy that we need everything in the game unlocked? Where’s the fun in that?!?
April 5th, 2007 at 5:28 pm
Granite,
I’m not trying to be rude, but you gotta give some actual content to go along with your comment. What about Dark54555’s post was “right on the money”? Myself and one other person have both posted counter-arguments to what he wrote. Do you disagree with what we wrote? If so, tell us.
Even Dark54555 didn’t go so far as to say “there is no reason why this would be illegal.”
Finally, every ruling is appealed and the vast majority do not succeed. So, the fact that it would be appealed doesn’t mean anything.
April 5th, 2007 at 8:06 pm
Joystiq’s Justin McElroy misunderstood the part when you said that Red Octane’s inclusion of unlockable content without the specification that the content is unlockable is false advertising and by that, illegal? He must not have that good a grasp of sarcasm.
It’s a game. You play through a game from the beginning to the end like the developers intended. That is the entire point of a game. Just because you need a special controller does not change the fact that it’s a game.
I would now like to trot out the slippery slope argument. If we remove the level demarcation, what makes it a game? It would be just like DDR, which is only kind of a game. You pick your song and play it until you get it. You do not experience any rise to stardom.
How long will it take you to decry the tyranny of having to hit specific notes? Would this type of game be better off where you just mash buttons and strum wildly and it tells you that you rock? I somehow think not.
As a side note, I concur with Dog_Welder. Anyone that blows 90 bucks for a single song is an idiot.
April 5th, 2007 at 11:04 pm
“Apparently, Joystiq’s Justin McElroy completely misunderstood this article, stating I said unlockable content is against the law. I have no idea how he came to that conclusion; maybe he was trying to get hits for that site, but in no way, shape or form did I state unlockable content is against the law.”
Hrrrrmmmm Where might he have gotten that idea.
“This practice is tired, quite frankly, and also is quite illegal: it’s called “deceptive advertising”.”
Oh what do ya know.
April 6th, 2007 at 12:31 am
I must go on record as saying that this is the single, dumbest thing I have read in quite a long time.
If you suck at the game then quit whining and develop the necessary skill to play competently.
April 6th, 2007 at 12:37 am
All I’d like to know is why jonah hasn’t responded yet
April 6th, 2007 at 2:17 am
Man this article is stupid, I just got Guitar Hero 2 on my Xbox and I love the fact I have to earn the tracks just makes me more determined! Nice one whoever wrote this, what a moron. I felt cheated that when I got Gran Turismo 4 I had to unlock all of the cars it said it had, omg i’ve been deceived, sue them!
April 6th, 2007 at 3:24 am
there is no merit in the argument that it is illegal. (i am a lawyer… albeit an english one). “reasonable consumer” is not an 8 year old, or a 50 year old. that would be an exceptional consumer. ANY argument relating to them should be completely disgarded.
April 6th, 2007 at 3:41 am
First of all, I’m amazed only one other person pointed out that there is a cheat code for Guitar Hero that lets you get all of the game’s content right away. No, they don’t package the code with the box, but find me one gamer who owns GH and doesn’t know about GameFAQS.
But I, knowing about the cheat code, have never used it. The satisfaction at finally nailing “Carry Me Home” and thus getting access to new songs is far greater than it would be if you were just playing it for the challenge alone (for instance, some of the unlockable songs are hard, but I don’t care about playing them because they don’t give any reward). The thrill of getting a new guitar or whatever (the “achievements” you mentioned) doesn’t match it, because you can get stuck on a song and thus gain the satisfaction of finally breaking through. Red Octane chose to cater to those customers who preferred the delayed gratification of having to earn content, rather than those who wanted it all right away. Judging by the game’s rave reviews and monster sales, it seems like they chose the right demographic.
April 6th, 2007 at 3:41 am
The article does bring up a good argument, but an ultimately pointless one, as far as I’m concerned. I play the game because I love playing guitar, and I love playing video games. Combining the two is like a digital orgasm. Complaining that they didn’t remove all the fun by making every song available is silly. It almost seems as though the author is grasping at straws trying to find something about the game to complain about. And being so defensive about it as to belittle the readers is very sad.
April 6th, 2007 at 4:59 am
Argh. I look at this topic, and I shake my head. I can see both sides of the coin, both sides of the argument, and yet I can’t help but think that there should be some better way to resolve this.
As Many people have stated previously, Guitar Hero 2 has tiers of difficulty. By beating enough songs, and by proving yourself adept at those songs, you are granted access to higher tiers and harder songs - It’s like being taught to swim - You don’t toss a child into the deep end and expect them to swim like an Olympic competitor, do you?
Then again, there are people who have beaten Guitar Hero prior to purchasing Guitar Hero 2, who do not wish to wade back into the water - The see the game as a continuation of the first, an extension of sorts, and they have the experience and want to play it differently.
So why not cater to both parties?
Consider - If there was an option for the PS2 version to check for Guitar Hero data and unlock stuff according to how you did in the previous game, would it have changed anything? You’d still have to work to unlock more songs, and more guitars. Guitar Hero 2 was designed the way it was for a reason. You can never truly complete the game - There’s always more to unlock, the challenge of getting 100% on every song.
April 6th, 2007 at 5:38 am
Why would he think you called it illegal? Hmm I’m not sure. Let’s have a look at- oh wait! I found it:
“This practice is tired, quite frankly, and also is quite illegal: it’s called “deceptive advertising”.”
Maybe you were being facetious - but that’s kind of hard to interpret when you are not face-to-face with the author :/
April 6th, 2007 at 6:10 am
Other posters have more eloquently said than I could why we went with the system that we did on GH2, so I’ll skip over that for the moment.
I just wanted to say that we knew a specific subset of players strongly holds this view about gaming. We put in the unlock-all code specifically with the hope of satisfying them. It was the best compromise solution we could find. We also frontloaded as much good stuff as we could, and generally tried to ensure that they had a lot of good options at their fingertips without being overloaded. So while you may still be upset about the progression structure, you can hopefully take some solice in the fact that we were taking you into account in some way while making this game. We always try to do something for this group of players, albeit sometimes more successfully than others.
BYOROYRYRYRYRYRY - US / NTSC Unlock All
BYOROYBYBYBYBYBY - Pal Unlock All
And if you have any design ideas about how we can further satisfy the needs of this group while retaining a difficulty curve and rewards structure, feel free to e-mail them to me at gamestooge[at]chriscanfield.net. Or start up a thread on rockbandgame.com, which we more or less all read.
I’ll check back on this thread when I can, though unfortunately I won’t be able to do that very often.
- Chris Canfield, Designer, GH2
P.S. I’m sorry if this gets triple-posted. Something seems wonky with comments today.
April 6th, 2007 at 6:25 am
So, should Counter Strike have to advertise that the M4 assault rifle has to be BOUGHT with virtual cash earned in-game, and can’t always be gotten at the beginning?
No, and here’s why: It’s frickin’ implied. If you got everything at the beginning of a game, it would be boring.
With no incentive, why would you want to play the game.
It’s not false advertising, all they said is that is IS CONTAINED ON THE DISK. Not that it’s available immediately. That’s like saying, “This new Mario game features Bowser! (some restrictions apply, see instruction booklet for more details)”.
April 6th, 2007 at 6:38 am
“UPDATE: Apparently, Joystiq’s Justin McElroy completely misunderstood this article, stating I said unlockable content is against the law. I have no idea how he came to that conclusion; maybe he was trying to get hits for that site, but in no way, shape or form did I state unlockable content is against the law. Read the article to see what was actually said.”
Maybe he came to that conclusion when you said it was illegal.
“This practice is tired, quite frankly, and also is quite illegal…”
Idiot.
April 6th, 2007 at 6:51 am
“[UPDATE: Apparently, Joystiq’s Justin McElroy completely misunderstood this article, stating I said unlockable content is against the law. I have no idea how he came to that conclusion; maybe he was trying to get hits for that site, but in no way, shape or form did I state unlockable content is against the law. Read the article to see what was actually said.]”
Here’s your update, where you lie, utterly and completely boldfaced.
Here’s where you said it was illegal, as a form of deceptive advertising:
“This practice is tired, quite frankly, and also is quite illegal: it’s called “deceptive advertising”. Had Red Octane been honest, it should have said right on the box: “To access this song, you must do so-and-so before you can play it.” It should have at least allowed every song to be available in practice mode. What’s next - downloadable content is unavailable unless you complete every song at every difficulty with a 5 star rating?”
How about, the next time you accuse someone of misunderstanding what you wrote, you make sure you remember exactly what you wrote? Otherwise, shut up. Games have had unlockable content forever. Every platformer in the world operates on that principle, trashing Red Octane for having linear gameplay is nothing new to this industry.
@Anybody defending this troll, go reread his article. Cripes, you don’t even need to do that; I’ve laid it all out, clear as day. There’s absolutely nothing to be misunderstood, the author called Red Octane out for illegal business practice. Joystiq picked up on it, and brought it to light. End of story.
April 6th, 2007 at 7:14 am
Many of these posts hurt my head. (”Having to unlock stuff is dumb.” “No, you’re dumb, it’s just like levels!”) Let’s just skip the analogies and say what it really is.
One of the greatest parts about Guitar Hero is the multiplayer, in my opinion. Imagine buying it (and an extra controller), taking it home, and starting it up. You and your friend immediately want to start playing together (or against each other). But the list of songs is severely limitted. The game FORCES you to play through the career mode to get to some of the songs it has advertised. But, even worse in my view, is that you can’t get the songs just by playing on the easy difficulty level, even though the songs you will unlock later can all be played on easy.
Now, I completely understand the analogy that has been laid out comparing this to platformers and their levels. But I don’t think the analogy holds as well as some are trying to make it. Usually, there is some kind of story in a platformer (however weak that story may be). So it makes perfect sense that you need to get through level 1 to get to level 2. The nearest thing GH has to this is the career mode: you play different setlists at different venues. Fine. So, to play the second setlist in your career, you need to survive your first gig. That makes sense.
However, I fail to see why someone playing multiplayer (or maybe even quickplay, though to a lesser extent) would need to to complete a career, on medium even, to be able to get all the songs. (Most of the songs are missing to begin with. The author said he was limited to 6. That’s just sad.) Even still, completing the career, even with 5-stars (or even perfects) on everything might not be enough for the player to access every song unless he carefully watched how he spent his money (i.e., avoiding extra characters, outfits, guitars, and finishes).
If you pick up just about any game with INTERNET multiplayer, you’ll find that most (or all) of the maps/levels/whatever are accessible RIGHT AWAY on multiplayer. It’s sad to think that the only reason for this is because it would be difficult to find another player online to play on that map that is the last to unlock. It really is disappointing that the game developers seem to be actively looking to punish (or in other words, withhold content from) the player, even in quick pick-up games and multiplayer.
I understand that unlockables are a de facto requirement in games today. It really does encourage people to try harder, to compete for bragging rights. But I fail to see why so little content is available for multiplayer from the get-go.
April 6th, 2007 at 7:45 am
People are getting too hung up on GH2-specific aspects of this…
This has been a pet peeve of mine for a long time. Most of the console gaming I do is with friends when we’re at each others’ houses. When we open a new game, 90% of the characters (fighting) or cars (racing) are locked. We just want to get to the goodness of fighting/racing each other, but we’ve gotta burn a bunch of time going through the single-player missions *that we don’t actually want to play*. Leaving aside from whether it’s unfair or deceptive, it’s a practice that is rude to players who are focused on multiplayer action.
April 6th, 2007 at 7:55 am
You are a moron. This article is completly retarded.
That is why this game is so fun. The first time you get an Encore you are totally hooked. I wish they wouldn’t show you the next song until you beat the one prior. It makes you try.
This is exactly the problem I was expecting to Nintendo’s bring everybody into gaming approach. You get these “casual” gamers making idiotic statements because they think they know how games should be made.
April 6th, 2007 at 8:14 am
I still don’t understand why you’d say “This practice is tired, quite frankly, and also is quite illegal” if you were going to whine when someone accused you of describing conduct as “breaking the law.” I thought those two kind of went hand in hand. Beyond that, I’d have to say that the Joystiq summary of your claim: “advertising more features than are immediately available is actually illegal” is much closer to what you actually said than your summary of their article: “unlockable content is against the law.” They don’t say that you said that. Did they edit their article after you started whining?
April 6th, 2007 at 8:48 am
S Holmes:
I know you think it would be a bad case, so I’m not arguing with you, but you bring up the possibility that a judge could look at “over 70 jaw dropping tracks” and believe it to be misleading (as there’s no verbiage regarding unlockable content). This is probably true, as people without familiarity in a given realm will often make mistaken assumptions about the outlying geography of that realm. But it shouldn’t be that hard to simply compare “over 70 jaw dropping tracks” with the potential “over 70 jaw dropping levels” - as Red Octane clearly views song progression in GH as level progression (i.e., the songs at the beginning are much harder than the songs at the end).
In fact, most games do this sort of advertising, tantalizing players with potential gameplay. World of Warcraft suggests combat with the Dragon of Blackrock Spire and the undead of Stratholme - tasks that will take far longer for the gamer to get to experience than any of GH’s unlockable content. Half-Life 2 touts “new weapons” - weapons that aren’t unlockable until several hours into gameplay, as they are level specific. Also, if you take into consideration the fact that game boxes, by and large, present screen caps of latter-game content (as, often, end game material is more dynamic than low-level material), there’s a pretty good case that the entire industry operates in a given fashion (operating on the promise of potential rather than the promise of actual availability) and that the gaming consumer, generally, prefers it that way.
It seems unnecessarily curmudgeonly to read that a game offers 240 songs or 438 levels and presume that a player can experience any of these from the word “Go.” Not that I’m saying you were saying that, but that seems to be the case of the article’s author.
April 6th, 2007 at 8:52 am
I understand the point of this post. It’s really annoying for me that I have to drive a small Renault in a racing game when I just want to drive the Porsche which is on the cover. I’m not a lazy pupil who has that much free time to practice, and I can certainly understand that it sucks to play through the easy setting only to realize that you got just half of the content.
April 6th, 2007 at 8:53 am
Come on! This redicoulous. You know what, I don’t care if I have to play through like 20 others songs to get at one or two.
And seriously? Comparing a video game to watching the cable you bought? Jezz, again this is a video game. For there to be challange and you know, fun, you have to have progression. Again I’m agreeing with the guy who said said the New Super Mario Bros comment.
And about the DVD’s? You know you can’t play some DVD’s because of region encoding. So I guess in a way if you want to import anime from Japan, you need to “sucessfully buy a region free DVD player”
April 6th, 2007 at 9:01 am
Guitar Hero is a particular type of game. I am not building a character, telling a story, or following a linear progression through a game world. What makes this game fun, what this game is about, is Rocking Out to specific songs. They build levels and gameplay into it via the difficulty settings, or have particular Character unlockable, not by restricting access to the fundamental element of the game, the music.
That being said, I would not describe the box as “Deceptive” or illegal. The content is there, and you can get to it. I disagree with the manner in which they designed the game, but that is my opinion, and, unfortunately, there are no legal consequences for that.
April 6th, 2007 at 9:12 am
Re: dishonesty and illegality
No, unfortunately, they were not dishonest nor illegal in their advertisement of the game. You *can* play those songs. Like all forms of advertisement, though, they are not required to tell you on the box how you can play them - in this situation after unlocking them. But, this does not mean that you ‘cannot’ play those songs.
What you’re asking is for exactness/requirements to each advertised element of the game. This just doesn’t happen - nor is it required - and never will.
You may not like the concept of unlocking content, that’s fine. But if you could play everything right out of the box, skip right to your favorite songs in this case, how much time would you spend playing the game rather than working to get the stuff you really like? What type of accomplishment would there be for you in this regard?
This issue is the exact same, but on an extremely minimalistic level, as those faced in MMOs where many people just want to be given the earned items of the game without the effort. CGs in general are based on the concept of advancing, whether it’s going from one level to another, gaining new items, or even unlocking new abilities/characters/options. I have not played a single CG that doesn’t have a level of advancement in it and I don’t see why I would play one considering I wouldn’t feel like I had accomplished anything in the process.
April 6th, 2007 at 9:35 am
Here’s something to ponder: Wasn’t it EA that was charging people for “unlockable” stuff in the Need for Speed games if they didn’t want to unlock the extras on their own. And they are handling Rock Band so I’m sure this sort of thing will happen in that game too. EA knows how to get them duckets
April 6th, 2007 at 9:39 am
whiner. Have you ever played a video game before? I dont know of a single game that says how many levels there are and lets you pick which one to play from the start. Every game has levels you have to beat before you get to other levels. get over it, move on, and stop whining or stop playing video games becuase you obviously lack the understanding of them.
Do I whish I could play some of the unlocked songs earlier? Heck yeah. Am I gonna cry about it? no, Im gonna play the game and enjoy earning everything I accomplish. You want full credit for beating the game handed to you on a silver platter just for buying the game. Sorry kid, some things in life you have to earn.
April 6th, 2007 at 9:51 am
Unlocking IS full of crap. You know what I have to do every time I get a game that I can see has decent multiplayer potential? I go through the ENTIRE game myself, learning a million different nuances in order to best the requisite tasks, and unlock everything (thankfully, I have the patience and skills to do this, usually)–at which point, ONLY THEN, everybody is free to finally play the game that has been owned for a week at that point. And it’s not even a fair competition, then: I have a week’s head start. But unless I did that, the multiplayer function would be crippled and boring and stupid.
You can’t bring a level-based game to this discussion. The argument isn’t that all worlds of a single player game should be immediately accessible. Quite the contrary–it’s GOOD that there’s a single player progression, because that means the game gets progressively harder, and so builds up your skill in a way that the designers have deemed useful and reasonable. But not having fully-functionable multiplayer out-of-box is absurd.
To bring a very odd set of examples to the table, let’s consider fighters. Soul Calibur II came out on three consoles, and my local fighting group burned like crazy through the edge master modes to unlock everything on the Xbox version. Did my GC version later care that we had put in all that time and effort? Not in the least.
On the other hand, let’s look at something like DBGT: Final Bout for the PSX. Old and kind of a shoddy game, I know, but the notable part to this discussion is that with a single code inputtable from the title screen, everything in the game was unlocked. Everything. You didn’t have to keep a save file on your memory card specifically for it, you didn’t have to work through it again if you’d done it sometime in the past, and you didn’t have to trudge through the process if a friend had done it elsewhere.
What happened to passwords, anyway? When did they stop being a good idea?
April 6th, 2007 at 9:51 am
While the advertising on the box isn’t the big issues to myself, since the songs are available in the game and no where on the box does it say they are available right off the bat, I do think that there is very little beginning content.
Hell, both Guitar Hero games have too much unlockable content. I know for a fact there will be songs I will never be able to play because I won’t be able to unlock the songs in the Hard and Expert levels, and because of that, I won’t be able to purchase all the songs in the stores.
When it comes down to it, I think RedOctane’s intentions with the unlockable songs was noble, but they went overboard, hardcore, with it.
April 6th, 2007 at 10:00 am
I think there is a key part that alot of people above me are missing.
I for one, dont have an issue with unlockable content, but i DO have an issue when the advertising doesn’t say it’s unlockable.
Take GH2 for example. it says that X number of tracks are availible to me to play include A, B and C.
Except thats not true. I slap in the game and it says, sorry only 7 or the 70 tracks we told you about on the back are availible. You have tom complete the game to get them.
See, thats called false advertising.
So, i bought GH2 for the easer weekend when i’m having a few old uni mates round to mine. we’re going to pretend to relive our youth and i really fancied us having a go on these tunes. So i have sat for the last 3 days getting good at the game and today i completed it on easy mode, JUST so me and my buds can play this weekend. Only to find out that i still dont have half the songs we’re looking forward to playing!
I mean, seriously, the advertising said that these songs were availible to me, which means from a legal stand point, availible from the time of purchasing.
The problem here isn’t “casual” gamers, or first timers; or even us old folks who’ve only been playing games for 20 years (atari 2600 btw). it’s the fact that the back of the box said something that wasn’t exactly true. We can argue that we know what it means, but thats not the type of thing thats going to wash with alot of people.
Frankly, if the game had said “70 songs availible (7 from start, 37 from completeing easy mode, the rest from harder modes)” then I wouldn’t have bought it. I bought teh game because it said “70 song availible including… and then listed songs”.
Did GH2 lie to me? no, of course not. But neither was it very exact. And in advertising, missing out key elements is just as illegal as lying.
Frankly, it’s very deceitful.
April 6th, 2007 at 10:23 am
“…in no way, shape or form did I state unlockable content is against the law.”
“This practice is tired, quite frankly, and also is quite illegal: it’s called “deceptive advertising”.”
Gee, I wonder…
April 6th, 2007 at 10:40 am
With all respect to your point I think this is the dumbest idea ever.
If every game let you just skip to the last level whenever you wanted, without any effort- the game would be pointless. The whole foundation games are based on- practicing, getting better, and being rewarded for good gameplay is what playing games is all about.
People have to stop complaining about GH2, I think I unlocked every song in the game by the third day of owning it. And I have a little cousin (who is not an expert) who loves that game because she keeps unlocking new songs, and loves to replay old ones.
I could go on, but I’m gonna stop ranting now, just to be polite.
April 6th, 2007 at 11:01 am
There’s a reasonable argument here — the notion that a party game should be easier to pick up and dive right into without a bunch of sitting around unlocking content first — but it’s buried beneath some of the stupidest claims possible.
The stupidest by far, of course, being the claim that if a company advertises content without noting that it must be unlocked, that’s illegal false advertising.
Apparently that claim is so completely ludicrous that even you had to add a disclaimer saying you never said it…to the article where you said it.
But a really hilarious part of your disclaimer that I think the other posters have overlooked was your comment, “Maybe he was trying to get hits for that site.”
Here’s a link for you, Jonah. It will show you a handy graph which will hopefully illustrate how badly Joystiq needs traffic from GameStooge:
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?site0=joystiq.com&site1=gamestooge.com&site2=&site3=&site4=&y=r&z=1&h=300&w=540&range=1m&size=Medium&url=joystiq.com
April 6th, 2007 at 11:31 am
I’m a gamer; it is a hobby I enjoy greatly. I spend a great deal of time and a fair amount of money pursuing my hobby and I do enjoy the unlocking various aspects of games most of the time, but…
I totally agree with Mr. Falcon on this issue regarding Guitar Hero. It was really weird to get home w/ the game on Tuesday and have my roommates huddle around the TV to see that I could play only five songs to start. This was not really the way I expected the game to start.
I think a large part of the disappointment that Mr. Falcon and I experienced with this game stems from the fact that Guitar Hero is a different kind of game. GH is a game you grab your friends to fiddle around with and watch you, its a party game. Consequently, I am disappointed by the amount of focus the game places on the single player career aspect. It should be unnecessary to play what is basically a series of single player levels to unlock the core content of the game if the game is designed to be enjoyed by everyone in the room. I have similar gripes with fighting games. I mean why did I have to put myself through that hellish single player mode in Soul Cailibur II to unlock characters so I can fight with my friends?
Plus, as Mr. Falcon points out, some of the things you need to do are really hard. Medium difficulty is really hard; I dread having to move up to expert level to unlock the last songs. I don’t think I should have to torture myself to play along with Guns and Roses (that’s painful enough as it is).
I’m not about to say that unlockable content is totally out of place in games like Guitar Hero, but I do think that most of the content should be accessable from the start. The store in Guitar Hero is a great example of what unlockable content should be in this game: you can work for the silly stuff you want (like Trogdor, for example), and if you’re really into the game and a real bad ass guitarist, then you can get the new costumes and other cosmetics. But having to play for hours before stepping in with Ozzy and Black Sabbath in a game called Guitar Hero? No, that’s not really the way I want to play.
Overall though, I like Guitar Hero a lot. A whole lot. It is a amazing, but the derth of songs to start is a turn off.
And please note that I don’t have a general problem with levels or unlockables, I just think that most game content should be accessable to all players. For example, in Burnout Revenge, a decent player can get through the whole career fairly easily, but the elite cars unlocked by completing the different map goals can be very tricky to unlock. Now, the typical player can enjoy most of the game, but the hardcore player gets the cool little bragging rights with the elite cars. That seems fair, as does allowing savants able to collect hundreds of dollars in Guitar Hero to unlock new skins, but when you crack open a game that is marketed as being an enjoyable experience for non-gamers, then more of the content should be readily accessable.
Cheers,
-Jesse
April 6th, 2007 at 11:36 am
Uh… To get those songs in CAREER mode, you need to unlock them.
If you just want to quickplay, they’re already there.
April 6th, 2007 at 11:39 am
The reason I haven’t responded yet is:
1. Getting through all the comments is like reading War & Peace
2. I’m in the middle of reviewing both Guitar Hero II and OOTP 2007
3. I’m planning on writing an article following up
4. Too many of these responses seem to have been written by kiddies who think the article is about Guitar Hero II. It’s about unlockable content.
5. Oh, and about cheat codes? Why not print the cheat codes right on the box or the manual?
6. People also seem to think the devs are the ones who do advertising and box design (wrong).
7. I prefer Dance Dance Revolutions’ mode - every song is available, save a few which are basically remixes of existing available songs.
That’s it - that’s my last comment here. You all go talk amongst yourselves. :p
April 6th, 2007 at 11:41 am
For those saying games with internet multiplayer and such, you’ll notice a lot of those games (namely the MMO types) actually do have content locked. Those contents are locked unless you do the game’s progression, both levels and quests. Yes the areas are there, but they are locked out of your reach if you just started.
It doesn’t mean games with multiplayer capabilities should automatically allow you to have access to everything. Even if not taking MMOs as example, in FPS multiplayer Battlefield 2 for example, you start with the basic weapons etc, and you unlock more weapons which you otherwise might not be able to use normally (picking up from enemies is another matter really).
Depending on the game types, different rules apply sometimes for multiplayer. For some games, content lock is used as a way to allow players to learn and improve to a certain degree. Imagine going onto a multiplayer game as a new player in a RTS game, you don’t last very long even though you do have access to everything, an experienced player would most likely overwhelm you.
April 6th, 2007 at 11:43 am
“Uh… To get those songs in CAREER mode, you need to unlock them.
If you just want to quickplay, they’re already there.”
Nope.
April 6th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
I’m still on the fence about some of this article, but one this is for sure… I’m so sick of hearing people ask, “Where is the fun in having access to everything right off the bat?”
Are you serious? I mean, I enjoy a challenge just as much as the next guy and I’ll DO the insanely stupid stuff even if I just get a little star next to my name and nothing actually USEABLE.
But in cases like THIS, the fun is in the reward. Remember Goldeneye? Busting your hump for weeks trying to unlock the invincibility code? We didn’t do it because “the fun” was in the unlocking of the cheat, we did it because “the fun” was BEING INVINCIBLE.
Sometimes, people, the rewards ARE “the fun”. Asking “Where is the fun in that?” is idiotic at best.
Or maybe I’m just nuts, maybe everyone only enjoys playing the same song over and over until they can do it in their sleep. Maybe you all don’t enjoy actually having a new song. I’m assuming you people asking “Where is the fun in that?” don’t play the new songs when you’ve unlocked them, because for you “the fun” is found in repetition of that one song over and over again.
April 6th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
[...] only playable if you unlock them. Though, this may be obvious and even acceptable to some, over at Game Stooge they’ve openly expressed their distaste with this unlocking method. Ultimately they feel [...]
April 6th, 2007 at 12:11 pm
So…what you want is yet another idiot proof, lowest common denominator curtailed explanation on the back of the box? Does no one do any research about the products they buy anymore? The song has over 70 songs, the box says it has over 70 songs. It’s your fault that you couldn’t comprehend the fact that the songs may need to be unlocked. DDR is an arcade port, you can’t have tons of unlockable content in an arcade game.
Speaking of fighting games (someone mentioned it above), anyone remember Tekken? And how you could unlock a new character for beating the game with a corresponding character? HALF of the characters were hidden in that game. And oh jeebus, the character on the front of the box wasn’t even playable unless you beat the game with no continues. The outrage!
But back to GH2.
Starting off with so few songs did suck a little, but it was only a little. 20 minutes later I was off to the next tier. Some songs I didn’t like, and didn’t want to play, but I did anyway. Just the same as there are some levels in games I don’t like, but play to get to the ones I do. As far as cheat codes go…you’re not much of a gamer are you? It’s an unwritten gamer rule that you play through a game the way it was intended the first time through, especially one as fun as this. Cheat codes aren’t blaringly in your face because most gamers don’t want knowledge of them unless we go looking for him. Is it too much for you to type http://www.gamefaqs.com to get those ultimate unlock codes for all the games you are too lazy to get through? It’s much more productive to rant about something which is your fault anyway.
April 6th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
I’d like to see a game that comes with locked stuff, that you can unlock through play. And I would also like that game to have a simply option in the menu that would allow me to instantly unlock said content. That way, if I wanted too (I wouldn’t, but someone out there probably would) I could unlock the content simply by playing through the game and facing the various challenges. Or, I could just unlock the stuff and simply play the game for the sake of having fun. I know, I’m one of those strange people who play a game for the fun rather than for the challenge. But if you would rather unlock it via gameplay, you can go right ahead. But you just don’t have to, in case you are like me.
April 6th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
Such great anger; such passionate rebuttal; such poor reading comprehension skills.
The article never says that unlockable content is illegal. The article contends that listing unlockable songs as featured in GH without noting that they are initially locked could be taken as deceptive advertising, and that deceptive advertising is illegal.
I am not necessarily saying I agree that listing unlockable songs as “featured” is deceptive advertising, but I certainly agree that deceptive advertising is illegal. I’d hope that even all the many haters here could agree with that.
The analogy to conventional games with unlockable content is valid to an extent, and I don’t think anyone would consider it deceptive advertising to mention featured content from higher levels on a game’s packaging. However, higher levels in a conventional game exist only as part of that game.
The songs that GH2 advertises on its packaging exist beyond the GH2 game and are familiar to non-GH-fans and non-gamers. The are recognized by many people who don’t necessarily recognize the GH franchise itself. You don’t have to have any prior experience with or knowledge of GH whatsoever to know and enjoy the famous songs listed on the GH box.
Ultimately, the primary purpose of GH is letting players pretend to play guitar to their favorite, familiar songs. And that’s why those songs are all listed on the packaging, right? The fact that the songs exist independently from the game is what makes them a different sort of feature than a higher level in a platform game or an unlockable character in a fighting game.
All this said, I still don’t quite agree with the author’s conclusions, but I’m glad to consider myself in the small minority of posters who actually may have understood them.
April 6th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
[...] only playable if you unlock them. Though, this may be obvious and even acceptable to some, over at Game Stooge they’ve openly expressed their distaste with this unlocking method. Ultimately they feel [...]
April 6th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
[...] only playable if you unlock them. Though, this may be obvious and even acceptable to some, over at Game Stooge they’ve openly expressed their distaste with this unlocking method. Ultimately they feel [...]
April 6th, 2007 at 12:21 pm
Not only that, but guitar hero’s two scheme of unlocking allows a newbie to graduate from simpler songs to more complex songs, making it easier for them to grasp the game. If you stuck a person with Free bird as the first song they would fail miserably and be frustrated, the levels ensures a person becomes more comfortable with songs without being overwhelmed, I have seen noobs with a fully unlocked chart, it isn’t pretty. They just jump around think the difficulty is the same and give up on the game.
April 6th, 2007 at 12:22 pm
jonahfalcon, I think the reason most people are focusing on Guitar Hero is because this is the example that you provided to spring board into your unlockable content argument. Also, you’ve pretty much refuted any other games (RPGs, platformers, etc) that unlock features as a matter of progression as “not counting as an argument”, leaving us with Guitar Hero II and Dance Dance Revolution.
You are limiting the validity of people’s responses for no reason at all, and insulting them as well.
Not a very courteous host.
April 6th, 2007 at 12:25 pm
I’m thinking there’s some miscommunication going on here. The vast majority of people leaving comments are discussing the idea of unlockable content in a game - where “game” is defined as a holistic collection of experiences, challenges, etc. designed to be enjoyed from start to finish. Jonah, I think, is miffed because he doesn’t feel that that definition applies to Guitar Hero and similar games - it’s a different sort of beast altogether. He keeps bringing up DDR, which is another game that fits into this type; we could also throw in such crowd favorites as the Mario Party, Mario Kart, and Smash Brothers games - which is to say, games that are played in small chunks by multiple people, and in which there is no storyline to advance. And in that arena, you know, okay, fine - it certainly irritates me to have to unlock the good characters when I play Smash Brothers without a memory card handy. But applied to any other sort of game, the argument very much falls flat.
By the way, Jonah, stop switching your position back and forth - either have your cake or eat it. You article must be about one of two things:
1. Unlockable content in games in general
2. Unlockable content in a small subset of games, represented in this context by the examples of Guitar Hero and DDR
If you’re talking about unlockable content in games in general, then stop ignoring arguments that draw on unlockable content in games in general - if the point you’re making is that broad, then certainly Mario and Halo are fair game. On the other hand, if you want to deny those arguments, the only reasonable way to do so is to admit that you’re limiting your universe of discourse to only a small chunk of the games that exist.
April 6th, 2007 at 12:35 pm
Do you mean to tell me that in order to advance in a game, I have to actually PLAY it? Preposterous!
April 6th, 2007 at 12:48 pm
I think the way you put forth your argument is kind of insane, but I agree with the sentiment behind it. I think developers of these kind of games should consider making all the unlockable songs/dances/racetracks/whatever available in a non-scoring practice mode, for example. This isn’t appropriate for every type of game, but Guitar Hero? Absolutely. If they had to, they could still keep a half-dozen top-secret songs you have to acquire through skill, but 37/70 for beating the game on Easy is *nuts* for what’s supposed to be a fun, party-oriented game.
For those on the other side of the argument, consider another gaming cliché everybody used to take for granted - limited lives. From Super Mario up through the Playstation era, it was taken for granted that you had to beat the game in, say, 3 lives, plus any extras you earned along the way. And this was before most games allowed you to save your progress!
A trend developed to allow unlimited continues, or make it easier to get extra lives - even a mediocre player could easily pick up 30 or so extra lives over the course of a game of Sonic the Hedgehog. Eventually, though, it dawned on gamemakers that limited lives were an obsolete relic of the arcade era, and the whole paradigm was pretty much abandoned. Nowadays a game that limits the number of times you can die and continue is a rarity.
You see some of the same kind of movement happening on the unlockable front, now. Some games allow you to get unlockables through skill, but also by simply playing the game a certain number of hours — Smash Bros Melee, for example. Some let you buy unlockables online (not a practice I support, but it’s happening). Some, like Burnout 3, just shower the player with unlockables for practically every button press, and make all but a handful trivially easy to get.
Unlockables won’t go away any time soon (especially now that companies can charge for them), and are still fully appropriate for some kind of games, but the author is right in pointing out that the practice deserves a rethink.
April 6th, 2007 at 12:51 pm
Going back to unlockable content in a more abstract manner…
Does anyone else think having a high level of unlockable content (whether that is new skins, jerseys, bonus levels etc) is more valid in a game that is more intended for a single player experience, such as Ninja Gaiden or God of War, when contrasted with games intended for the enjoyment of multiple people in the same room, such as Smash Brothers or Guitar Hero?
It seems to me that unlockable content should play a greater role in these single-player focused games because in these games, the unlockable content serves as a primary motivator to continue playing. In a game more focused on having mutiple people involved at once, I think having content unlocked by the classic single-player mode is less necessary.
One solution is to have content unlocked through multiplayer games. I think Soul Calibur III did this; every once in a while you’d unlock an extra weapon or costume or something while beating on your body.
I think that Guitar Hero is a special case because the unlockable content in question is basically the game. It is not the sort of skin and costume unlocks that prevade most games. If the unlockables in Guitar Hero were just costumes, this thread wouldn’t exist, even if the publisher put “30 unlockable costumes” on the box because the costumes do not affect game play.
Consequently, I’m feeling more and more that this issue is pretty limited to just Guitar Hero.
I think one resolution the developers could implement for this sort of issue with Guitar Hero is having, say 10-20 songs initially unlocked and having more unlocked as a certain precentage of the intial ones are completed. This would allow for a sense of achievement as you unlock progressively more difficult songs but also allow for a broader array of starter tunes. I would also make all song unlockable on the Easy mode and would probably count the free play songs as well as songs completed for career mode for this purpose.
Thoughts?
April 6th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
Read your article, and you sure do say that it’s illegal:
“This practice is tired, quite frankly, and also is quite illegal: it’s called “deceptive advertising”.”
If you didn’t intend to say that GH was breaking the law, then um… re-word. Otherwise, you did exactly what Joystiq said.
April 6th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
To say that it is wrong to make players “work” to unlock materials advertised on a game’s box would be an excellent argument if you didn’t know what a video game is. Video games are based on the simple idea of getting from point A to point B.
You don’t, for example, start playing Metal Gear Solid and then throw down the controller in disgust saying “Why am I killing these stupid terrorists, I want to fight Metal Gear! it says ‘Metal Gear’ right on the box so I should be able to fight giant robots from the get-go!”
It’s the same essential idea. Games are meant to be progressive in nature, and if you really can’t stand the idea of progress then you can get yourself a gameshark.
If you, for some bizzare reason, purchased GHII (as Falcon’s example speculated) on the basis of a single track which must be unlocked, then perhaps having to bear the wretched cross of playing the game that you have purchased will make the accomplishment that much sweeter.
Actually, though, if you’re the kind of person who might actually say “Oh wow! This game has Sweet Child O’Mine on it! I’m just gonna play that one track over and over and over! That’s totally worth $90!” then your problems probabaly range well beyond the realm of unlockable content in videogames.
April 6th, 2007 at 1:56 pm
The guy writing this article is the type of guy that would sue microsoft or red octane because he gets really good at guitar hero and gets the achievement “Start a band already award” then spends his life savings buying band equipment then gets booed off the stage and beaten up because he sucks at music IRL.
Get a life and please dont call yourself a gamer. FYI, DDR usually comes with around 60-70 songs but 30-40 are locked on average.
April 6th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
[...] only playable if you unlock them. Though, this may be obvious and even acceptable to some, over at Game Stooge they’ve openly expressed their distaste with this unlocking method. Ultimately they feel [...]
April 6th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
[...] only playable if you unlock them. Though, this may be obvious and even acceptable to some, over at Game Stooge they’ve openly expressed their distaste with this unlocking method. Ultimately they feel [...]
April 6th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
Wow, you really are a stooge.
April 6th, 2007 at 3:19 pm
I have to agree with Jonah. If you must include unlockables, keep the ratio of unlocked to locked in favor of the unlocked songs. “Unlockables” should be a bonus, not a requirement to enjoy the game. If I pay $40 for my Karaoke Revolution, and only get 10 out of 50 songs, I’m not getting my money’s worth. If I get 25 out of 50, that is more reasonable. The Super Mario analogy doesn’t really work, either, since to get to level 2 from level 1, you just need to get from one side of the board to the other. You don’t have to get to the other side, then go back and kill six additional koopas and activate the secret block and do it all in under two minutes with a high score of 6 million. If I had to do all that, I would expect something a little cooler than level 2.
April 6th, 2007 at 3:28 pm
Hey Jonah, do you complain about racing games that advertise what cars and tracks you can play, but you can’t play them until you unlock them? You never have and it’s the same damn thing. You have to earn your way to the top.
April 6th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
How do you not see the part in your article where you call witheld gameplay illegal?
You know, seriously, as a gamer of average talent, I partially agree with you. As a gamer, it sometimes cheeses me off that I can’t get at parts of the game that my friends can, but I’ve been experience that since Super Mario 3. Nearly every old NES game required you to progress level by level, world by world. They didn’t even call it “unlocking” things. It was just how you progressed through the game.
Furthermore, I’ve found that if I have a friend get me through a certain part of the game, or use a cheat to progress, the game is usually too hard for me, or not fun anymore.
But the little nuances of your article aren’t what bothers me. What bothers me is that you have to insult a person at Joystiq for writing a really fair response to your article. If someone disagrees with you, be a man and take it.
April 6th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
WHAT IS THE PROBLEM HERE??
The most avid GH fans will play the whole game as the designers intended.
If your a ‘casual’ player and want all the songs. THEN USE THE CHEAT CODE
End of story.
April 6th, 2007 at 4:38 pm
Now… while I’m not writing this in defense of the article, I do have to say one thing.
To all you people asking “Where is the fun in being given everything right off the bat?”
Um… could the answer BE any more obvious? Do any of you remember playing Goldeneye and trying to unlock the invincibility cheat? Ask yourselves, was “the fun” in doing the Facility dozens of times to unlock the cheat, or was “the fun” in using it? Personally, I HATED trying to unlock that cheat. Continued repetition of the same thing is only fun for so long.
The question is idiotic. “The fun” lies in having all the different songs to play.
Or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe all you people asking this ridiculous question unlock a song but don’t play it because “the fun” is unlocking it, not using it. Maybe you all keep playing that same song you had to master to unlock the next one.
Because that’s what you’re saying when you ask such a stupid question. “Where’s the fun in having access to all the songs right at the start?” You’re saying you enjoy unlocking them MORE than you enjoy PLAYING the songs you’ve unlocked.
Now, I should add that I’ve never played Guitar Hero. Maybe unlocking songs isn’t that hard, I dunno. I just wanted to nip any “Quit complaining just because you suck” comments. I do suck at Guitar Hero, I’ve never played it. That doesn’t change the point.
Quit being stupid just so you can further disagree with him. Like I said before, I’m not really defending him, but you all are just being morons and someone needed to say something.
April 6th, 2007 at 5:49 pm
but in no way, shape or form did I state unlockable content is against the law.
-Article
This practice is tired, quite frankly, and also is quite illegal: it’s called “deceptive advertising” -Article
…WHAT? YOU CLEARLY SAID IT’S ILLEGAL! Don’t chicken out and change what you’re trying to say when people stop agreeing with you.
April 6th, 2007 at 6:18 pm
So the fun is not in the unlocking of songs, but where is the accomplishment? Do you go through life every single day and have everything handed to you on a silver platter? ‘Cause if that’s the case I’m glad I’m not you. I like feeling like I’ve accomplished something by unlocking every song on the list, it means I earned it and I can feel good about that, but that’s just me. Apparently you’re the type of person who would rather jump all the way to the final boss in Final Fantasy XII instead of fighting your way through every dungeon to earn that ending. Which, in my opinion, makes the game empty and pointless. But then again you don’t like working to earn rewards, do you? So, that’s right up your alley, isn’t it? Have fun impressing your friends with all the content that was just “handed” to you…
April 6th, 2007 at 6:29 pm
This practice is tired, quite frankly, and also is quite illegal: it’s called “deceptive advertising”. - Jonah
You are so full of it. To argue whether or not game content should be available at the start is one thing, but to blatantly imply that game developers are maliciously trying to deceive you is just asinine.
April 6th, 2007 at 6:46 pm
Hey Dezmon, that’s funny, because if you knew what you were talking about you’d learn that he never said unlockable content was illegal; he implied that stating that you’ll get “all of the levels” or “all of the weapons” when in reality, it’s there, but you have to unlock it to use it in the first place. That is deceptive advertising.
April 6th, 2007 at 6:47 pm
“WHAT IS THE PROBLEM HERE??
The most avid GH fans will play the whole game as the designers intended.
If your a ‘casual’ player and want all the songs. THEN USE THE CHEAT CODE
End of story.”
Because ALL games that have unlockable features always have cheat codes. Jesus, you people are beyond retarded.
April 6th, 2007 at 6:58 pm
[...] new comic and post over at Penny-Arcade and came across a link to an article on something called Game Stooge wherein a passably literate writer spelled out his position on unlockable content in Guitar Hero 2 [...]
April 6th, 2007 at 7:04 pm
Dezmon, he never said it was illegal. He said the practice of stating that you’ll get something promised, only to have it be an unlockable feature is illegal. And it is. Promising something that you have to unlock is illegal unless stated otherwise.
April 6th, 2007 at 8:54 pm
I understand that the basis of the argument is unlockable content, but I just wanted to add my two cents about GH2 and its premise.
For those of you who actually played Frequency and/or Amplitude, I apologize if this seems overbearing. For those of you who have not played either of those games:
Guitar Hero 1 and 2 are music games. Yes, they are fun to play with others around and yes, GH2 does have a multiplayer mode. No, GH is not a party game. Multiplayer was added to broaden the audience, but the game is a music game at its heart. Anyone who has ever played any instrument at all understands that you have to start with mind-numbingly easy pieces of music and slowly work your way up to more difficult ones. The first day I picked up an instrument I would have embarassed myself by trying to play something that I considered easy years later.
You progressivly unlock songs in GH once you have exibited the minimum skill level necessary to play the more complex songs that you are unlocking.
I see no problem with having everything available at the start (though that is not my personal preference) as long as a clearly defined skill rating system were in place on the songs. That way, if you popped in the game for the first time and chose a “Superstar” level song when you are at a “Roadie” skill level, you’ll have no on to cry to but mom.
On the subject of “false advertising”…
I’m sick of hearing people claim false advertising when something is no the way they think it should be or when it is not working out in their favor. I had to stand and wait for a cashier at my local EB Games for 30 minutes because of this woman yelling at them about false advertising because of a sale shown in the Sunday ads being over because they were out of stock - she kept screaming about false advertising even though the ad said “while supplies last”. Why must it be false advertising just because you were too slow to get there before they ran out, and why must it be false advertising when you have to put a little bit of effort into a game to make more stuff available.
And don’t try to say that medium is hard. The only time medium difficulty on GH2 was hard for me was when I tried it before bothering with easy. Once I played easy, medium was, well, EASY.
Because I had practiced and increased my skill at the game.
And besides, when your friend brings their controller to your house to play, do you really want to embarass yourself by being incapable of playing “Killing in the Name” competently on Medium?
April 6th, 2007 at 8:57 pm
Well, while I know he doesn’t actually believe its illegal, contrary to what the update says, it IS stated in the article. Looking at the sentances without any modifiers or whatever:
[previously discusses Guitar Hero and unlocking songs...]
“Can you imagine other industries doing THIS [refers to previously mentioned topic] sort of thing?…EXAMPLES…THIS [same THIS as before since nothing new was introduced] sort of thing is…[insert adjectives]…illegal.”
Why did I bother breaking down a few sentences for a seemingly pointless argument? Just that if someone thought you said it was illegal (Joystiq), he had some reason to believe so.
Good article though, on the whole.
I’m tired. Oy.
April 6th, 2007 at 9:07 pm
While unlockable content isn’t a war crime, and makes for lively discussion (just based on all of you angry enough to whine about whining), I understand what Jonah is getting at. Before learning of the cheat code, he didn’t - as a fan of music, I suppose - like the way the game was described or designed.
The tenor of most of the posts on here is puzzling. You think that Jonah’s desire to play a game the way he wants borders on heresy? Treason? Proof of bad upbringing?
If it is childish and stupid to complain about something you don’t like, why are so many of you on here complaining about an article that cost you 5 minutes to read?
April 6th, 2007 at 9:10 pm
“Hey Dezmon, that’s funny, because if you knew what you were talking about you’d learn that he never said unlockable content was illegal; he implied that stating that you’ll get “all of the levels” or “all of the weapons” when in reality, it’s there, but you have to unlock it to use it in the first place. That is deceptive advertising.”
First off you’re right, they didn’t say the song had to be available, but they also didn’t say that the song would be available at the start of the game, either. All they said was that you’ll be able to play such songs as “Sweet Child O’ Mine” etc., which is true if you unlock it. That’s not deceptive at all.
April 6th, 2007 at 9:11 pm
Had to be unlocked, I mean… Must proofread before I post.
April 6th, 2007 at 9:54 pm
For the record, you DID say it was illegal. Since you seem to be in the habit of repeating yourself so other people can understand you, I’ll take a page from your book;
Quote: This practice is tired, quite frankly, and also is quite illegal…
What practice are you talking about? The television show The Practice? My local physician’s practice down the road? No, you’re referring to the practice of… in your own words, “jump[ing] through hoops to access what was advertised on your box”.
Now, I threw my Guitar Hero II box away… I didn’t know I was going to need it as exhibit A… but you claim it says “the game brags you can play various songs, such as “Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight”, “Sweet Child ‘O Mine”, “Carry On My Wayward Son”, “The Beast and the Harlot” and “YYZ”.” Again, you claim it brags, “you can play various songs”. Well, I contend that you CAN play those songs… in fact, maybe it’s a form of divine providence, but I just got done playing a 90 minute session of GHII in which I played, just as the box said I could, all the songs you mentioned.
So let me get this straight; when a game box says I can do something, then I proceed to do it… that’s, how did you put it, “deceptive advertising.” So it’s deceptive to tell someone the truth? Weird, looks like I’ll have to edit my dictionary.
Oh, and here’s two little nuggets pulled straight from your text that contradict each other;
“…only 6 songs are available right from the get-go, and playing through the entire Easy chart only nets you 37 of the 70 songs.”
“getting through Easy doesn’t even unlock songs.”
Pretty good, eh? And I’m not even a detective.
April 6th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
“You missed the part where I said that they were dishonest and implied the song was not immediately available. Had they been honest, they would have said right on the box “Must be unlocked”. etc.” - Jonah
People like you are the reason why coffee now has a warning label on it that says it’s hot…
April 6th, 2007 at 10:17 pm
People like me are the reason you don’t get ripped off every day by companies who want to extract every penny they can out of your pocket. >:)
April 6th, 2007 at 10:38 pm
Guitar Hero is not a Karoke machin