The Games of my Life

A couple of days ago, I bought Chessmaster 10th Edition, as it was ridiculously cheap. Great game, the best tutorials ever, incredible graphics, and all that. But one feature caught my attention: several chess sets needed to be unlocked! “You need to win 25 rated games to unlock this set”, and so on.

This is common in many kinds of games, such as racing games, but in a chess game? It was certainly new to me.

And this got me thinking about unlockables. I’ve seen people saying that they don’t like them - why shouldn’t all the content be available from the start? Why should I have to work to get it all? Besides, a game with 20 cars has as many cars as one with 10 from the start, and 10 which need to be unlocked.

But… I like unlockables. Sure, in the end the content is the same, but unlockables mean that there’s always something new in the near horizon, always one more goal. And when you do unlock it, it’s a novelty.

Using the cars example: if you have 20 cars from the beginning, you probably try 3 or 4, choose a favorite, and use just that one from now on. If you have to unlock most of them, on the other hand, you will probably try out each new one as it’s unlocked. Much better, isn’t it?

So, game designers, please ignore the cries of lazy, instant gratification gamers. To them, playing isn’t a joy, it’s a chore, it’s “work”, which they do just to get to the end and “beat” the game.