Guitar Hero Designer Responds to Unlockable Content Controversy
- Scribbled on April 6th, 2007 by S Holmes
- Filed in Editorial Content, Features, Microsoft Xbox 360, Music/Rhythm, Sony PlayStation 2
Whew! It’s been one helluva week here on Game Stooge. Despite being the first site to break the story on the Guitar Hero whammy bar problems AND Gears of War respawning, it’s been Jonah’s article on unlockable content that has really set the comments section ablaze.
The fire from all these comments burned so bright that one of the developers of Guitar Hero II took notice and stopped by to give his thoughts on the issue. Chris Canfield, listed as Game Designer for Guitar Hero II, acknowledged the subsection of gamers who prefer to have all the content available to them immediately. He went on to explain the developer’s efforts to balance these gamers’ interests with gamers who enjoy the challenge of unlocking content.
In addition to providing the “all unlock” cheat codes for the game, he encouraged gamers to contact him with any thoughts on “how [the development team] can further satisfy the needs of this group while retaining a difficulty curve and rewards structure.” You can check out his full comment after the break.
The writers at Game Stooge would like to openly thank Mr. Canfield for stopping by to participate in what has become quite a controversial topic. We certainly wish more developers would respond to gamers’ thoughts this directly.
A quick scan of comments here on Game Stooge and other sites shows that gamers’ opinions on unlockable content are significantly divided. But no matter what your thoughts are on this issue, one thing is certain: discussions like this are important for letting developers know exactly what gamers want (and don’t want) and in molding the future of video games.
Chris Canfield Says:
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 1:24 pm
I love the Internet, this story went from something as simple as “I don’t like locking features in games” to “Guitar Hero is doing illegal activities” and worse.
Really, its a blog about a guy that loves GH2 and just wishes they did things a bit different – not a huge flame battle. But, so goes the wildfire of the Internet.
I’m happy that Chris stopped by to say hello and to speak with the community. That’s something not enough developers do and it makes the game that much better – to know they care. They’re trying to make money, sure, but they’re humans too and they put in a LOT of time and energy into producing this stuff. It makes it more real when they actually take the time to speak with a voice that’s NOT their employer.
It shows passion.
April 6th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
Actually, the story STARTED as “Guitar Hero is doing illegal activities”. To quote directly from the original article:
*This practice is tired, quite frankly, and also is quite illegal: it’s called “deceptive advertising”.*
If you want to start a discussion about the pros and cons of unlockable content, then that’s certainly fine and good. If you want to accuse a developer of illegal activities, though, you really should have something more solid than “their game contains a game.”
April 6th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
You’re right about how the article started. But I think the deceptive advertising part of the article has been addressed. I know I chimed in on multiple sites as did other attorneys. Despite what some people would like to believe, like most legal issues, a case could certainly be made – that doesn’t mean that it would win or it would even be good.
What’s more important now is the discussion that the article has (inadvertently?) caused about unlockable content. I’m really surprised to hear how divided it is.
April 6th, 2007 at 2:54 pm
“Actually, the story STARTED as ‘Guitar Hero is doing illegal activities’. To quote directly from the original article:”
Actually, it started as an unlockable rant about games locking features. You quote the last section of the article, articles start at the top
I won’t argue the “legality” of the situation, that’s Mr. Holmes department
April 6th, 2007 at 4:31 pm
As much as I am interested in the discusion around Guitar Hero II and as thankful as I am for Mr. Canfield’s comments on the other post, I’m not really sure having the game’s designer post on the board counts as anything resembling news.
April 6th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. So game developers beware, do not… I repeat, do not include that your game contains 12 levels, because some dumb noob mighten be able to get past level two and then try to sue you because he cannot get to the 12th level without beating the other 10. lol. Maybe you shouldn’t suck at the game and just play it. The reason you can’t play the unlocked songs is because you wont have the skills at first to play them. Work your way up you dumb lame n00bs!
April 6th, 2007 at 7:30 pm
So if we get them all the content from the get-go, what is the incentive to improve and play the game? There has to be some kind of reward structure, otherwise you’re left with an unfulfilling game.
And GH did nothing illegal. They said all the songs are playable, they are all playable. Nowhere does it say all are immediately playable.
April 6th, 2007 at 10:35 pm
Either way, it doesn’t matter, this game will rock.
_____________
http://www.howtogetfreewiipoints.com
April 7th, 2007 at 3:04 am
These are the same type of morons that try to sue McDonalds for making them fat! Grow up people!
Not everyone can make it to the playoffs. If you can’t get that far and refuse to earn it, then you probably don’t deserve or have the skills to get there.
April 7th, 2007 at 6:31 am
This is absolutely stupid. If GH2 is illegal for that…would every other game be also? You have to beat level one to level 2, Level 2 to level so on, so forth.. So thats called illegal now? In my opinion; people try to find ways to cause trouble.
April 7th, 2007 at 7:37 am
“I love the Internet, this story went from something as simple as “I don’t like locking features in games” to “Guitar Hero is doing illegal activities” and worse.”
“Actually, it started as an unlockable rant about games locking features.”
To be fair, I think Drocket was pointing out that the accusation of the process being illegal was made within the body of the article, and was not a result of it being blown out of proportion.
Your description of the article makes it sound like the article started out as something simple and decent, and then ‘the people’ started scream and shouting about law breaking. It is just a matter of semantic really, but the article did make the accusation that it was illegal.
Everyone, remember that when you write this into the great stone columns of history.
April 7th, 2007 at 8:51 am
Since I bought this game simply for my 360-Parties I like the idea of an UNLOCK ALL SONGS CODE.
I cannot get the code posted to work.
Funny the code won’t work since it was supposed to do so and came from a developer?!?
I hope I did enter it the correct way.
In the main menu and the “Codes” stand for
B = BLUE
Y = YELLOW
O = ORANGE
R = RED
April 7th, 2007 at 10:22 am
I cannot get this to work either. Any help?
April 7th, 2007 at 10:27 am
Um. Hi i just wanted to add 2 cents to the pot. I love the guitar hero games they are a fun distraction and a good drunken Party game. But i dont particularly understand the complaints, Personally ive played the first two iterations a little to much becasue i completed medium in one night (Wooo!!!! Ranked 5036th after my first session Hardcore!!!!!
) and got enough cash to buy all the Bonus tracks in one go. “simply becasue the next day my friends nad i could Play Co op or face off.”
The Point of the games changed tracklist and the locked tracks is to encourage you to practice all the songs not just your fav 5 songs you always play in quickplay mode. In fact New gamers to guitar hero should start with the old songs on easy and wrok their way up theres no enjoyment in ssimply playing a song without a little effort its a little sad to complain that your just not good enough to unlock a song. I cant remember much complaining back with GH1 Everyone learned the hard way through trial and error, Remember children you arnt always going to win in life sometimes youve got to Fail a song to get better at it, youll always remember that one solo that Kicked your ass for a week.
I personally find the whole leave everything open argument as rediculous simply because if it didnt require a code or a little effort The carrer mode would be useless.
So play nice and Enjoy the RAWK! ^_^
As a side note my 360 Crapped out Right after my first game of GH2 So your High scores are safe…. for now.
April 7th, 2007 at 10:52 am
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April 7th, 2007 at 11:37 am
Yeah, the code doesn’t work at all so I wonder if that was even an update from the developer.
April 7th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
I tried the codes multiple times and could not get either to work. On gamefaqs.com they have some codes that have some ascetic affects and they work but these codes that unlock all songs seam impossible or are bogus.
April 7th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
[...] to Unlockable Content Controversy Filed under: Uncategorized — recar @ 7:48 pm Guitar Hero Designer Responds to Unlockable Content Controversy Chris Canfield, listed as Game Designer for Guitar Hero II, acknowledged the subsection of gamers [...]
April 7th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
[...] read more | digg story [...]
April 7th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
I like the thought of both unlockable content and cheat-able (if that is even a word) content.
I heard the “unlock all” codes only work on PAL systems, is that true?
April 7th, 2007 at 4:01 pm
I can’t get the code to work either. I’m going to a big party tonight and it would be nice for everyone to just pick whatever they want. =\
April 7th, 2007 at 4:21 pm
I couldn’t get the code to work either. Suckzors… =(
April 7th, 2007 at 7:33 pm
Umm… no place on the 360 version to put in a code.. UGH
April 7th, 2007 at 7:50 pm
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April 7th, 2007 at 9:43 pm
I can’t get the code to work on PAL Xbox 360 either – where the hell are you supposed to input the button sequence?
April 8th, 2007 at 2:24 am
” I heard the “unlock all” codes only work on PAL systems, is that true? ”
NO. I do have a PAL console – and the code WILL NOT work for me either.
So I think we can say – THE POSTED UNLOCK CODE IS CRAP!
We can now thank the writer of this article for getting hopes up and crushing them :-/ He doesn’t even bother commenting on it…
April 8th, 2007 at 6:08 am
The code mentioned was originally for the PS2 version. I’m not sure if it will work with the 360. You should enter it at the main screen (where it says Career, Quickplay, Multiplayer, etc.) On the PS2 it usually takes a few tries. Haven’t got it to work on the 360 yet either. Maybe they’ll release a specific 360 code sometime in the near future. Patience!!!
April 8th, 2007 at 9:17 am
[...] 1: It looks like GH II’s game designer Chris Canfield responded to Game Stooge’s post with insight into their decisions and, for those of you who want their [...]
April 8th, 2007 at 9:18 am
“So I think we can say – THE POSTED UNLOCK CODE IS CRAP!
We can now thank the writer of this article for getting hopes up and crushing them :-/ He doesn’t even bother commenting on it…”
As the article indicates, the code was provided by one of Guitar Hero’s designers, not me. I only reported on it. The story is about the designer’s response to the unlockable controversy. It’s not a story about what to do if you want to unlock everything in Guitar Hero.
I’m not sure what you’re expecting from me, but if the code doesn’t work, I suggest you contact the designer as he instructed or contact RedOctane and inform them of the problem.
I haven’t tried the code because I don’t want to unlock everything.
April 8th, 2007 at 10:17 am
i can’t believe people even buy this crap game,
for $50 you can get a real guitar and actually learn how to play the songs you like ,
April 8th, 2007 at 10:37 am
“Maybe they’ll release a specific 360 code sometime in the near future.”
Yeah, here’s hoping they don’t try and sell it to us…
April 8th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
I bought GH2 on Friday, and over the course of Friday evening and Saturday evening — with the help of a few friends and a few dozen beers — have completed the career progressions on medium and hard, giving enough cash to unlock every song, the guitars and finishes I like best, and the Grim Reaper as a character.
Really, guys, it’s not that hard.
P.S. This game is tough. If you do not start on easy (or medium, if you’ve got a sense of rhythm) and play your way through, you couldn’t handle the tougher songs, anyway.
On Friday I couldn’t last ten seconds into the high-tier songs on Hard, and could barely pass them on Medium.
Now I’m working my way through expert, and frankly, the experience of playing this game and progressing forward in difficulty has been one of the most rewarding gaming experiences I’ve ever enjoyed.
So quit whining, pick up the guitar, and start rocking!
April 8th, 2007 at 10:32 pm
The game clearly stated that there would be over 50 levels… however, when i put in the disk, i could only play level one!!!
April 9th, 2007 at 6:25 am
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April 17th, 2007 at 11:23 pm
wow…
first off:
those codes were for the PS2
second off, he listed two codes
1 for PAL
and another for the other thing
look up Xbox360 unlock everything code
you can find it
and as for the content…
it said there are over 40 songs, it didnt say you could play them right off
beat the songs your stuck with to advance, just like a REAL VIDEO GAME
(level 1, level 2, ect)
April 18th, 2007 at 5:43 am
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April 23rd, 2007 at 6:39 pm
As another poster pointed out, those were the PS2 unlock codes. I should have mentioned that. Sorry!
April 25th, 2007 at 6:00 pm
I agree with derrick’s comment. I mean everyone is selling a product that’s the way the world works, no matter if your engineer or what, you’re selling a product or selling yourself. Its good however when people are working on something they are passionate about and respond to complaints.
June 11th, 2007 at 7:25 pm
It is important that developers like Chris stay in touch with the community. I applaud him for putting his face on the firing line. That’s the way to turn mere skill into greatness. Thanks for coming, Chris!
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November 21st, 2007 at 10:31 am
hey listen i know this may be out of context but i really think that guitar hero would make a little more money if they made a country guitar hero. I’d buy it and i bet serveral other people eould to so i think it would be a really good idea!!!!