My buddy Jerry over at Penny-Arcade today discusses what I'm sure a lot of folks (myself included) get frustrated about: unlockable content.

His concern is a real and valid one, and it's a tough road to hoe as a game developer. On one hand, the consumer deserves the whole product. They paid for it, they should get to play it. But on the other hand, if the player gets all the content up front, in many cases, this makes the game experience dull and unrewarding.

The example of Guitar Hero he uses is a good one for games that might be better served by having a great deal of content unlocked up front. I for one am frustrated with just the PS2 version of GH2 right now. I'm kinda stuck on level 7 on expert. I don't really know any of those songs, so I have to practice them ad infinitum 'till I learn them, and to be honest, I really don't care to play them. I just want to skip ahead to level 8. But then again, I really like the idea of unlocking that Encore, and coming into playing that song for the first time after beating that whole section, never having practiced it, and nailing it. There's a bit of a rush there. It's electric.

So as game developers we're challenged with balancing that experience out. If I had every song to pick from in GH2, I probably would have quit playing it a long time ago, never having beaten every song, and not feeling very fulfilled. I would have picked through the songs I liked, played those to death, and then just put the game away. It might not have been the compelling experience that GH1 was.

The experience, of course, isn't just relegated to Guitar Hero. I think we need to unlock content to a certain extent to keep the player interested. I guess the best example I have of this is in examining a few demos I played recently. The first three examples were Dead Rising, Crackdown, and to some extent, even RainbowSix: Vegas. These were all excellent demos, and when I started playing them, all three had me "sold" on buying a copy of the game. But the problem was that after replaying the demo a few times, I came to the conclusion that, basically, that was it. I had experienced the entire game in one demo. After playing the Dead Rising demo four times (for an hour total), I was left with "meh" and didn't care to continue the story. I was done hacking zombies. Same thing with Crackdown. I dare say that allowing me to level up 4 times in leaping in 20 minutes (giving the player all of the content up front) was a mistake. The demo is more fun than the "grind" of actually playing the game. To some extent, this proves Jerry's point, but the problem is that I burned out on the content in 20 minutes. I don't feel that I ever need to pick up and play Crackdown ever again. Most importantly, it cost them a purchase.

Enter: the God of War 2 demo. Not only is it an outstanding game, it's an outstanding demo. It gives you tastes of mechanics piecemeal. You chop bad guys here. You swing from a rope there. You climb up a cliff wall here. You fight a boss segment there. It's not delivered all at once. It comes in waves, teaching the player, and drawing them further along into the gameplay experience. I think if it gave you every tool in the shed right up front, the player would be overwhelmed and confused.

But, the demo plays the most insidious trick, and it convinced me that unlocking content (properly, mind you) is key. Why? It pulled Gamus Interuptus. It didn't let you finish the boss battle. Surprisingly, I wasn't frustrated. I left the experience wanting more. It made me want to purchase the final product and experience what it was they were temporarily hiding from me. I realized that the entire game was scaled up with basically unlockable content.

Really, we play unlockable content every day, in every game. It's the nature of gaming. You can't fight the boss without first making it through the waves of grunts; you can't level up without first acquiring the experience points to do so; you can't just jump to the end of the game without playing the levels in order; you can't play the encore without first rocking the crowd. When unlocking content is done right, we love it, and hardly even notice it. But when it's done wrong...hooo boy. Hell hath no fury like a gamer's scorn.