Skate 2 DLC unlocks everything for the lazy gamer

by Dustin Burg on Jan 22nd 2009 5:00PM

There's a new Skate 2 ~~DLC~~ unlock code available for purchase off the Xbox Live Marketplace which - in somewhat of EA tradition - is more about unlocking content then giving gamers new content. The Time is Money Pack costs a hefty 400 Microsoft points and will "unlock all locations, skaters and gear that can be earned by playing through Skate 2's career and online modes." Lazy gamers love paying for their unlock codes, amiright?

Source

Tags: ea, skate-2, xblm

Reader Comments (53)

Wow. It just struck me how bad this is.

What other entertainment does this?

What other entertainment could do it?

Adam, it hasn't struck me how bad this is... please explain in detail, because from where I stand it seems like a totally optional thing for people who probably have very little time for gaming but still like to have access to all of the content in the games they own.

I'll say it a thousand times, there is nothing wrong with trying to make money. This is a completely OPTIONAL feature for people who want to enjoy all of the game they bought without committing 20-30 hours.

But they paid the 60 dollars for the game. That should be enough to then, say, go into a menu and select to unlock everything.

People who can't commit 20-30 hours to the game shouldn't be punished by having to shell out an extra 5 bucks.

I realize that this is optional, but the option should come "free" with the initial 60 dollar price tag.

At the very least, they should include stuff that can't be unlocked by playing the game.

Or you could just rent the game from gamefly, pay $5 to unlock everything, go wild for a few hours and then promptly put it back in the mail.

I think it's a good thing that they are charging for cheat codes. It might encourage frugal gamers to try to unlock things the old fashion way and feel more rewarded for it. And it helps gamers with jobs/kids/time constraints enjoy more of the game they (hopefully) bought. Why is a cheat OK only if it is free? It's still a cheat.

It's not a cheat. It's access to the material you paid for.

Being forced to unlock everything is an antiquated concept.

Quit thinking that people need to derive their self-worth from "earning" the unlockables.

I totally agree with Adam, if you bought the game, why can't you use the clear skateboard!

I just want to know what happened to entering up, up, down, right, left, right and unlocking everything, oh yeah, now I remember, its corporate greed.

http://www.cliffsnotes.com/

A cheat to unlock content is "uuddlrlrba select start" not "pay $5 extra to unlock content".

The only way I can see this as an advantage is for renters, but EA isn't really making a sale off these guys.

What ever happened to simply playing the game, having fun and unlocking stuff along the way? Should achievements also be paid for? This is optional sure, but that doesn't mean it's any less ridiculous.

God bless you, greg.

it has its positive and negative side, on one hand EA is catering to the casual market by making the game more "accessible" so to speak,

on the other hand it says they dont really respect gamers cause they dont think your skilled enough to beat it or will develop the skill to beat it so why not just give it to you.

still, gamers can choose how to spend their money, or not to spend it, so its a gamble I on EA's part I guess,

I think it's more a love of money than a lack of respect... They've done this for several games in the past and it's clearly been an idea that's made enough money on previous games to boot.

Either way though, I can see an application for this... I mean, if it were avaliable, I'd pay $5 to not have to enter the damned unlock code for GHWT every time I want to jam with friends. After how many charlie brown musical instrument games we've been through now, I can't bring myself to slog through another career mode again.

Sold! All i want is to dick around. Wish it was free, but what the hell right? I spend 60, whats another 5 right?

Are you kidding me???

This is probably the most ridiculous thing I've heard.

Paying $60 to buy the game, and paying $5 to beat the game for me. Are you serious?

That's like buying a ticket to watch a movie and paying someone else to tell me the ending. It's ridiculous.

Well... I don't think it beats the game for you, you still have to earn the achievements and whatnot, it just unlocks all the locked stuff... which depending on how one chooses to play a game is not a bad thing.

If someone who doesn't have much time for gaming just wants to sit down and enjoy all the content that the game they bought has to offer... who's to say they won't find this worthwhile?

You may not be the target market dude, but it doesn't mean there's not a target market ;)

Its not beating the game for you... you dont get achievements for beating the game by buying the DLC it just gives you extra gear and areas you can skate as if you played the whole game. but you still have to play the game to get the achievements.

wow aoe how much does ea pay you to say that

Paying real money to unlock stuff on a disc you already payed for is ridiculous. Things like this make my blood boil, nothing pisses me off more than being nickel and dimed

[AoE]
I agree with you on one thing, which is if a person does not have a lot of time to sit down and go through everything, than this *MIGHT* be alright.

[Scuzzy]
I get what your saying dude, but unlocking locations, skates and gear is part of beating the game. It's something that keeps the game have value.

Achievements are made to give the game more fun value, but it's not something to rely on. If I beat a game, but don't have all the achievements unlocked, I still beat the game. Get what I'm saying. Lol.

@CHEA!, EA doesn't pay me shit. Now perhaps you'll answer a question for me... are you stupid or what? This code is totally 100% not required to get total enjoyment out of the game and everything off the disk. It's an unlock code for people who don't want to invest time in the game. What makes you think you're getting nickeled and dimed? If you don't buy it, and choose to beat the game properly, and some other dude does buy it... guess what? At the end of the day you two have the exact same game with the same access to the same content... only you made a time investment and he made a $$$ investment. You see? You see how dlc like this can be ignored?

No... the movie analogy doesn't quite work. The two mediums' payoffs are inherently different: The payoff of a movie is the ending--the payoff of a game is more about the action of *playing* it, not so much the "end" of the game.

With everything unlocked, someone can still enjoy the gameplay which is the primary reason for the medium's existence, and doesn't negate the enjoyment of PLAYING.

With the ending divulged in a medium that relies on STORYTELLING, you've effectively negated that medium's enjoyment.

The sales/market for cheat codes and cheat discs (gamesharks, etc) over the last 20 years can attest to this argument: people still want to play the games, even if they're leveled up and unlocked every item when they start.

In other words, the analogy doesn't logically fit 100%.

[David]

Lol. Thanks for the 9-paragraph of how horrible my analogy was. Haha. I was trying to prove a point. Is this analogy any better:

I bought SKATE 2 for $60. I paid my friend $5 to beat the game for me (this includes unlocking everything). Than, I play the game. Lol.

This whole comment thread is the stupidest argument I've ever read. Well, maybe not ever but geez. If you are somehow offended my EA's shameless money grab, you can always, I don't know, not buy it. I know I won't be.

well, considering i got stuck @ a certain point on the last SKATE, and could not for the life of me progress any further (outside the mansion), i think this might be a good thing, FOR THIS GAME IN PARTICULAR.

sure, it would be great if it was free, but it would be nice to have the whole world opened up, instead of partially since i'm incapable of pulling off some tricks (which is what you have to do to get past the mansion).

Why bother buying the game if you're going to pay EA $5 to finish it for you.

SERIOUSLY...it does NOT beat the game for you...please READ

I did read it. Whatever happened to free input codes to unlock things?

This is like me paying $5 to automatically have every weapon and bobblehead in Fallout 3 to be readily available to me. No searching, no creating. It's all in my inventory (and unlocked house) because I paid good money to have it transferred.

Half of the fun of playing games is to unlock it's content yourself.

In my day, these "Cheats" would be printed in magazines, and wouldn't cost you anything.
Stupid EA/MS, always out for a bit more cash..

BOOO!!

I could've done with one of these for Sonic Unleashed, so I could've seen more than 3 levels. Ah well, never mind. I gave the game away at Xmas, anyway. It can annoy someone else..

So you stole the magazine.

Yes, just like I stole my X360, just to get the "5 Free Arcade Games included!!", and stole my Xbox Live to get a few more Free Arcade Games!!!!

*sigh* I really hate people who come up with that stupid stupid argument..

Sounds like EA is pulling another Battlefield:BC gun unlock price tag thing..

People are quickly getting used to paying for stuff like this, which would have been a free cheat code just a couple of years ago.

Also, I noticed that you have to pay to get the camera options for replay mode that were there in skate 1. Skate 2 only comes with 3 cameras and no colour filters.

Getting achievements does not equal beating the game. Achievements aren't really part of the game at all, honestly. If they didn't exist, the game would be exactly the same. Beating the game means, typically, finishing the story mode, or unlocking 100 percent of the game.

Since the DLC does the latter, technically, it is beating the game for you.

And no, paying for something that you could do yourself in a game is never acceptable. "Unlock everything" used to be a cheat code that game developers put into games for free. Now they're trying to charge money for the exact same thing. It's an exploitation of the DLC market, and Sony and Microsoft need to put their collective feet down and tell companies this kinda thing isn't allowed.

im a big fan of the skate series and to be honest it doesnt worry me that much if i want to i can go buy the code but i most likely wont because i dont think it realy does me any good

my point is gamers like to be rewarded.....so if i beat a challenge i wont to be rewarded by earning new equipment or something........so by allowing the player to just buy it all at once....... wont allow them to reward themsevles by beating a challenge

This is ridiculous. Like people have said before there used to be cheat codes that did this for Free.

Bloody money grabbing execs..

If people want to bend over and take this sort of thing be my guest but just think that because of you EA/MS will continue to charge for stuff that should be free.

I have no problem with this. You can just play the game and unlock everything for free if you want. Otherwise pay for it.

People, this is EA; it's expected for them to do something stupid like this.

I'm shocked they didn't do this with the first one.

What happen to the 'Good Ole Days' just punch in a code & your good.
(up,up,down,down,left right,left,right,b,a,select,start)

LOL @ paying for a cheat/code.

EA Blows

EA is a cancer to the gaming industry, and have been for many, many years.

I don't play Skate, but the problem I have with it is that DLC is supposed to be just that... Downloadable content. You're not downloading any content, you're simply unlocking the content (THAT YOU ALREADY PAID FOR). I certainly don't feel that this should be illegal, but it continues to add to the bad rep that EA has. I certainly hope that this will end up hurting EA in the end so that this type of behavior stops.

Knowing that EA is involved is pretty much a con on any game... I'm not saying that I'll ban it, but if I was on the fence, knowing that EA has something to do with it makes me pass...

Does it unlock all the achievements for the 400 points? Er... I mean... this is horrible!!

I still prefer this or over company's charging for DLC weeks or a month after it's release.

I'm bemused at how people are feeling cheated (no pun intended) by this. Yes, cheat codes have always been free, but I'd love to know when paying to get something quicker and easier became such a ridiculous prospect?!

If you're *not* the kind of person that likes playing games like Skate for the challenge and reward then fair enough but, to be honest, that is kinda what the game's about. If you don't like it, well then that's kinda your problem to deal with, usually if a game's too hard or too long people either just have to a) give up, or b) get better.

Just be thankful that those of you not into the whole challenge/reward thing, or those simply too lazy, actually have an opportunity to bypass this and shorten your game if that's really your thing...

Guitar Hero however, is a different matter. GH and RB are essentially 'party games', having their content unlockable for free is sensible as they've convinced you to buy it based on the songs you'd like to play, not on the challenge of the career.

I don't know why so many people are pissed off about this. It doesn't unlock any content you can't get on your own. It's not like there's 15 more characters on the disk and you can't get them without paying. Either you play through the game and unlock everything, or you pay $5 and unlock everything at the start. 100% optional and 100% unnecessary, but it's 100% profit for EA. It's a great business move, and if a few casual gamers throw EA $5 each for this DLC, that's just more money to invest into Skate 3.

Considering EA had to lay off 200 employees from BlackBox (the studio that made skate 2) I'm not mad at them for trying to make some extra money. I too, want a skate 3 to come out at some point.

I remember the days where putting in a complicated series of button presses would do the same thing. Man, I miss those days .

Putting all your credit card information into XBLA requires a ton of button presses and can also be complicated... so maybe those days aren't gone? Just... more expensive ;)

Forget the old Konami code, we now have the EA code!!

X, A. That's it.
X to add MS Points, A to buy the content.

I kind of like the idea. I'm married with a 5 month old son and work a full time job + overtime. I don't have 20 to 30 hours to unlock all of the cool stuff just so I can enjoy a full fledged online experience with friends right out of the box. I hate popping a game in expecting to have a blast doing 2 player with a cousin over. It's a disappointment to only be able to use a couple tracks / maps.

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Skate 2 DLC unlocks everything for the lazy gamer

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