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.
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Totally, totally agreed. I love unlockables, and most of the time, I wish the games I played had more of them.
(Sorry for late comment, but as the subject is close to my heart and I only stumbled upon your site now…)
I agree with you wholeheartedly. I really like unlockables, but the practice of keeping all the good stuff locked away is absurd.
Developers seem to have realized this, too, as for example Project Gotham Racing 3 gives you the good cars right from the get-go - indeed, you have to buy the oft-cursed Mini from Xbox Live Marketplace, if you really want to drive one
I’ve seen this discussed in Edge magazine at least.
As I have less and less time to play games, I really can’t be arsed to spend hours and hours merely to unlock content I’ve already paid for. With the Xbox 360, the Gamerscore Achievements are enough of an “unlockable” for me, I don’t want the content to be shelved.
I would agree to an extent but the unlockables must be achievable through effort rather than gaming talent.
In Chessmaster, if you constantly challenge yourself by playing players above your rank (the only way to progress) then you will most likely lose and eventually get bored and play another game. The only way to get the unlockables would be to slum it in the lower ranks and thrash all the bad players, which I’m sure isn’t what the game developers had in mind.