Pay to Cheat

[Shayne]

The Xbox 360 has been out for almost a year, and publishers are still experimenting to find the best way to make money and serve their customers with downloadable content for games. The latest approach comes from Electronic Arts, which has released a handful of downloadable add-ons for Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2007 on the Xbox Live Marketplace today.

What makes some of these add-ons unusual is that they merely give players instant access to things they would normally have to unlock in the course of normal play. So gamers can download the Unlock Golfer and Unlock Courses add-ons for 200 points ($2.50) each and open up all the hidden golfers and courses in the game without ever having to set foot on the virtual fairways.

Players wanting to take a shortcut to greatness can also shell out 200 points for the Maxed-Out Player add-on, which will set their created golfers' stats to 110 percent across the board. Finally, the more expensive Pro Shop add-on (300 points, or $3.75) will unlock all of the pro shop gear for the player's use.

Not all of the Tiger Woods add-ons being offered can be earned by actually playing the game, however. The Sunday Tiger download (240 points, or $3) is exclusive to the Marketplace, and allows players to hit the links as Woods in his trademark tournament-ending red shirt.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 for the Xbox 360 is scheduled to release later this week. It is rated E for Everyone and will retail for $59.99.

Source: http://www.gamespot.com/news/6159881.html

I have to admit I am very torn.  One one hand their are a bunch of games that I have/played and wish that I could have gotten the Uber car, or Uber weapon, or some other nifty unlockable but my skills just were not good enough or I had to take back the game from where I rented/borrowed.

To spend $10 and unlock them all seems like a bargain, but you lose the feeling of accomplishment when you finally do unlock what you have been questing towards.  I see myself spending coin this way if I got friends coming over and we want to play some Tiger Woods, or some racing game with locked tracks and cars (Full Auto anyone?).

[Lazybones]

I can see where it would be a nice option, but your right.. What is the point of playing if you have nothing to accomplish?

[Shayne]

Well, in games that are story driven I see this being rather pointless.  Imagine playing mega man and getting access to all the weapons at the start, that would make it a breeze.

However if I buy a sports game like Tiger Woods, why should the courses be locked down?  I bet their is a lot of coding done that has never been accessed by many people especially in sports or racing games.

[Mr. Analog]

I vote yes, with a but...

Games are all about having fun, if you have more fun with a game by changing it to your benefit, well then go right ahead. If you change it to your benefit at the expense of someone else, you're being a dick and eventually no one will play with you or if the game you are corrupting ruins the experience for the majority popularity will drop off, you'll get bored and move on (leaving the core gamers their game).

I look for unlockable content cheats all the time (I play a lot of fighting games with hidden characters or racing games with secret cars), sure it can be fun winning side races or beating 24 characters in a row with no losses but it's just a time sink most of the time and I'd rather have the content now (so I plug in the code).

There are some games (at least for me) that are nearly impossible to finish without cheating (like Metal Gear on the NES) and some games that are challenging to beat to the point that cheating a smidge becomes too tempting (DOOM).

Of course, when you are playing with or against other people things change. I mean in a game like WOW you get a lot of people with stat envy. If you got to level 60 without min/maxing your character and struggling through some parts and learning and growing as both a character and player I'd be impressed, but sadly most people on WOW don't see any reason why they shouldn't min/max their class or script mundane tasks for the purpose of XP farming. to me players like that aren't really playing the game, they're just metagmaing. I mean, if WOW was a better game you'd have just one shot at things like Onyxia (sp) win or lose (again just my preference). Cheating becomes less relevant in the world of MMOs if no one cares that you've maxxed your damage or that you've reached the level cap. In most "real" RPGs once you've reached the level cap you have near-godlike powers and your character is retired, end of the road y'know?

Pen & Paper RPGing can have similar problems with players "munchkining" (less so because they have skill points wasted all over the pace), min/maxing (this can be problematic especially when players start wanting to use odd feats / skills from supplements that may have loopholes in them) and hoarding wealth to get certain items of power at lower levels to get an overbalancing stat boost. This is less problematic in pen & paper RPGing since if a character gets too off balance the DM can detect it easier and shift the challenges upwards until a balance is met.

I dunno, just some rambling thoughts...

[Darren Dirt]

In general, I think anyone who has lotsa money and little time can go ahead and "cheat" by buying whatever is offered for sale by anybody (the company, folks on eBay, the guy in the back alley wearing a trenchcoat) ... in the case of game content, it seems only fair that those offering the game itself make it clear to all players of the possibility of said "cheating" ("additional content", whatever they choose to call it).

In other words, make the information freely available, and let the consumers decide whether or not to partake. Laissez faire.

To spend $10 and unlock them all seems like a bargain, but you lose the feeling of accomplishment when you finally do unlock what you have been questing towards.

Many people play games for that reason, others play them for different reasons (or reasons can change from the first few days compared to weeks later when that Damn Boss Just Won't Die ) so I figure, let the gamer choose. The saying "time is money" makes sense, because you have to invest time to get money -- it's a medium of exchange for your life force, basically. Some people value their time/future-life-force more than their money/past-spent-life-force so they might choose to unlock via a little cash. More power to 'em. Literally.

[Shayne]

Devs need to be sure that these paid for cheats cant be used in competition with others.  If they allow it that starts to be a very slippery slope.  If i can pay $50 for an instant kill spell and you can't that basically makes the game tailored to those with the cash.

[Mr. Analog]

Devs need to be sure that these paid for cheats cant be used in competition with others.  If they allow it that starts to be a very slippery slope.  If i can pay $50 for an instant kill spell and you can't that basically makes the game tailored to those with the cash.

I think that sorts itself out naturally, since the game becomes less enjoyable to most players it would either have to change and make stuff like that available to all or shrivel up and die. Of course community support helps, there are plenty of TeamFortress servers with ban lists that encompass whole IP ranges

[Darren Dirt]

related, new thread:
"Micro-transactions not so Micro"