Frustration With Oblivion Mod Costs on Xbox Live

Vizionary wrote to mention the player backlash swelling out of a recent addition to Xbox Live. Major Nelson's blog made the announcement that they'd finally added the (previously announced) barding for the player mount in Oblivion. The catch is that the simple modification costs 200 points, removing a lot of the appeal of the small mods the Elder Scrolls series has thrived on. From commenter 'SW 1540' on that site: "Unquestionably, some downloadable content should cost money/points. Having said that, the cost of that content should be directly proportional to the enhancement it provides to the original game. For example, I would expect to pay $20.00 for the soon to come Perfect Dark Zero maps or new cars for Project Gotham. On the other hand, I would expect any additional costumes for PDZ to be free. I imagine there is good arguments on both sides, but one can see that the potential is there to exploit an eager fan. "

Comments

Online PC Games

[CastrTroy]

Remember when people used to play online games on PC, and there was thousands of Maps, Models, and complete game Mods available for free on the internet. Oh, and you could play for free, as long as you could find someone who wanted to run the server. Yeah, those were the days.

"barding for the player mount"

[kentyman]

Christ. It's pronounced "horse armor".

Re:"barding for the player mount"

[Minwee]

"Barding". Well, ooh la di da, Mr. French Man. And it's not a "garage", it's a "car hole"

Conversions please?

[Krach42]

How much money is 200 points? Not everyone plays X-Box Live you know.

Re:Conversions please?

[misfit13b]

$2.50. 80 points = US$1

Buyer's Remorse

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to say it, but I'm one of the tools that just egged them on yesterday by buying the download. I felt awful about it afterwards because:

A - It wasn't worth $2.50.
B - They really shouldn't be rewarded for charging for something that used to be free and probably should've been free considering the 360 owners already paid more than the PC people.

You may now "crucificate" me.

"Ha Ha!"

[Tridus]

Must feel nice for 360 owners to pay more for the game, then get the privilege of paying for stuff that PC gamers can simply download (or make) for free.

Seriously, $2.50 for horse armor? At that rate, I can only imagine what actual content would cost.

just the beginning

[rabbot]

You're going to see a lot of developers holding back content so they can make you pay more through XBox Live. Here's hoping Nintendo and Sony take full advantage of the mistakes that are being made with Live. This is a great example of what *not* to do with an online service. Micropayments will be their downfall.

Re:just the beginning

[Lord_Dweomer]

"You're going to see a lot of developers holding back content so they can make you pay more through XBox Live."

You think this is just for XBox Live? I got news for you...this kind of bullshit has already been pulled, quite successfully, by EA with BF2.

First, they started with their regular expansions. You know the drill...some cool new gameplay elements (like rocketpack, etc), a slew of items, and MANY new maps. Then we had the bullshit that was Special Forces. Now, by itself, it was pretty cool. However, what was utterly unexceptable was that EA allowed people who purchased that expansion to use their new uber-weapons in the regular BF2 game. And the only way players who didn't have the expansion could obtain those weapons was to pick them up off the corpses of people carrying them. In essence, EA enabled players to pay to upgrade their weapons in the game.

Then it progressed to crap like the Euro forces expansion, which is basically $10 for 3 maps, 4 vehicles and 7 weapons. Now, many have said it was a good value...I personally feel it was an over-priced money grab. And they are continually trying to crank out mini-expansion packs at an inflated cost.

The other great example is Valve with their "episodic gaming" vision. While normally you'd pay roughly half of the price of the retail game for approx. 1/2 the value of the content of the full game for an expansion, they've now shifted that by charging you $20, or roughly 1/3 the price for what amounts to 1/5 the content.

The overall trend here is that all of these game companies are drooling over the success of the monthly revenue stream provided by subscriptions from MMO's and such while at the same time salivating over the potential to sell things on a per-item basis with next to zero distribution costs in the way that cell-phone companies sell ringtones etc.

Everybody ignores this slippery slope, but I'm glad players are standing up for this for once, even though its just because of the issue of Xbox players got charged while PC gamers didn't. The reality is that NEITHER should have been charged for something that insignificant.

Whatever happened to free patches that gave great new content? Nowadays the only free patches are those that fix horrendous bugs which the game shouldn't have even been released with in the first place.

End result: You pay $60 for the original game + what amounts to a monthly fee for as many "episodic expansions" as they can cram down your throat + whatever nickle & dime upgrades they can make you buy in order to even remain competitive with your fellow gamers.

It is utterly disgusting and unfortunately I see no hope of this situation improving at all.

MMO-RPG vs Single Player RPG

[rain9441]

In an MMORPG, its against policy to sell in-game items to other players. In single player RPGs, its policy to sell in-game items to players. Now I'm confused.

Exploitation? Yeah right...

[Watter]

but one can see that the potential is there to exploit an eager fan.

That's called a free market. The only time "exploit" can be used to describe letting free markets work is in situations like price gouging during a hurricane something like that. Good grief, folks. If they think it's an unfair price, then by golly, take the 'drastic' step of not buying it. If enough folks buy it at the price offered, then I guess it wasn't too high after all.

Give me a Break

[Covetous Knight]

It's really mind-boggling that Bethesda thinks it's okay to sell a CD full of actual content for $50-70, and still thinking it's okay to sell a couple of extra skins for $1.99-$2.50.

Why didn't they follow the same pricing model when selling their game? Surely if 2 skins are worth $2.50, then an entire CD filled with thousands of skins, logic, sprawling maps, etc would be worth several thousands of dollars per disc.

Bethesda should be ashamed.

Charging for the PC Addons too

[mwsmith824]

Looks like they're charging for the PC addons as well. And have a couple more than just horse armor. I don't know that they're worth the $2 they're selling them for after all the free goodies the community created for Morrowwind but it'll be interesting to see if any other game devs follow their lead.

Before everyone freaks out here, too...

[DanthemaninVA1]

This is Bethesda's doing, and not Microsoft's. Apparently, if you want the official Bethesda horse armor mod on the PC, you still have to pay $2.50, which is roughly the equivalent of 200 MS points.

I honestly don't see why everyone is freaking out about this; message boards seem to have exploded in rage all over the internet since yesterday, and it's really not that big a deal. I don't feel like $2.50 is worth a mod that doesn't actually do anything (the "armor" doesn't actually increase the horse's armor class, it just makes it look nice), and I feel like a lot of people are thinking the same thing. When Bethesda finds out that people aren't willing to pay that amount for so little, I'm guessing that future content will be priced more in line with the value it gives players. All in all, this really has nothing to do with Microsoft or how horrible the 360 is, but with why Bethesda chose that price for this particular content.

And do you remember

[Sycraft-fu]

Those simple, powerful PCs that cost around $500, were compatible with ALL PC games, didn't need upgrading until the next complete system generation... Ya, me neither.

PCs and consoles aren't the same thing and aren't the same market. One simple, obvious difference would be price. The 360s are priced as cheap as their corrisponding graphics card for a PC. To get 360 level graphics, you need something on the order of a Radeon 1900XT. That's like $450 just for a graphics card, never mind the system needed to support it.

What it basically comes down to is the PC is a totally open environment. You set your hardware up as you like, you run the software you like, you mod it as you like, etc. That's how I like it and why I'll spend the money to play games on a PC (well that and I'd have a pwoerful PC regardless of games). However let's not pretend like it's always easy. Just last night I was fighting with an older game (KOTOR) to make it work well on my modern hardware which is way more than it needs.

Consoles are a more managed environment. The console maker supplies you with one, fixed system that you use and you don't tinker with it. All games work because they are certified and they know the platform they are writing for. There's no unexpected compatiblity problems with new hardware or software. They have a simple interface and do only one thing.

Well the whole pay-for X-box live service is really an extension of that model. Everything is centrally managed and controlled. It means you can't just go and run your own service but also means you don't have to rely on people who do. I can say form the Quake days there was a wide varity of servers out there. Some were top notch speed and stability wise (and usually hard to get a spot on) some played like they were being run on a 486 in some guy's bedroom... PRobably because they were being run on a 486 in some guy's bedroom.

I don't particularly think either PC or console gaming is superior, just different. I own a powerful PC anyhow, like PC games better, and value the ablity to hack around on my games so I do PC gaming. However I can see the appeal of the console system. Buy one, cheaper unit that will not be outdated for a number of years, then pay a service fee for someone to run the whole online aspect. It's simpler, and even after years of playing would add up to what the core of my current computer cost me.

Original Story Submission

[Vizionary]

Thanks Zonk! I'm glad this submission was accepted, but feel the original "tone" was lost in translation, so I'm posting it here just "for the record". Note: I was quite angry when I submitted it.

------------------
Micro$oft's marketing droids have fired the first salvo in the latest round of Digital Restrictions Management Warfare. Oblivion, by Bethesda, widely believed to be the strongest candidate for 2006 Game Of The Year, has begun providing downloadable content via XBOX Live. This could be great news, but at roughly $2.50 for downloadable Horse Armor a mere two weeks after the game shipped, we all know this was carved from the game to be sold separately. Bethesda is also to blame here, with other similarly priced content on the way. How long until "essential" game content is withheld from a game release, only to be downloaded in Pay-Per-Play chunks?
------------------

Please note that I'm definitely not against pay-per-play as a viable model, however, for these guys to charge $2.50 for what basically amounts to a few texture maps and a mesh is a big step over the edge onto a slippery slope that could (will?) lead to more egregious violations of player trust. And, before everyone says "if you don't like it, don't buy it"...believe me, I won't. However, it's important to understand that without public backlash over this, the folks behind these machinations will continue forward, "innovating" online gaming to the point where you won't be able to complete a $60 game you purchased until you've spent another $40 on pseudo-essential add-ons. (Not picking on you, Bethesda, we love you guys!!!)

Why did I mention Digital Restrictions Management? Glad you asked. If player contributed content were available via XBOX Live, the "power" of this type of marketing ploy would be diffused against other, more affordable (even free in some cases) mods. Why no player contributed content? Well, first you need Micro$oft's permission to provide anything via Live. And, well, we'll just leave the DRM issue right there...it's just beating a dead horse with armor.

But, I digress...

Thank You, Bethesda, for Oblivion! You've restored my faith in immersive, interactive storytelling! Please use your amazing success with this game to help protect the future of downloadable content. I suppose that one way to do that would be to ensure that the price of content is in-line with the value of the content. And, it would be really nice if it were also tied to the actual "cost" of the content...but, hey, we can always dream.

Re:Original Story Submission

[Kjella]

Wait, a long and fuming rant about a $2.50 skin for a game, and the editors actually edited it down to a fairly reasonable story intro? If I didn't know better, I'd say the editors are doing their job. Careful guys, you're scaring me... ;)

id10t Error

[cybrthng]

No one forces you to buy a 360, no one forces you to buy Oblivion, no one forces you to buy Horse armor, no one forces you to buy Xbox live.

You buy it because you choose to do so. You buy it because it works, because you enjoy it and because you don't mind paying for someones hard work.

Sure horse armor for 2.50 is a joke. I don't dispute that. However the 360, xbox live and the game are all worth every penny i paid and then some. I'll choose not to buy the horse armor because..

you may guess it

i don't freaking HAVE to.

Thanks for blowing this way out of proportion and making yourselves look like idiots. Move along.

Response from Bethesda

[yum]

Pete Hines from Bethesda Software was kind enough to answer a few question and shed some light on the whole Horse Armor Spectacle. Click here.

Oh, the humanity!

[RexRhino]

A company charges extra money, for giving you an extra benifit!? The next thing you know, they will be charging people extra to give them bigger seats and better service on airplanes. The next thing you know, they will be charging people extra when they buy a car for luxuries like XM radio, or a more powerful engine! Where will it end? I am afraid it won't end until people who purchase a $2.50 combo meal at McDonalds do not get the same service or quality that they would spending $300 at a top resterant! WHEN WILL THE MADNESS END!!!!???????

People have a basic human right to have armor on their hourses in video games! It is time we nationalize the gaming industry, like we do health care, education, and all vital industries, so we make sure this kind of oppression is eliminated. The government certainly wouldn't exploit us like this!

Slashdotted (copy included)

[Tridus]

Took a few tries to get that link to come up, here's the text:

Pete Hines from Bethesda Software was kind enough to answer a few question and shed some light on the whole Horse Armor Spectacle.

Quote:
bapenguin: It seems there's been quite a bit of backlash from the $2.50 horse armor skins. What's your take on it?

Pete Hines: Honestly there's not a lot of info out there for us to go on. We tried to find a spot for it that fit with what other things were out there. A Theme costs 150 points. The Kameo thing was 200. We're trying to find the right spot that fits. How much is something you can use in the game worth versus a gamer picture pack, or a theme, and so on.

bapenguin: Any chance that we'll see a change in the price structure because of this? Or has it been selling well enough at the current price point that you guys are happy?

Pete Hines: Will they all be priced the same? I don't know. We're not even a day into this right now. We've got a couple more we're working on finishing and testings and will release in the next couple of weeks. We want to put some different things out there and find out what folks want and what they don't want. These are optional things, not requirements, so if you don't want to get them you don't have to.

bapenguin: What about free mods on the 360? Will we be seeing any of the popular PC mods from the user community showing up on Live?

Pete Hines: Right now we don't have plans to do any free mods. We don't ever get involved with fan-created content, on any platform, so taking some of that and releasing it on Live is not something we'd ever do.

Pete brings up a good point relating to content already out there. I completely forgot about the Kameo "winter pack" thing which was the same price. That "content" is pretty much the same as what Bethesda is offering. It's good to hear that a variety of stuff is in the works.